Hello,
We are using a LoRa base/rover setup for multiple mobile vehicles. All units are RS2+. Lately, we have seen losses of RTK FIX that I would like to diagnose. Baselines in our application do not exceed ~300meters and I’m using 928mhz; spectrum analyzer in the area does not suggest a lot of noise in this band, and we’re on a pretty remote farm.
During the outage, RTKPOST shows that the Age of Differential and numSats are looking pretty good, except during the outage where before/after they are hanging out up closer to 10seconds.
However, during the outage itself, numSats freezes in place and AOD drops to 0. Is this expected behavior for loss of basestation connection, or is something else going on? Attached also is a sample of the ground tracking, showing the issue seems somewhat localized. Thanks!
We have had a look at the hardware and discovered that the LoRa antenna on this rover had bad threads and seems to have not been doing much for us. So maybe we were getting up to ~200meters with no antenna but hit a critical point after that.
We will continue to monitor after replacing the antenna. Does anyone know if it is ok to use, eg, an SMA extender cable to place the LoRa antenna higher up without moving the receiver?
Hi! do you mean in our specific units, or RS2+'s in general? These particular units are hardly 6 months old, though we have been using other RS2’s for a few years at other sites with few issues (except for one unit that periodically bricks itself, requiring a firmware reflash but that is a different topic!)
Thank you, we will keep an eye on threads in the future!
I think we’ll still try to lift up the antennas to improve Line of Sight, but probably don’t need an amplifier due to short baselines-- just need to be higher than the farm equipment.
Any thought on if I can just get an SMA extender and place the antenna elsewhere on the machine? (and at the basestation) Will this maintain IP65 protection?
Hi @jadamson Mangoesmapping has a high fain antenna and special 50cm and 5m cables developed for easy threading into the recessed LoRa antenna port for RS2/3 receivers. We developed this for our iwn workflows and it is popular across Australia. As it is not an amplifier, it is compliant with our fairly rigorous radio frequency spectrum management laws (broadly analogous to US or Europe).
We do have farmers using this including Andre Sharpe from Sharpe Almonds, who is using this to improve lora propagation from local base to rover (tractor) operating in an Almond Orchard.
We love our extended range antennas and now when doing iur mine survey work, pretty much pop one on the base every time.
NB. The Reach receivers maintain their IP67 rating even when the rubber port protectors are open, so you can just try using a long SMA cable to relocate the factory antenna. If that strategy doesnt work for you and you dont want to or can’t use the Emlid LoRa amplifier, email sales@mangoesmapping.com.au and we can explore getting you one or two of our high-gain antennas and matching cables.
Ive attached a photo so you can see how we use it. Having a high gain antenna, elevated nearby your base dramatically improves the range. Like any antenna though, actual range achieved really depends on local conditions.
PPS. In this you you can also see a LoRa amplifier between base and antenna. We were testing if combining the two worked well. Results were too subjective and inconclusive - further testing required!
Thank you alistair, this is very helpful!! I don’t think we need an amplifier just yet but it’s quite useful to know both that applications out there successfully use antenna extensions and that we can maintain weatherproofing by doing so. We’ll rework our mounting scheme and continue to monitor
