[LORIX One] Poor range / wildly varying signal strength!

Hi, I have been testing Lora Server with a Lorix One as my gateway running the gateway-os build, gateway bridge component only.

Lora Server & App server are installed on servers as is my MQTT broker.

We have been range testing using some Elsys ERS and NetOP sensors however have been getting poor results. We are finding that the reported SNR & RSSI of the uplinks from these sensors fades off very quickly and we are only able to achieve ~500m range. We don’t have direct line of sight, but its only trees in the way.

On top of this, I have an Elsys ERS sitting 3m away from the Lorix One (mounted outside, 4m high) and here are the readings for the past few minutes.

“rssi” : -51,
“loRaSNR” : 10.2,

“rssi” : -48,
“loRaSNR” : 10.5,

“rssi” : -46,
“loRaSNR” : 9.2,

“rssi” : -47,
“loRaSNR” : 8.5,

“rssi” : -48,
“loRaSNR” : 10.2,

Why is my RSSI so low considering the sensor and gateway are only 3m away from each other, seperated only by an open window? And why is my range so poor?

I have the Lorix One IP65 outdoor 4dbi antenna connected and the channel plan configured for that.

I did notice the 'antenna gain setting in the packet forwarder config is set to 0, should this be 4?

Regards
Tom

Your numbers in the -40 to -50 dB range aren’t really atypical for something at that distance.

As for what is happening at longer range, are both your gateway hardware and your nodes actually meant for the frequencies you are using? 868 vs 915 MHz gear operated on the wrong band will “sort of” work but likely have very poor range.