LoRa Distance Testing With RYLR998 in Open Field - Amazing Results!

The RYLR998 module is a LoRa Antenna Transceiver Module that operates in the 868/915 MHz Lora range. It features the Lora long range modem that provides ultra-long range spread spectrum communication and high interference immunity whilst minimizing current consumption.

The modules were provided free of charge by Reyax for this test.

They feature a UART interface and they can be easily controlled by any microcontroller by using AT commands.

An important note here is that the modules are not 5V compatible so you will need to operate them at 3.3V.

To test the distance at which the devices can operate, I will be using two modules with two NodeMCU boards to interface them.

One of the devices will be placed outside on my balcony and when this device receives a message, it will also send out a confirmation message for that.

The other device will be mobile and I'll drive around to see what sort of distances I can still receive confirmation messages at. This device will be connected to a mobile phone with an app that will monitor the serial data being transmitted and received so we can observe what happens.

My house is located on a hillside and I planned a few spots where I can test the device in the valley that is in front of it. I'll drive to those locations and I'll test the reception using the mobile unit to confirm that I get the response message back.

The NodeMCUs are programmed using Arduino and the code used on them can be found on the repo below.

https://github.com/bkolicoski/rylr998-lora-distanc...

In a nutshell, device 1 is the mobile device and it sends a message to device 2.

When device 2 receives a message, it replies back with a message showing what it received.

The communication between the RYLR998 module and the NodeMCU board is implemented using the Software Serial library.

You can best see the results by watching the video below.

I made tests on several checkpoints with distances of 650meters, 1.3km, 2.33km, 5.2km, 5.7km (behind buildings), 6.6km, and finally 8.25km.

To my great surprise, I was able to receive messages at ALL locations. Most of the locations did not have any issues in receiving the messages except for the one at 5.7km that had some buildings in front of the device.

On this location, I had to go out of the car in order to receive the communication, while on all of the other locations, the module could still communicate while being inside the car.

At the final location, when the module was placed on the passenger seat, the messages were not received but as soon as I lift it to the dashboard, it was able to receive messages.

With these results, I'm confident that the module will be able to communicate even further, but I ran out of time for more tests and the weather was not really allowing playing with electronics outside. However, I will not stop here!

I have a project in mind that will make use of the modules so make sure to follow me here on Instructables or subscribe to my YouTube channel so you can see that as well.

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