From Tobe's skunkworkshop

[Shaun]

Don't you ever sleep pal.

[Tobe]

There are 24 hrs...8 to work, 8 to play and 8 to sleep!

[Shaun]

[tiptipflyer]

Great work Tobe, as usual.
You never run out of new ideas and new projects.
Always very interesting, sometimes a little over my head but an old dog like me can still learn new tricks.
My greatest respect Tobe.

Cheers
Frank

[Tobe]

Good to hear from you Frank and hope to find you well.
LoRa is a Spread spectrum "system" where the frequencies are software defined and the main purpose is range which of course comes at the expense of band width and commonly used in quite many application and especially by those flying "drones" but then with a s-bus output.
The modern "Duplex" radios i.e. dual band uses this technique and in Europe on 868MHz with a maximum of 25 mW E.R.P.
868 MHz should theoretically give a range of 3-4 times of 2,4 GHz at the same output when for 433 MHZ it's 5-6 times..
The concept of the project...good question but my idea was to see if I could make a simple set where a Tx-module connects to the PPM output of a conventional Encoder with a matching Rx and bypass S-Bus etc and have a very basic F/S set in the Rx as it's programmed.
In my setup you are able to choose between 256 different addresses to make the set "more unique" see it as a frequency plan of 256.
...the truth is that I needed a new challenge to exercise my little grey cells and see if I'm still up to speed in learning new tricks so the old dog wouldn't feel that old!

Cheers

[Pchristy]

A cracking project, and good to hear from you yesterday,Tobe, even if the quality of the call left something to be desired! (Technology, don't you love it! )

Tobe was asking about 459MHz - legal here in the UK for model control (458.5-459.5MHz at 100mW ERP). I can vouch for the fact that range at 100mW is exceptional. Unfortunately spread spectrum is not permitted, though frequency hopping is. (The two are not the same!)

This is probably because when the allocation was made, spread spectrum wasn't an option outside of the military. There was a German made module available some years ago that could operate on 459MHz, but that was narrow band frequency hopping. Also there were a small number of domestically made radios, but these were mostly simple PPM sets. They mostly worked well, though, and I still fly my prototype occasionally (must be over 40 years old now!).

I remember asking a chap from our telecoms regulator about spread spectrum on 459MHz some years ago. His opinion was that he could see no reason for it being denied, but a request would have to be submitted by a representative organisation, like the BMFA. Then they would have to consult with other users of the band (mostly paging systems, industrial telemetry and control), but he didn't believe there would be any objections.

However, those discussions got lost in the rush to 2.4 GHz, so for now, 459 MHz is narrow band only.

--
Pete

[Tobe]

Here comes a picture of my LoRa set up.

To the left the Tx module which connects to encoders ppm output and to the right the Rx which works like any standard ones.
The set up is 8 channels.
I will post whenever the weather gets more decent video and more info of the progress. At the moment I'm running in the 868mhz section of LoRa with an output of 25 mW e.i.r.p in accordance with CE regulations and it's what Jeti specify for their dualband system. The Rx has an LED that shows if the Rx has been in F/S mode under a session and for the moment I have only seen it when I turn the Tx off & on.

[Al Clark]

Very nice as usual Tobe! You must never sleep!

[Tobe]

...life goes on in Tobe's Skunkworkshop with more project in mind than time available as I'm back working full time and commute weekly to the job site.
A few project are ongoing like nRF24 RF Tx module and the correspondent Rx to make a reliant and practical system that could match the commercial ones.
I have got several time at the flying field the question, particularly by those that doesn't know me that well, why I don't buy a commercial set...my answer is, I'm too poor to buy so I have to build it myself...you should see their reactions and it gives me a kick every time!
It' has been a learning journey in the black art of getting a code to do what you expect it to do and not what it want to do after compiling which is an art by itself. To get where I'm today I have become a better expert in listening, copy and paste, Google different problematic and last but not least use and abuse friends much more knowledgeable in the magic art of coding! The biggest help has been the right questions like why have you done it like this or what do you like to do, which as cleared the logic! Coding has a logic that not always make sense to me and I thought I was a logic and pragmatic person...
I learned many years ago leaving behind a youngsters arrogance that you can't makes things alone and you have to see other people's knowledge as a resource and not a threat so thank you to everyone that made this possible and particularly to Mike K & Mattias E( Mattias is a dear friend with whom I'm developing other products outside the model world). Thank you both for your patience and to share you valuable knowledge so the old dog can learn new tricks.
...and last but not least a thank you to Phil G that with is lockdown project got me to discover the nRF24 and start this journey incorporating custom software in my hardware.
One of the key issues is to transmit 10% or less of the duty time and to listen before transmitting for compliance ...on top of other features and details.

Some of Mattias comments are:
I never thought doing it that way but for whatever reason it works!
Why are you doing it in 5 line of code when one is more than enough!
Your code is a patch work...one day we have to clean it up!
...we have a semantic issue!

The 4-axis single stick came to life after an evening chatting via WhatsApp with Mike K where both brought up the issues with our hands losing their functionality obliging us to change our way to hold a Tx and the stick...this triggered my brain and as ergonomic and product development is my trade the rest was as an easy peasy process and also here the need initiate a process. The concept around the stick and the enclosure is flexibility and more work is required to get it to the standards I'm looking for. I will publish everything at that point and make it available to model community.
It's my hope it can help at least one to go back to modelflying ...

[franck]

thank for all your share