I apologize if this topic has been covered. But I made a search, and no topic seemed to cover the particular case of an urban environment.
My question is. When I saw that the advertised range of 2 miles (>3km), I discounted for other obstacles, and I expected to have a range around 500m. However, I have my sensor and my gateway 330 meters away, and there is no connection.
From other questions I saw here, I saw people complaining that they can’t even get 200 meters.
So, my question is, what kind of range can I expect in an urban environment where, in most cases, I will not have line of sight? I know that I might have to interpose a few nodes so that the mesh will be fully connected. But how many? Every 50m? 200m?
This is a pretty common town, by the sea, and the terrain is pretty flat, apart a few small hills. The buildings are mostly 2-3 floor apartment buildings.
Would a higher gain antenna help?
What would be the optimal height for the antennas?
Thank you!
The manufacturer of the wireless modules rates them for 1000ft for indoor/urban applications.
There are however many factors that play into the wireless range of a device in a given environment including obstructions, type of obstructions, wireless noise in the area, and even humidity. We can provide estimates for the range of devices but it is subject to the environment and cannot be guaranteed in any way for this reason.
Higher gain antennas absolutely will improve range. Significantly in fact. For instance the antennas we include a 2.5dBm gain Omni direction antennas. In testing it has been found that ranges up to 28 miles can be achieved in ideal situations when using 13dBm gain Yagi antennas. These types of antennas are very common. Just search for 900 mhz Yagi Antenna and you will find several available from 3rd party vendors. Keep in mind the antenna connection terminal on our devices is an RP-SMA male connector so you may need to purchase adapters to connect the antenna to our device.
If you have any other questions please let us know.
Thank you,
Travis Elliott
Travis provided good information.
Also, the higher the antenna, the better. So if you can put the antennas on the roof, that is best. If not on the roof, then in the highest window facing the direction of the other antenna.
Thank you @boteman. Great idea. But it raises me one question. Can we have an arbitrary length cable connecting the box to the antenna? If, say, the roof is 10 meters away, can I insert a 10 m cable between the box and the antenna?
More cable results in more signal loss. There are different grades of cable, so better cable at 900MHz will lose less signal than worse cable. Better cable costs more and is less flexible to bend around corners. It is possible to run a long length of low loss cable and terminate each end with short jumpers that are easier to work with that can connect to the equipment.
Also, each connector represents another small loss in signal, so fewer connectors and adapters are better.
There are web sites with information about antennas and transmission lines, maybe a Duck, Duck, Go search will help you?