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Pygate

The Pygate is an 8-channel LoRaWAN gateway. This page will help you get started with it.

The Pygate board can have an PyEthernet adapter connected which allows an ethernet connection. The PyEthernet also support PoE. Do check the separate page and warning for PoE-NI!

Quickstart

To connect your Pygate to a LoRa server, follow these steps:

  1. Attach a WiPy, GPy or LoPy4 to the Pygate. The RGB LED of the development board should be aligned with the USB port of the Pygate.
  2. Attach the LoRa Antenna to the Pygate.
  3. Flash the Pycom Device with with a firmware build where Pygate functionality is enabled.
  4. Create a config.json for your Pygate and upload it.
  5. Create a main.py that creates an uplink (wifi, ethernet or lte) and runs the LoRa packet fowarder.
  6. Run the main.py.
  7. Now it is operational. The communication from other LoRa nodes such as a LoPy4 will now reach the gateway and will receive up and downlink via the PyGate.
  8. To stop the Pygate at any time press Ctrl-C on the REPL and run machine.pygate_deinit(). It will take a few seconds to stop the gateway tasks and safely power-off the concentrator.

Make sure you supply a config matching your region (EU868, US915, etc), e.g. https://github.com/Lora-net/packet_forwarder/tree/master/lora_pkt_fwd/cfg. If you are in EU region, it should be sufficent to update the example below with your GW ID, the LoRa server address and port number.

Example TTN Wifi

The following example shows the script and json file to run the Pygate over Wifi connecting to The Things Network.

  1. log in to https://console.thethingsnetwork.org/
  2. go to Gateways and register a new gateway
  3. select “I’m using a legacy packet forwarder”
  4. make up a EUI (8 byte hexadecimal value) and register it on the TTN website
  5. enter the EUI in your config.json under gateway_ID (Just enter the hex digits without the “eui-” prefix and without spaces)
  6. select your Frequency Plan
  7. select a router - also enter the hostname in your config.json under server_address
  8. enter your wifi SSID and password in main.py
  9. upload config.json and main.py and reset the board
  10. you will see how it creates the uplink connection and then start the LoRa GW. It will print out some debug information while it is running. After some initialization it will print “LoRa GW started” and the LED will turn green.
from network import WLAN
import time
import machine
from machine import RTC
import pycom

# Disable Hearbeat
pycom.heartbeat(False)

# Define callback function for Pygate events
def machine_cb (arg):
    evt = machine.events()
    if (evt & machine.PYGATE_START_EVT):
        # Green
        pycom.rgbled(0x103300)
    elif (evt & machine.PYGATE_ERROR_EVT):
        # Red
        pycom.rgbled(0x331000)
    elif (evt & machine.PYGATE_STOP_EVT):
        # RGB off
        pycom.rgbled(0x000000)

# register callback function
machine.callback(trigger = (machine.PYGATE_START_EVT | machine.PYGATE_STOP_EVT | machine.PYGATE_ERROR_EVT), handler=machine_cb)

# Connect to a Wifi Network
wlan = WLAN(mode=WLAN.STA)
wlan.connect(ssid='<SSID>', auth=(WLAN.WPA2, "<PASSWORD>"))

while not wlan.isconnected():
    time.sleep(1)

print("Wifi Connection established")

# Sync time via NTP server for GW timestamps on Events
rtc = RTC()
rtc.ntp_sync(server="0.pool.ntp.org")

# Read the GW config file from Filesystem
fp = open('/flash/config.json','r')
buf = fp.read()

# Start the Pygate
machine.pygate_init(buf)

A sample config.json file for gateway configuration in EU868 region:

