“There are loads of places that have no mobile reception–including some within a few miles of my house”

Last month’s introduction to LoRa and LoRa WAN was heavy on the theory that lies behind what makes LoRa communications work, and how it’s able to do so at such incredible distances using very low power transmission. This month, I’m going practical, with a look at some of the kit on offer and how things such as cables can be critically important.

But first, did you manage to grab a couple of those Heltec boards I mentioned in the previous column, and try some long-range tests? I hope that a few of you managed to – you should have found that you were easily able to pick up the signal from a mile or more away. That’s amazing when you consider that the board is tiny, low-powered and has such a small antenna. I’ll talk a bit about antennas later. And yes, fellow pedants, it’s “antennas” when talking about comms kit – antennae is the plural of the sticky-out bits on insects and molluscs. I often see people using the “ae” spelling for the techie stuff, trying to look clever but in fact looking the complete opposite.

This little distance experiment probably seems academic. Sure, it’s neat that you can send a message over a long distance using a low-powered device, but surely you could just as easily send an SMS from your phone to get a message between the two locations? Well yes, you