Clearer comments regarding enabled uplink channels for US configuration

Setup and configuration
1

After a lot of tinkering and head-scratching I was able to solve the issue I was having with specifying channel subband on my gateway and the network server. Some minor changes to the comments would help a lot in case someone deals with the same issues in the future.

Currently the comments about enabled uplink channels looks like this:

https://www.loraserver.io/loraserver/install/config/

  # Enable only a given sub-set of channels
  #
  # Use this when ony a sub-set of the by default enabled channels are being
  # used. For example when only using the first 8 channels of the US band.
  # Note: when left blank, all channels will be enabled.
  #
  # Example:
  # enabled_uplink_channels=[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
  enabled_uplink_channels=[]

in the quick-start guide we have this:

US915 configuration example

[network_server]
net_id="000000"

  [network_server.band]
  name="US_902_928"
  enabled_uplink_channels=[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

I copied the example when setting my server up but didn’t fully realize that the channels != sub-band. Though much troubleshooting I had to figure out why sensors were joining on sub-band 2 but sending data from sub-band 1. (Sub-band terminology is present in Laird Sentrius sensors as well as Multitech gateways).

Adding a comment clarifying that in the US standard channels 0-7 corresponds to sub-band 1 and, for example, channels 8-15 correspond to sub-band 2 would have helped a lot in understanding how the configuration works.

To clarify for myself as well, are the 8 upstream 500kHz bandwidth channels (64 to 71) listed in the regional parameters included in this list and what is that channel used for?

1 Like
2

500 KHz uplink channel’s can’t realistically be used for much with current SX1301 / SX1308 based gateways, because those only have a single 500 KHz demodulator (“IF8”) which can only be tuned within range of the one of the existing two front ends and can only receive at a single spreading factor.

That is in contrast to the 8 variable-SF 125 KHz demodulators typically used to implement 8 uplink channels.

With that hardware they’re really only useful for gateway-to-gateway (or otherwise heavily coordinated) links. For other usage, the IF8 doesn’t really offer much advantage over a node-class radio at about 10x the cost, so you might as well just use node class radios, and get fully independent tuning.

Note also that these overlap the usual range of uplink channels and so are basically an alternate allocation of the same spectrum. LoRa is imperfectly orthogonal between pairs of Bandwidth-Spread factor combinations that give the chirps the same “slope” so in theory there could be some degree of interference, though likely within reason.

3

If you’re using a gateway that can reliable receive 500KHz uplinks, do you need to enable that channel? If I have my channels set to 0-7, do I also need to add channel 64 as well?

4

“Need” is a subjective word - need why?

Perhaps some spec officially requires it; practically, things should work fine without it. Regulatory frameworks don’t assume such capability, though you may be better able to utilize what they permit in some situations with it.

However, out of the box LMIC may assert() if it finds no 500 KHz channels enabled. That is easily prevented by clamping the data rate setting functions (there are two, one for joins and one for everything else). Other node stacks might or might not have similar behavior.

5

you get better battery life, and you get off the air faster if you can send the same number of bits with a faster speed.

Having said that…if I want to have loraserver.io send a channel mask down to enable all of the channels in the first sub band, should I set that to 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,64?

6

I made a research about US915 channels, and I think it’s the best topic to share with the community.

The parameter “enabled_uplink_channels” depends on the channel that I want to use.
The available channel we can use in US915 we can see in this link: https://www.baranidesign.com/faq-articles/2019/4/23/lorawan-usa-frequencies-channels-and-sub-bands-for-iot-devices

For example:

  1. Loriot uses channel 0 to 7, and a extra 500kHz channel (903 MHz), so in the gateway configuration we should put these frequencys:

Screenshot%20at%202019-07-17%2014-59-37
Screenshot at 2019-07-17 14-59-37.png782Ă—256 20.2 KB

Screenshot%20at%202019-07-17%2014-59-39
Screenshot at 2019-07-17 14-59-39.png1277Ă—665 34 KB

And in the configuration of Lora Server:

enabled_uplink_channels=[ 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 64]

  1. TTN uses channel 8 to 15, and an extra 500kHz channel (904.6 MHz), so in the gateway configuration we should put these frequencys:

Screenshot%20at%202019-07-17%2015-00-10
Screenshot at 2019-07-17 15-00-10.png774Ă—246 19.9 KB

Screenshot%20at%202019-07-17%2015-00-12
Screenshot at 2019-07-17 15-00-12.png1247Ă—652 32.9 KB

And in the configuration of Lora Server:

enabled_uplink_channels=[ 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 65]

  1. Use a random set of channels, for eample, the last 16 channels, and the last 500kHz.

Screenshot%20at%202019-07-17%2014-51-41
Screenshot at 2019-07-17 14-51-41.png995Ă—258 22.4 KB

The configuration of Lora Server should be:

enabled_uplink_channels=[ 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 71]

7

Note that the channels given to LoRaServer do not determine what channels it can respond to, rather they are there only so that it can tell nodes what channels are allowed.

The mapping from uplink channel to downlink channel is determined by the band plan, even if you leave enabled uplink channels blank (some types of non-compliant nodes dislike being told by the server what channels to use)

Note that typical gateway architectures don’t permit these to be random, rather they have to be in two groups of four tightly adjacent frequencies. And the 500 KHz channel has to be at the center of one group’s range (though that can be slightly different than the median of the group). Fortunately network designers tend to have already figured this out.

8

@kuoyaoming you do fast research. This is a major mistake that most people make which I want to make a video on.

I find that most people fail to add the 500KHz channel to the uplink channels which is one of the main reasons why loraserver will send a downlink immediately following an uplink even with ADR off.(choosing the wrong lora mac version on the device profile can do this also).

Even the loraserver.toml fails to mention the 500KHz uplink channel for US 915 :yum:

9

@cstratton

I left the enabled uplink channels blank as you suggested and the server doesn’t work as expected.

10

This seems unlikely. Could your provide a specific example of uplinks and the unexpected resulting downlink so that the actual air settings, flags, options, and contents can be seen?

11

“Doesn’t work as expected” is an utterly meaningless complaint.

The actual issue is unlikely related to this, but without specifics of the failure no one can help you with it.