{
	"SX1301_conf": {
		"lorawan_public": true,
		"clksrc": 1,
		"antenna_gain": 0,
		"radio_0": {
			"enable": true,
			"type": "SX1257",
			"freq": 867500000,
			"rssi_offset": -164.0,
			"tx_enable": true,
			"tx_freq_min": 863000000,
			"tx_freq_max": 870000000
		},
		"radio_1": {
			"enable": true,
			"type": "SX1257",
			"freq": 868500000,
			"rssi_offset": -164.0,
			"tx_enable": false
		},
		"chan_multiSF_0": {
			"enable": true,
			"radio": 1,
			"if": -400000
		},
		"chan_multiSF_1": {
			"enable": true,
			"radio": 1,
			"if": -200000
		},
		"chan_multiSF_2": {
			"enable": true,
			"radio": 1,
			"if": 0
		},
		"chan_multiSF_3": {
			"enable": true,
			"radio": 0,
			"if": -400000
		},
		"chan_multiSF_4": {
			"enable": true,
			"radio": 0,
			"if": -200000
		},
		"chan_multiSF_5": {
			"enable": true,
			"radio": 0,
			"if": 0
		},
		"chan_multiSF_6": {
			"enable": true,
			"radio": 0,
			"if": 200000
		},
		"chan_multiSF_7": {
			"enable": true,
			"radio": 0,
			"if": 400000
		},
		"chan_Lora_std": {
			"enable": true,
			"radio": 1,
			"if": -200000,
			"bandwidth": 250000,
			"spread_factor": 7
		},
		"chan_FSK": {
			"enable": true,
			"radio": 1,
			"if": 300000,
			"bandwidth": 125000,
			"datarate": 50000
		},
		"tx_lut_0": {
			"pa_gain": 0,
			"mix_gain": 5,
			"rf_power": 9,
			"dig_gain": 3
		},
		"tx_lut_1": {
			"pa_gain": 0,
			"mix_gain": 5,
			"rf_power": 9,
			"dig_gain": 3
		},
		"tx_lut_2": {
			"pa_gain": 0,
			"mix_gain": 5,
			"rf_power": 9,
			"dig_gain": 3
		},
		"tx_lut_3": {
			"pa_gain": 0,
			"mix_gain": 5,
			"rf_power": 9,
			"dig_gain": 3
		},
		"tx_lut_4": {
			"pa_gain": 0,
			"mix_gain": 5,
			"rf_power": 9,
			"dig_gain": 3
		},
		"tx_lut_5": {
			"pa_gain": 0,
			"mix_gain": 5,
			"rf_power": 9,
			"dig_gain": 3
		},
		"tx_lut_6": {
			"pa_gain": 0,
			"mix_gain": 5,
			"rf_power": 9,
			"dig_gain": 3
		},
		"tx_lut_7": {
			"pa_gain": 0,
			"mix_gain": 6,
			"rf_power": 11,
			"dig_gain": 3
		},
		"tx_lut_8": {
			"pa_gain": 0,
			"mix_gain": 5,
			"rf_power": 13,
			"dig_gain": 2
		},
		"tx_lut_9": {
			"pa_gain": 0,
			"mix_gain": 8,
			"rf_power": 14,
			"dig_gain": 3
		},
		"tx_lut_10": {
			"pa_gain": 0,
			"mix_gain": 6,
			"rf_power": 15,
			"dig_gain": 2
		},
		"tx_lut_11": {
			"pa_gain": 0,
			"mix_gain": 6,
			"rf_power": 16,
			"dig_gain": 1
		},
		"tx_lut_12": {
			"pa_gain": 0,
			"mix_gain": 9,
			"rf_power": 17,
			"dig_gain": 3
		},
		"tx_lut_13": {
			"pa_gain": 0,
			"mix_gain": 10,
			"rf_power": 18,
			"dig_gain": 3
		},
		"tx_lut_14": {
			"pa_gain": 0,
			"mix_gain": 11,
			"rf_power": 19,
			"dig_gain": 3
		},
		"tx_lut_15": {
			"pa_gain": 0,
			"mix_gain": 12,
			"rf_power": 20,
			"dig_gain": 3
		}
	},

	"gateway_conf": {
		"gateway_ID": "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX",
		"server_address": "router.eu.thethings.network",
		"serv_port_up": 1700,
		"serv_port_down": 1700,
		"keepalive_interval": 10,
		"stat_interval": 30,
		"push_timeout_ms": 100,
		"forward_crc_valid": true,
		"forward_crc_error": false,
		"forward_crc_disabled": false
	}
}