yes Charles… break it open and take some pictures 
(btw compliments for your LAB story about connecting this product )
Hummm, I’ll keep my temptation out of this idea 
Anyway something strange I’ve got in my office another GW custom made, this one and a Lorawan sensor and when I send packet it’s received by both GW but custom GW receive it with -75dBi and Lorix one with -86 dBi (my sensor is RN2483 with no Antenna)
{
"time": "2017-06-07T20:38:39.512524805Z",
"frequency": 868.3,
"modulation": "LORA",
"data_rate": "SF10BW125",
"coding_rate": "4/5",
"gateways": [
{
"gtw_id": "eui-0005fcc23d0de8bd",
"timestamp": 1082187772,
"time": "2017-06-07T19:24:55.633052Z",
"channel": 1,
"rssi": -86,
"snr": 9,
"rf_chain": 1,
"latitude": 46.657597,
"longitude": 0.3650385
},
{
"gtw_id": "eui-0004b827eb9c6093",
"timestamp": 2089753636,
"time": "2017-06-07T20:38:39.064941Z",
"channel": 1,
"rssi": -75,
"snr": 8.8,
"rf_chain": 1,
"latitude": 46.657692,
"longitude": 0.36482224
}
]
}
is the antenna could be “not plugged” ?
Also new LoraWan devices (sodaq, lorix) notice says to put antenna before powering them to avoid damaging the device ? Is it new that devices with no antenna can damage electronic ?
See text in first picture of this post, on starting guide in RED
normally that’s an advice for all devices with an RF transmitter inside.
If you don’t have an antenna connected and the unit is powered up (and starts transmitting) all the power will be reflected back and can indeed damage the unit.
the fact that you see different values on more or less the same distance can be explained by the different antenna gaines, switch antennas and try again ?
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This seems a very nice gateway.
Especially the fact that the gateway is directly attached to the antenna and the ability to easily mount it on a (steel) pipe is nice. I have a flat roof so all I need is one of those cheap satellite dish mounts and a hole to feed the network cable inside.
The difference in RSSI level could be correct.
I see that you have the gateway placed inside a pot of plants. These plants will affect the antenna tuning.
With my home built co-linear coax antenna I noticed that the antenna tuning changes a lot when it is placed near organic materials or when mounted inside a plastic tube.
Different antenna designs behave differently when mounted near to other things. It is always best to have nothing near the antenna. Mount the antenna at least around 50cm away from other constructions to minimize any influence on antenna behaviour.
I already have 3 gateways active but seeing this, I am almost tempted to add another one to my collection 
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@Rob65
As @BoRRoZ mentionned, I put the LORIX one Antenna on my other Gateway with an SMA to N-Male Adapter (1 meter long). I got the same results than with LORIX hardware, so it’s definitively coming from the Antenna.
With this one gateway
with the picture antenna (+3dBi) from Farnell I’ve got -75dBi
If I put on this GW the LORIX Antenna, I’ve got -84dBi, but, My test device is an RN2483 without antenna.
So get out a Rocket Scream board (RFM95) with antenna and LMIC stack, keep original antenna on each gateway and results are much better
{ "gtw_id": "RPI IC880a",
"rssi": -35,
"snr": 9.5,
}, {
"gtw_id": "LORIX One",
"rssi": -33,
"snr": 9.8, }
Makes sense, but results are not always consistent (look below), same place, same device, same sofware
{ "gtw_id": "RPI IC880a",
"rssi": -41,
"snr": 7,
}, {
"gtw_id": "LORIX One",
"rssi": -24,
"snr": 7.8 }
{ "gtw_id": "RPI IC880a",
"rssi": -39,
"snr": 9.5,
}, {
"gtw_id": "LORIX One",
"rssi": -25,
"snr": 10 }
{ "gtw_id": "RPI IC880a",
"rssi": -43,
"snr": 10,
}, {
"gtw_id": "LORIX One",
"rssi": -29,
"snr": 11 }
@Rob65 The plant is a fake one, thanks to IKEA
@BoRRoZ, got an email from Wifx (LORIX One) about LoRaWAN certification, here is the transcript
For clarification, we have indeed passed the LoRa certification at Semtech in Grenoble with "very good"
Our data are identical to the design reference of Semtech whereas the PCB is much smaller.
which is perfect for me
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But: so could very well have some metal inside?
Correct, for sure they have metal, may be I could take one branch as new funky antenna
Hello Charles, thanks for your work. I will buy one for the new community in LEVES (28300).
@ plus
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Any idea if this can be used at 915MHz instead of 868?
@timmyhadwen
I don’t see a 915MHz version, I think best is to ask them using contact for, they are very responsive.
https://wifx.net/shop/
Hi Charles,
Thanks so much for the guide. Being a total beginner with all this I got my Lorix up and running in (almost) no time. 
I do have one question: I’ve previously worked a bit with a iC880A+Raspi gateway. Here I could monitor what was coming in and going out of the gateway with a tcpdump on port 1700… Can I do something similar with the Lorix, so I can troubleshoot why my LoPy won’t do an OTAA? (As I said, I’m new to this, so I do not have much experience with Linux etc).
Thanks!
@mahe
Thank for the head up.
I asked Lorix the first time to have a logfile available for packet forwarder, and they done it one day later, thanks to Yannick, very responsive
here is the procedure
Update GTW is not already done (save your local json config files before)
sudo opkg update
sudo opkg upgrade
Enable packet forwarder logs uncommenting line #OPTIONS in /etc/init.d/ttn-gw file, this becomes
OPTIONS="-l $LOGFILE"
Restart forwarder app (of course with TTN packet-forwarder configured with cloud-manager)
sudo /etc/init.d/clouds-manager.sh stop
sudo /etc/init.d/clouds-manager.sh start
log file in in /var/log/ttn-gw.log and works with logrotate. Logrotate is configurable in /etc/logrotate.d/ttw-gw
So looking logs is now simple as
sudo tail -f /var/log/ttn-gw.log
Have fun with this awesome GW
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Hi Charles,
That sounds great, thanks!
So, as I mentioned, I’m quite new to this. When you say ‘save your local json config files’ I’m guessing you’re referring to this step in your excellent guide:
Oh, save back your config file, because any command opkg upgrade will reset to default (trust me I’ve done the error) by downloading new config file.
admin@ttn-gw05:~ $ cp local_conf.json local_conf.json.ch2i
However I’m not sure I quite understand. Does that mean to download the file to my computer or just to store is somewhere on the Lorix? Either way I have no idea how to do any of them nor how to restore the json file afterwards 
Can you explain this briefly? Sorry for my ignorance.
@mahe
that’s correct, this is exactly this step.
If you modified the file local_conf.json (such as setting email contact, gateway info) the opkg upgrade will replace it so you have 2 options:
- modify the new file again to put your changes again
- copy back the file you saved (on the lorix only) before by reverting the cp command to
cp local_conf.json.ch2i local_conf.json
PS : If you didn’t touch the original file, don’t worry nothing to do
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It’s working!
Thanks for the quick help! Apart from my OTAA problems with the LoPy (which I do not think is the gateways fault) this is really a neat little gateway!
99% of OTAA issues are wrong appeui, deveui or appkey, check is all
I just received the new US915 version which is currently unlisted and waiting for FCC certs. I couldn’t be happier with the gw, so far it has been solid. The support from Wifx has been great and it really helps that the source code is open source and on github.
The installation was a breeze thanks to the tutorial from @Charles
1 Like
That’s fine you got US version from Sebastien 