Long Distance Node Communication

[gc50]

Hi Papa
Where is the gateway that works and what hardware is it implemented with ,really green on Arduino stuff and coding especially ,I have purchased 2 anarduinos with RFM69 radios on ,but have not been able toget code or hardware as it is obsolete I need a binary node and gateway to Home assistant as I would like to implement a rural mail checker 700M away with a lot of trees in between ,was about to give up ,I like Joshua's ESP32/RFM69 option as it uses current hardware that is easier to handle
Cheers

[papa]

Welcome, gc50, to the adventure (& challenges) of DIY Home Automation.

Using your two Anarduinos & instructions on this forum, you can build a working gateway & node to get mail notification.

However, with RFM69 radios on our existing successes & on Joshua's project, you are probably not going to communicate over 700 meters.

At Adafruit, see this: RFM69 radios have a range of approx. 500 meters line of sight with tuned uni-directional antennas. Depending on obstructions, frequency, antenna and power output, you will get lower ranges - especially if you are not line of sight.

At Adafruit, also see this: The RFM9x radios have a range of up to 2 km line of sight with tuned uni-directional antennas. Depending on obstructions, frequency, antenna and power output, you will get lower ranges - especially if you are not line of sight.

So you might look at using something like an RFM95 radio (not covered so far on this forum). For example, search for "MySensors RFM95" & "Andreas Spiess mailbox node"

I wish you well in your project.

If you get something working, I'd welcome your documenting it here.

[gc50]

Many Thanks for replying ,I have looked at getting the Anarduino's going with the Node and Gateway examples ,but was unable to upload sketch to Anarduino's after a lot of fiddling with old revisions of IDE guess I'm spoiled with the easiness to flash a Wemos D1 and ESP32 Dev kits which I use a lot with Espeasy and Tasmota and lately ESPHome .Yeah was thinking that I was ambitious with an RFM69 Radio at 868Mhz and was more thinking of giving it all up and work on a Lora solution Reason for using RFM69 is that I have about 6 HW modules and 2 anarduino's with standard RFM69 modules but unable to flash them ,will have to purchase an RFM95 module to test though
Cheers

[papa]

gc50 & all, for this forum, I would welcome posts on creating gateways & nodes using the RFM95 or RFM96 radios.

gc50's "rural mail checker 700M away with a lot of trees in between" sounds like a great application for this.

I have purchased some RFM95 units, but my working on this will be delayed by existing forum & other projects.

[papa]

Earlier this month, I received my RFM95 radios.

I've been adapting this forum's schematics & code to an ESP32_RFM95 radio Gateway that communicates with Arduino Compatible_RFM95 radio nodes.

The Gateway can bridge communication between the nodes & openHAB via MQTT messaging

I now have working examples & will start documenting the new network at this new board OpenHAB & RFM95-based ESP32 & Arduino