Hi everyone , good morning,
Has anyone in this forum tested the new Lora Kit (1 Watt) with The RTK units? is there a significant increase of range vs the Holybro 100mW Radios? I currently own the Holybros, but I’m tempted to buy this new kit… i mostly use the units Via NTRIP, but is this new kit offers better range is good to have it just in case there’s no cellphone reception where i’am.
Good chance I’m wrong about this but those are limited to 4800 baud or less. You may not have enough bandwidth to pass the needed amount of data for RTK to work?
Sparky would know.
The LoRaSerial kit was designed for RTK. It’s quite capable at airspeed 9600, and with a reduction of RTCM, airspeed 4800.
WRT distance, 1W should have a much longer distance but if there’s a hill or dense structure in the way, almost no radio will get through.
Thanks for the info @sparky. I’ve been wondering about these radios for a while now. For some reason it wasn’t clear to me that SparkFun is positioning them for RTK work. After reading your comment, I watched the video and read some of the docs. The video, photos, and docs provide excellent information. I was convinced to buy them because of the LED status information. More info is better! Order placed!
I currently use a pair of 1W RFD-900x radios for RTCM between my two Facets in a base-rover pair (no cell/internet available). Good range improvement over the 100mW Holybros. Unfortunately the RFD-900x has a minimal and difficult to see LED, and I was always guessing about the status of the radio link. I look forward to trying out the SparkFun LoRaSerial radios.
It looks like running these on full power might just barely squeak by the power supply capability of the Facet’s radio port. Perhaps the Base Facet will be powered by the Facet USB port, thus providing 5V to the radio and not 4.something Volts. Perhaps I’ll let the Rover Facet power itself, and power the rover radio with a little USB battery pack. I presume the LoRaSerial radio needs a full 5V to transmit at full power, is this correct?
Now I just need a repeater I can put on that hilltop which always seems to be between my base and rover.
Question 1: If I had two pair of the LoRaSerial radios, with one pair (Pair A) trained/paired to each other only (with their unique hop table) and a second pair (Pair B) similarly uniquely paired only to each other (with a different hop table), could I setup a repeater on top of a hill?
FACET BASE (Radio A1) -------> REPEATER ON HILLTOP (Radio A2 and B1) ---------> FACET ROVER (Radio B2)
This would open up a whole new world of applications for my Facets. I frequently work in an area with no cell or internet service…and with lots of hills.
Thanks!
I am very interested in Toeknee’s questions and plans. Any word out of Sparkfun on this topic?
Also interested !
I see this kit is sold out now. Any idea when it’ll be available again ?
I created a new feature request for the LoRaSerial repeater capability