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10th September: First radio tests

A project log for WildDrone Locator

"Safety First!", we often hear. Mounted on a drone, this beacon says "I'm here!" in LoRa language.

mihaivdrMihaiVDR 09/30/2018 at 21:570 Comments

We programmed one board to transmit it's position using LoRa on 434MHz and SF12 and the other as receiver. The coordinates at the receiver are hard-coded for now at our workplace. The receiver is plugged in a usb port and it acts a s a virtual com port.

And here are first results.

Fig. 1: Teminal output from the receiver.
Fig. 1: Teminal output from the receiver.

The receiver is mounted on a stick a the top of the hangar and I went for a ride with the bicycle. As you can see, I had my 6km exercise for today. Data rate is low: one message every minute.

That RSSI is a bit low for this small distance ...

I put the transmitter in an electrical junction box with 2 18650 LiIon cells in parallel. It must hold together for the rough testing coming it's way. The 3d printed enclosure is not as solid as it looks.

Fig. 2: Junction box "bulletproof" transmitter.
Fig. 2: Junction box "bulletproof" transmitter.
Fig. 3: Junction box close-up.
Fig. 3: Junction box close-up.

I specifically not posted a picture of the receiver. Every viewer would laugh its ass off. Just imagine this PCB, with a 10m USB cable, a bare wire antenna sticking at the top, with a black garbage bag to keep rain away, everything held together to a wooden stick, with orange insulator tape. On top of a hangar. Quite an image, right ?

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