Hello Youtubers, here is the guy with the Swiss accent. Tomorrow I want to test the range of our fabulous LoRa system and I want to compare it with the ordinary and cheap RFM69HW module on the whisper node both work on the same frequency range and both use about the same output power. I am interested if LoRa has a bigger range and if the two will disturb each other if they work on the same frequency. So let's get started. The weather here in Switzerland currently is quite wet and therefore I first have to finish my gateway. As my colleague Urs I use waste water piping for that purpose because it first is waterproof for the obvious reasons and second quite cheap. And I use some 3d printed parts to fix the Gateway and the power supply inside the pipe. Because i have a 240 volt outlet close to the area i want to place the gateway i decided to use one of my small 5 volt 5 ampere power supplies. The connection to the internet is done via Wi-Fi using a small dongle in the Raspberry Pi. So I only have one opening for the SMA connector at the top and one for the 240 volt line at the bottom. Later on I plan to measure the humidity and temperature inside the case and as a fan which is started if one of these values shows a need. You will see that the protection of the whisper nodes will be simpler but still functional. So today is definitely not the best day for LoRa wardriving because it's really bad weather here in Switzerland but you see something here: I mounted my gateway in the tube here on this fence and it is only connected by 220 volt in the outlet here. And now let's check three stories down in the basement whether I get a connection to this gateway. This would be already quite a success because with Wi-Fi ESPs it was absolutely no go to get a connection from three stories below. You see the mounting for the moment is not yet really professional but it will survive my tests. So this is my LoRa node with a power bank. Fortunately or unfortunately this LoRa device does not need enough power, so the power bank always switch is off and i have to switch it on again and now let's check: I switch it on the LoRa node is running and it should have sent a message. Now it's 9:21 and we check and we see here 9:20:44 I got a message from the roof or to the roof to the roof of our house here so it works at least in real conditions where the Wi-Fi ESPs and the NRF24 stuff did not work at all. So this is already success. So let's check this is with SF12. Now I change the SF the spreading factor to 7 and look if it still works. Now let's check weather a message arrived with spreading factor seven which is the fastest. And really, it also arrived. So this is really great stuff it is really a completely different thing than the 2.4 gigahertz links. Much much more capable from a reach point of view of course not from a data throughput point of view but from a reach point of view it's completely different. Now I will start the LoRa wardrive. But before that of course i want also to check out the competitor of Laura this is the RFM69 device on the whisper nodes. Here i mounted a small display and now if i connect it to the power bank here we see the transmission from here to here. Now this is not very complicated but now i have to mount this one also on the roof. Unfortunately, I do not have such a nice tube as I had with my LoRa gateway but we will find the solution. So this is the not so professional mounting of the whisper node. It's actually in here. The antenna is comparable with the one on the gateway and they send actually in the same band and we will have to check now whether they disturb each other. So again the test here. The connection is also working but the RSSI is lower of course and i'm not sure if every message comes through without any problems. So we already see here i think a small difference between LoRa and the RFM69 on the whisper node we have to check outside. So the whisper node is on 868.080 which is basically 868.1 which is one channel of the LoRa network. Now let's check if LoRa is still capable to transmit because this Whisper node transmits quite often. It has now already 280 messages transferred in just a few minutes. So it's sending quite a lot of time and it might disturb the LoRa communication. Now let's check. And we see here we got a message on 8:48 which is here. And let's check on which channel: It's on 868.3 and the one before was even on 868.1. So they do not disturb their each each other even if they are on the same channel. And the one before was on 868.5. So the node really changes the frequency regularly message after message. So we get more or less every minute we get the message now from the LoRa node which is perfect I think. So now we are ready to start the wardrive. So just the first functional test before i drive away. Here you see the Gateway and the whisper node and just a few meters away. And here we see the whisper node works without any problems. And the LoraWAN also works. Now I am in the middle of the village and it works. But it does not work if I just leave it on the seat. I have to bring it up. Now let's check LoRa. Just press the button to send one message and now we check with the mobile phone. And also here we did not get a message.So I also will change the position of the antenna a little bit. And now we got also a message from LoRa. So here both devices to not work anymore. I will show you all the locations on the map when i'm back home. Also here it does not work both devices do not work. I now a little bit higher up but there is no line of sight because there is a small hill in this direction between my house and where I am. So I have to go higher up. Also here no luck. Both devices do not work even if I'm now quite high up but my house is in this direction and there is still no line of sight here. And now suddenly it starts to work. I don't have enough hands today for all my equipments. I still do not have a line of sight but it's now very close to line of sight, the house is in this direction. And now you know why I'm here: Because here is a big Tower and if it's open I plan to get up there. And here, the whisper node definitely works, but not completely reliable. Quite slow. So, I assume it will have some retransmissions and also the signal is not very strong. And now we check if the LoRa connection works. And it worked. Now let's check the messages. And the message was also transferred on 868.1, so on the same channel as the Whisper node is. Now the suffering starts Third floor. So the view is already quite nice and in this direction is Basel and there are some LoRa gateways down there. Maybe we will see one. So you see I'm not alone here with all my antennas. Also here, some antennas, I think it's the police and other institutions. So now, we are on the top. And now I show you the house and the line of sight. So first let's check the RFM69 on the