Buying a LoRa Gateway

Electronics and hardware
1

Hi,

I have the AGORA board that has as a LoRa transceiver the SX1276.

I want to buy a LoRa Gateway but they seem to be quite expensive. The 3 solutions I have found are:

  1. MKGW2-LW
  2. A full solution through raspberry (link)
  3. Because I already have a raspberry, buy the equipment such as antenna, Lora Concentrator etc as suggested in mbed Os Lora

I think to get used to the LoRa configuration I think 2,3 are the best. However, I’m trying to understand what kind of configuration to have.

For instance I have seen that each country permits different rates and frequency plans (plans) and that LoRa Gateways like the one I mention have different supports.

I’m trying to understand what things to notice before I buy it such as frequency of tranceiver to fit to the gateway, what to have for EU countries.

Finnaly any experience on the above equipment would be useful such as the MKGW2-LW. For the raspberry I suppose since it is recommended by mbed-os LoRa tutorial it will be ok.

Thanks in advance

2

I want to buy a LoRa Gateway but they seem to be quite expensive.

You haven’t said whether it’s for indoors or outdoors.

For example, here’s an indoor option which is the lowest cost option (€69), as far as I can tell: The Things Indoor Gateway | The Things Network

TTN website have a guide for DIY (uses iC880A-SPI LoRa® Concentrator): Build your own gateway | The Things Network

Suggest searching https://lora-alliance.org/ for all regulation stuff.

3

Hi,

I dont have specific specs.

Currently I am trying to setup a proof of concept and educate myself. For that whether it is indoor or outdoor I dont mind but I dont know the differences as well…I suppose it has to do with range and power of the antena?

Any information I get is useful

For sure all the proof of concept is going to be indoor, i.e. getting from the agora board the values from the sensor send them trhough LoRa, or BTE or 3G to a central server and do different calculations. I dont have any independent sensors to different ranges, fields etc in order to be more specific. And for that the range is going to be not more than 5 meters.