Poor Lora range with sidewalk on rak4630

Amazon Sidewalk
21

Hello @lukevawkes @jose_ota
We found a config is wrong on RAK4631 pin setting,
The antenna_enable pin setting is wrong and should be changed by following code.
The code is in app/rak4631_rak1901_demo/boards/rak4631_nrf52840.overlay

/{
    semtech_sx1262_gpios{
        compatible = "gpio-keys";
        semtech_sx1262_cs: cs {
            gpios = <&gpio1 10 GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW>;
            label = "semtech_sx1262 CS";
        };
        semtech_sx1262_reset_gpios: reset {
            gpios = <&gpio1 6 GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW>;
            label = "semtech_sx1262 Reset";
        };
        semtech_sx1262_busy_gpios: busy {
            gpios = <&gpio1 14 GPIO_ACTIVE_HIGH>;
            label = "semtech_sx1262 Busy";
        };
        semtech_sx1262_antenna_enable_gpios: antena_enable {
            gpios = <&gpio1 5 GPIO_ACTIVE_HIGH>;
            label = "semtech_sx1262 Antena Enable";
        };
        semtech_sx1262_dio1_gpios: dio1 {
            gpios = <&gpio1 15 GPIO_ACTIVE_HIGH>;
            label = "semtech_sx1262 DIO1";
        };
    };
};

But We have measured the transmission power with modified and without modified, the power is still the same. I wonder it might help for field test.

1 Like
22

@Evan once again YOU ARE THE MAN!!!

I incorporated this change with my test setup here at home and immediately the RSSI/SNR went from -122/-18 to -99/-8!!!

This absolutely feels like it was the root cause of the issue. I’ll do more field testing tomorrow to confirm!

Thank you again,

Jose

1 Like
23

@Evan I did some additional field testing this morning and the RAK is now performing better than the Nordic Dev Kit! This was absolutely the solution!

Thank you again,

Jose

1 Like
24

:clap: Congratulations! The network is everything :slight_smile: