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matthias-bs / Bresser_Weather_Sensor_CC1101_MQTT

Bresser 5-in-1/6-in-1 868 MHz Weather Sensor Radio Receiver based on CC1101 and ESP32/ESP8266 - provides data via secure MQTT [deprecated]
MIT License
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Bad receiver range on CC1101 #3

Closed peranil closed 1 year ago

peranil commented 1 year ago

Hi,

Thanks for some great coding! I have been using it for a week now and it has been running very stable! What is your experience with the range of the CC1101 transceiver module? For me it needs to be placed in a window with direct sight to the outdoor weather sensor in order to have a decent quality of the received data. Any ways to improve that or perhaps its better to use another transceiver?

Br. Per

matthias-bs commented 1 year ago

Hi,

Thanks for the nice feedback. I have good reception at a distance of ~25 m to the weather station, but I had similar issues during development.

Sometimes it helps to move the receiver a few centimeters to a different position or to change the antenna's orientation. You can also try a different type of antenna - wire antenna vs. helical coil antenna. Unfortunately there does not seem to be a CC1101 board with a proper antenna connector.

The YouTube video #182 ESP32 Lora Boards: What you need to know before you buy (incl. Antenna knowledge) by Andreas Spiess also suggests that some antennas out there are not as good as you could hope for...

I additionally noticed that radiated emissions from other electronic devices (PC, other microcontroller boards, ...) near the receiver had significant influence on signal quality. I even noticed that the power supply had some influence (USB power from my notebook was bad, USB power from my desktop PC or wall adapter was fine).

BUT - I got almost rock solid reception when I changed to the Adafruit RFM95W LoRa Radio Transceiver Breakout with a proper antenna (Delock LoRa 868 MHz Antenna SMA plug 3 dBi omnidirectional with tilt joint black in my case). I don't know if this is due to better chip design, better PCB design or just the antenna.

Please check the repository matthias-bs/BresserWeatherSensorReceiver. This is actually recommended as replacement for matthias-bs/Bresser_Weather_Sensor_CC1101_MQTT anyway (which I have not communicated yet...)!

Best regards Matthias

peranil commented 1 year ago

Thanks for the detailed answer! I will experiment with different antennas and the position. I will also switch to the new library soon.

Br. Per