# Best position for a gateway

**URL:** <https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/forum/t/best-position-for-a-gateway/251>\
**Category:** Gateways\
**Created:** [October 10, 2015, 9:13am UTC](https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/forum/t/best-position-for-a-gateway/251 "2015-10-10T09:13:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 6

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**Author:** ![arjanvanb](https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/forum/user_avatar/www.thethingsnetwork.org/arjanvanb/32/46626_2.png) [@arjanvanb](https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/forum/u/arjanvanb)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 2:03pm UTC](https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/forum/t/best-position-for-a-gateway/251/6 "2016-05-16T14:03:03Z")

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In a little experiment with a 95 meters high node last week, [SF7 packets were received almost 50 km away](https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/forum/t/haarlem-the-netherlands/785/11) in line-of-sight.

I was expecting that to happen for SF12 packets (which were even received 73 km away). No problem for SF12: if capacity needs to be increased, more near-by gateways can be deployed and the network servers can use adaptive data rate to tell the nodes to use more efficient spreading factors, and hence limit their reach. Or, so I thought.

But now, seeing long distances happen for SF7 as well, I wonder if a 100 meters high gateway might receive too many packets from (far-away) nodes that happen to have (near) line-of-sight, eating its capacity and [causing collisions](https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/forum/t/do-lora-wan-nodes-perform-any-activity-detection-and-or-collision-detection/1353) for nodes that rely on that gateway? Even when using directional antennas, a 50+ km long area would still be huge.

So: could 100 meters be too high if the number of nodes increases…?

(Note that I am not an expert at all!)

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