SparkFun LoRa Thing Plus expLoRaBLE not working

My test of the expLoRaBLE fails with an assertion failed message for hal.cpp

OUTPUT from sketch execution:


Starting

00:00:00.001: c:\Users\cdeat\OneDrive\Craig Documents\Arduino\libraries\Basicmac_LoRaWAN_stack\src\hal\hal.cpp:73: assertion failed


I am using the basicmac_otaa sketch that is references in the Sparkfun documentation for the SparkFun LoRa Thing Plus board (#WRL-17506). The only mods I made to the sketch were to provide my TTN DEVEUI and APPKEY and to comment out line 68 // #define USE_STANDARD_PINMAP as suggested in an earlier reply in this thread.

Sketch compiled properly, and began execution and immediately raised the assertion failure.

I have other LoRaWAN devices working properly with my TTN account (e.g. SAMD-21 Pro RF board), and I am using my own private gateway which is properly working.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.