LoRaGateway

Project LoRaGateway
Een LoRa gateway voor the-things-network
Status	Completed
Contact	bertrik, User:Dave_o, Maxell
Last Update	2017-04-14

Introduction

This page is about a LoRa gateway at RevSpace configured for The-Things-Network (TTN), kindly provided by Dave_O.

With this piece of hardware we are able to receive LoRa packets and forward them to The Things Network.

The Things Network act as hub and collects all these packets from hundreds of receivers world-wide. Read more about their network on their wiki. Why do we "team up" with The Things Network? [1].

Hardware

It's a Kerlink, some essential properties:

• LoRaWAN EUI: 0000024B080606AC
• eth0 MAC address: 02:4B:08:06:06:AC
• Last known IPv4 in the RevSpace LAN: 10.42.45.15

The gateway itself is physically mounted in the ceiling of a disused lavatory on the second floor (with a broken light and a sign that says "Beware of the Leopard", just kidding). It's connected to our discone antenna (Icom AH-7000). The gateway is mounted inside the Lounge of Space3.

Configuration

Configuration files for TTN in general can be found in /mnt/fsuser-1/thethingsnetwork

The gateway is configured for NTP in /etc/ntp.conf to use X.nl.pool.ntp.org where X goes from 0 to 3.

The gateway has been configured for "poly"-packet forwarding. This means it's not just sending data to TTN, but also to the gatewaystats.org website which gathers statistics about gateways and nodes (number of unique nodes per gateway, log of all received packets, etc.)

Status and diagnostics

Online status:

• official TTN gateway status page and search for 0000024B080606AC
• gateway stats page (requires login). See also this thread on the TTN forum.
• TTN mapper page
• Real-time map using the 'Croft' backend

To see what the gateway is communicating with the TTN, run the following on the gateway:

tcpdump -i eth0 -n -vvvX host router.eu.thethings.network

This should show a packet once every 30 seconds with some stats.

You'll also see some JSON packets for each packet received.