Whisper node. No problem at all. And if I move the antenna little bit it is quite a strong signal here. Even on the floor it has a signal. And now the LoRa node. Also here and i'll check on the mobile. So, you see, LoRa works also. But unfortunately only one gateway. So I don't see more than one gateway. Maybe I have to come up again and use a different modulation a slower one. Maybe i will get then a different gateway. So now I am at a floor of the tower and this is somehow Swiss. Everything is very well protected like our banks. So i have to press the button that I can go out and I really hope that I can I do not need to sleep here. So luckily it let me out. Now back to the lab. And now it starts again but now I'm four or five hundred meters away from my home with a clear line of sight here is the antenna. Now it's a new day same place to check if everything works. Today I have only my LoRa device with me and no whisper node on the roof. Now I really want to test the maximum capabilities of LoRa. I also have selected SF11 which is the second best spreading factor, or the second best for transmission reach. It's very a slow one but the rich should be better. Now I go to the same places I went yesterday and check if there is anything different. The whisper node yesterday was already on a very good or very slow rate so it's not necessary that I have this with me and I do not want also that the Gateway is disturbed in any way from another very close source like the Whisper node of yesterday. And it works. I got the message a few seconds ago. Same place as yesterday, just no kids. And it worked. I got the message few seconds ago. And by the way: Today I have a better system that I can keep my hands a little bit different. I have a rubber band around the LoRa node. So I only need one hand to hold both. So let's continue the drive. Now this is the third place and here is the node. The second place was crowded by traffic jams so I did not try it but here I'm a little bit higher than usually but still the hill is in between. I check now if i got a message. And today I got a message here. So yesterday, I had no success, today I had a successful connection back home. So it seems to make a difference either because the connection was not disturbed by the whisper node or because I had a different spreading factor. So this is good. Now the next place is even higher up and I check it here. But here it does not work still does not work here. Now I do not need to go to the tower because there we know it worked also with a faster spreading factor. Now I go to a completely different place. I will show you where. So here in the middle of a residential area I go to signal. But in this direction it's more or less its line of sight. Now I'm on another hill. The weather is still very bad you cannot see a lot it's very it's very foggy here, but you see another tower here and something very interesting happened: I got now the answer of two different LoRa gateways. We will check at home which one answered here. And now I will go to the tower and maybe we get even three gateways 1 gateway, 2 gateways. So now I'm on the top. It snows a little bit and now I assume that i will also see a gateway from Basel area. So, a messate arrived arrived. I see one gateway, two gateways three gateways. Three different gateways, also with different signal to noise ratio 5.5 minus 6.8 and minus 11.2. Now let's check the frequency: The frequency is always the same so the LoRa node sends only on one frequency and then each gateway which gets the signal messages back to the TTN network and I get the information here. So now it gets cold and I go home and check what happened. And now I have to go back down the whole tower and it is quite slippery today. At home I even discovered that some of the messages were transported by four different gateways number one number two number three and number four. Now let's check where these gateways are. The first gateway is 12.7 kilometers away and if we look close here it's even not in Switzerland it is in Germany. The next one is only 9.7 kilometers away and this is directly in Basel in the city of Basel. The third one is quite far away it's 27 kilometers away and it is on a hill. It is on roughly 1,300 meters hight. So I'm here on about 700 meters and this is even 1300 meters. In between it's line of sight. So 27 kilometers. And this is by the way this is a very very good place for a LoRa gateway. I might do a wardriving once in a different part of Switzerland because this LoRa gateway should be visible in a big part of Switzerland. This is an extremely good position for a LoRa gateway. And the fourth one is only 3.2 kilometers and it is just in the city closed by. Now disappointing: My own gateway didn't react. So either I did not have a line of sight or what I heard is that if the turnaround time is too slow then TTN discards it. So it does not show gateways which answers slow so it might be also this reason. But anyway, I have now four different gateway so this is a real good position. So let's come to the summary: In my tests the reach of the LoRa protocol was slightly better than the one of the RFM69, but mainly with higher spreading factors and lower speeds. This is only important for critical situations. In all other places the RFM69 module is a good choice especially if you want to build your own network. It is also quite cheap. If a connection is possible depends very much on line of sight. So the position of the gateway is absolutely critical. If TTN only depends on private people like me they will need many many gateways to cover only one country. This is the big advantage of TELCO companies. They own many excellent locations which they can use for LoRa and are able to cover big part of a country with just one gateway. In this light the fair use policy of TTN is exaggerated. I cannot imagine a lot of gateways will see more than 1,000 nodes. Most gateways will see maybe 10 to 100 nodes at max for the next few years. So the fair use policy could easily be changed in favor of us users and reduced if it will be necessary in the future. Should I start with LoRa? No, if you have enough power and Wi-Fi where you want to deploy your sensors. Then, the ESP8266 is the better solution. No, if you just want a connection between two or more devices like a remote control or similar without internet connection. No, if you are able to create your own gateway to the internet without using LoRaWAN. Clearly yes, if your sensors need to be connected to the internet and your area is already covered with the TTN gateway. Yes but, if your sensors need an internet connection and no gateway is around. Then, you have to build your own gateway. In one of the next videos I will cover simple and cheap gateways for the TTN network. I hope this video was useful or at least interesting for you. If true, then like. Bye you you
