Range testing xbee SX868

Two xbee SX868 modules – with mostly line of sight and a nice 3G antenna at the other end – I obtained a safe 1km range – going up to this 1.5km if a few errors can be tollerated (showing -94 dBm). Over wet an slightly frozen ground I got -95dBm at 1km. I did get a few packets at 2km but it was showing -96 to -100dBm (very weak). This gives us confidence to install GPS units up to 1km away from their base station in Iceland. 1km

Range testing new systems

In our mountainsensing project we showed that fully standard communications could cover large areas. For that project we had to add an 868MHz transceiver to our designs. This year we are doing a lot of development with the Atmel SAMR30 based system-on-chip as it includes a sub-GHz radio and has good support in the RIOT-OS. One important thing to test was the typical range to make sure it was similar to our roughly 1km with the previous CC1120. Here is a photo of a quick test in the New Forest which achieved 1km with this set of antennas:

image of test node on trig-point