Pretty much as i thought then! Thanks buddy 
Alan
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If you look at the public logs you do see the CRC errors on several igates.
I have been wondering at what point do the Lora igates start causing problems for each other, if a lot of igates are sending APRS objects to RF, and then those objects also get digipeated. In a busy area that could be a lot of traffic.
I wonder if that point is now being reached producing CRC errors for multiple igates.
I think turning off sending APRS objects to RF will significantly reduce Lora traffic.
But thatâs just me pondering 
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Yes I have been thinking about this too. My iGate does TX objects and messages to RF, but I have a 20km filter on it to try and reduce the noise. But even then I wonder whether itâs actually of any use to anyone else? I could just as well set it to RX only and just upload to APRS-ISâŚ
There has even been an interesting discussion locally here in WB about how frequently trackers are beaconing and potentially jamming up the frequency and causing collisions. The default smart beacon settings in the tracker softwares are quite âchattyâ⌠Maybe in an area with no other trackers it doesnât matter, but down here there are quite a few in regular daily use in cars.
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APRS filters are going to become more important I think for Lora igates. Itâs a nice problem to have though with proliferation of Lora igates 
I suppose the filtering an igate uses depends on the traffic in your area.
Coverage is still fairly sparse in GW/NW land so less of a problem.
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And if they include âWIDE1-1â in their Path, they may trigger several digipeats after each beacon. That may be useful in remote areas, but from the slopes of Winter Hill there are now 18 IGates within direct range, so digipeating certainly isnât needed.
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Hi James
It would help if people remembered to switch to the âCarâ mode when driving - if you leave the tracker in âWalkâ mode it will send too many packets, as the setting affects more than just the icon !
Rick
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Thatâs a very good point. I always do this, but mainly to change the icon.
But this is the real reason you need to do it.
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Yes absolutely Rick. I was using my own custom settings in the JSON file which calmed things a bit, but Iâve since reflashed my main tracker via the new web flasher just to see what itâs like (very easy to do) and this uses the âchattyâ default beacon settings with no way to modify them.
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Ok, My Igate is running great, had a busy day yesterday! but i have a couple of questionsâŚ
-
How do you get it to send battery voltages? this would allow me to keep an eye onthe backup battery!
-
has anyone ever connected one of them boards to an RJ45 socket, so they can be cabled to the internet? I do struggle a bit with wireless in spots in our house, and have a cabled system upstairs where the IGate is located! Is it an add on board, or does it require âbrain surgeryâ?
Thanks chaps!
Alan
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I have the same problem Alan; with 1m+ thick walls the WiFi signal is pretty weak outdoors. I therefore went for one of these:
Itâs a Wavelink AC600 outdoor WiFi which has PoE (power over Ethernet). To use it, simply run a length of outdoor cat5/6/7 cable (which carries both power and data) from it to your indoor broadband router and the PoE injector like so:
You can get one on Amazon for about ÂŁ70
but if youâre prepared to wait a week, one can be had from Aliexpress for about ÂŁ24:
Dave
5 Likes
Its not outdoors i have trouble with, its upstairs in our bedroom! (where the Igate is going to be located) its so patchy i installed a full cabled network throughout the top of the house for the sons Xbox, the CCTV system and the teleboxes and all that stuff⌠it works SO much better! I know you can connect a W5500 Ethernet board to the arduino boards, but im not knowledgable enough to try it myself⌠and cant afford to kill any boards risking trying it! i have plenty of capacity on the upstairs ethernet switch, so it would be the ideal!
Thanks for the suggestion though
Alan
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A few months back I built an IGate using an old Raspberry Pi 2B connected to an SX1278 LoRa board. The Pi supports an ethernet connection (although I used mine with a WiFi adaptor):
This project was developed by a group in Austria some years ago, although I had to make one small change to their Python code in July, following changes in the APRS-IS filters.
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In other news, 2E0JWA-10 is now on its proper antennaâŚ
Ladderline Jpole, mounted inside plastic conduit⌠
it was just hung outside the window you can see in the pic before, but now its up and in the clear, so hopefully some modest performance improvements will come with it
Alan
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How about keeping it on wifi and just plugging a wifi extender into your wired network. If you have an old router lying about, you could use it as an access point.
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Hi all,
My Heltec boards arrived today from AliExpress. I think I have configured my iGate correctly - it is showing up as G7WKX-10 and appears to have received my LoRa tracker signal. Now need to set it up with an external antenna to test it properlyâŚ
One thing I struggled with was getting the Heltec to talk to my Windows HP laptop. I found a number of USB cables didnât work, presumably as they are for charging only. I found one that came with an old Samsung phone which was USB-C to USB-C and worked straight away.
Thanks to @M7SDO and @G4IPB for adding guidance and screen shots on this reflector - that made the config much easier. Once I sorted the USB issue, using @CA2RXU 's web page uploader was easy - thanks!
73, Simon
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Well done @G7WKX and good advice ref. the cable. I didnât find the cable a problem (Iâm using a standard USB C to USB A that came with my phone charger) but I did need the driver for the Heltec V3 board on Windows 10.
Conversely, I need to put my (squashed) Heltec Wireless Tracker in boot mode before I can flash it.
It looks like G3SMT-10 in north Shropshire gated your tracker (nice distance) - so maybe double check that everything is OK on your iGateâŚ
EDIT: your iGate has got your tracker now! Great!
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My 2 Heltec boards arrived today and after taking the dog for itâs afternoon walk I sat down to see if I could get one working.
I couldnât at first get the board to appear in the Windows device manager. After installing several different drivers without success I picked the board up at one point and I suddenly heard the characteristic âpingâ Windows makes when you connect something to it. Momentarily the board appeared in device manager then disappeared. Changing the USB lead solved the problem and I was then able to connect to it from the firmware flashing Web page.
Once the firmware was loaded the board rebooted and started to generate the WiFi signal. Logging into this I opened up the configuration page and started to set things up.
It took me a few attempts as I was guessing at times what I should set things to. What I did discover was if after setting say the frequency if I then looked at another tab in the browser then returned to the configuration page all my changes had vanished.
The current position is the igate is appearing on the aprs map.
But it isnât receiving anything from the tracker Richard G3CWI built for me.
Iâll go through the configuration page again tomorrow and do a bit of trial and error if necessary but any suggestion or even screenshots of recommended configuration settings would be very welcome. For example, part of the configuration page covers beacons. Is the igate a beacon?
When I click on other gates on the map the window shows the frequency it is operating on.
But mine isnât. 
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Thatâs because they have set the beacon comment to include the frequency. Mine doesnât either because I left the comment at default.
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Richard, thank you, thatâs very helpful as it isnât showing what I wrote in that field. This suggests it hasnât remembered the configuration again other than the coords which didnât change the first time it forgot the config. This would explain why itâs not receiving anything - it is listening on the wrong frequency.
This gives me something to look at tomorrow.
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Normally they are a short in my case. I think I have only one longer cable that is for charging only. Confused the pants off me at first and that cable is now marked with a tywrap so I know itâs charging only.
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