One question… you write:
“This combination can be replaced by any other pig-tail that directly goes from N-Female-Bulk to SMA-Male.”
I can get a bit confused between SMA and RP-SMA, and particularly male and female of the latter… vendors seem to fairly often differ in how they refer to the gender of latter.
It’s the RP-SMA female there that looks like the antenna connector on my TTN gateway.
So, I was about to order an RP-SMA Male to N Type Male cable like this:
Though this seems to be essentially the same although, perhaps incorrectly, calling one connector an RP-SMA female.
Can folks here confirm that the TTN gateway has an RP-SMA connector and either of those items at Amazon look like a correct cable to connect directly from the TTN gateway to an antenna with an N-female connector?
Radio equipment for the USA uses RP-SMA to comply with FCC regulations (source). For production it would be easier to have all gateways with 915MHz band equipped with the same connector so I expect all 915MHz gateway to use RP-SMA.
Only after ordering all the parts I realised I’ll need to run it on WiFi. Anyone know what connector would work well? Does it have a u.fl on or next to the WiFi module??
My Gateway is on the inside of a glass door. Yesterday I put it on the outside for a test and it did improve reach. This was with running WiFi and simply having the power cord wedged between the door and the door frame. I was wondering if there are very thin antenna extension cables so the gateway can stay indoor and the antenna stuck to the outside? Another option is to put the gateway outside on the part of my balcony that it somewhat protected against rain, and get power from the outdoor lamp connection, but I wonder how long it will survive like that (in the Netherlands).
You could perhaps stick it in a CG1500 box like this https://www.ebay.com/i/222431547839?chn=ps
with the antenna poking out one of the holes in the bottom (see the photos with the foam-padded holes that would be there)…
I finally found a suitable plastic enclosure and all the pigtails and connectors I needed. This is the box (plus metal backplate), and the pigtail and PoE cable come from aerial.net, that I saw recommended elsewhere on the forum.
Will be connected to a Taoglas Barracuda B05F21 antenna bought from Digikey.
I will go for adding a DHT22 inside the box and adding two pieces of 1"
x 20cm long for natural convection, will also add a piece of metallic mosquito net to prevent bugs going inside.
Aditionally I will add some silica gel to absorb humidity.
What do you think?
In the end, this solution worked very poorly, the gateway kept dropping the wifi signal and the reception was almost nonexistent. I went ahead and bought mostly new parts and put together an ic880a based gateway and put up in its place, and it is running well. Hopefully the planned firmware updates for the TTN gateway will improve things eventually, and I can put it up at some other location later.
Just a tip. You may want to consider wrapping the N-Type antenna connector under the enclosure with self vulcanising tape or silicon self-fusing tape. The same would apply to the connector at the bottom of the antenna. Otherwise the coax cable will fill with water, you’ll loose range and eventually the gateway will stop functioning. The compression gland on the other cable looks good.
Also, it looks like the bottom half of the antenna is next to the stainless steel tube supporting the handrail. If that’s the case, you will have changed the performance of the antenna and also made it directional. As a rule of thumb, if an antenna is near another metallic object, try and get at least 3 wavelengths, say > 1 metre from it. This includes steelwork and other antennas.