LoRa32 V2 joining TTN often fails

#1

Hi

I have a new LoRa32 V2 and tried some of the official sketches to join and transmit data ro TTN.
I’ve chosen the appropriate region plan EU868 and configured with valid set of keys.
I’m using rhe Heltec library.

The problem is, joining TTN takes a long time, mostly minutes, sometime 10-20s. Same for sending (uplink) data.

I guess 10-20% of all joining request really go through and are visible on the TTN console. Which immediately sends a join accepted that never reaches my ESP32.

After a successful join the sending part behaves the same. One of the sent packes reach TTN and is visible. But never get the confirm and therefore trying dor a long time.

If I disable confirmed message, everything is even worse, because no retransmit happen then.

I have no other Heltec node, but Dragino nodes have no issue. I’m oparating my own Milesight UG65 gateway.
Heltec LoRa32: SNR -20 and RSSI -115
Dragino LHT65: SNR 10 and RSSI -50

Serial Log:

ESP32 MCU inited OK!

LoRaWAN EU868 Class A start!

joining…
TX on freq 868500000 Hz at DR 5
RX on freq 868500000 Hz at DR 5
RX on freq 869525000 Hz at DR 0
TX on freq 868500000 Hz at DR 5
RX on freq 868500000 Hz at DR 5
RX on freq 869525000 Hz at DR 0
TX on freq 868300000 Hz at DR 5
RX on freq 868300000 Hz at DR 5
RX on freq 869525000 Hz at DR 0
TX on freq 868500000 Hz at DR 5
RX on freq 868500000 Hz at DR 5
RX on freq 869525000 Hz at DR 0
TX on freq 868100000 Hz at DR 5
RX on freq 868100000 Hz at DR 5
RX on freq 869525000 Hz at DR 0
TX on freq 868100000 Hz at DR 5
RX on freq 868100000 Hz at DR 5
RX on freq 869525000 Hz at DR 0
TX on freq 868500000 Hz at DR 5
RX on freq 868500000 Hz at DR 5
RX on freq 869525000 Hz at DR 0
TX on freq 868100000 Hz at DR 4
RX on freq 868100000 Hz at DR 4
joined
confirmed uplink sending …
TX on freq 867900000 Hz at DR 4
RX on freq 867900000 Hz at DR 4
RX on freq 869525000 Hz at DR 3
TX on freq 868100000 Hz at DR 4
RX on freq 868100000 Hz at DR 4
RX on freq 869525000 Hz at DR 3
TX on freq 867700000 Hz at DR 3
RX on freq 867700000 Hz at DR 3
RX on freq 869525000 Hz at DR 3
TX on freq 868300000 Hz at DR 3
RX on freq 868300000 Hz at DR 3
RX on freq 869525000 Hz at DR 3
TX on freq 867100000 Hz at DR 2
RX on freq 867100000 Hz at DR 2
RX on freq 869525000 Hz at DR 3
TX on freq 868500000 Hz at DR 2
RX on freq 868500000 Hz at DR 2
RX on freq 869525000 Hz at DR 3
TX on freq 867100000 Hz at DR 1
RX on freq 867100000 Hz at DR 1
RX on freq 869525000 Hz at DR 3
TX on freq 868100000 Hz at DR 1
RX on freq 868100000 Hz at DR 1

#2

How / what backbone do your gateway have? (Fiber / GSM / ???)

Change the antenna on the Heltec.

#3

The gateway itself is connected through Ethernet and the uplink (WAN) uses a cable-provider (1Gpbs). The internet uplink also have low latency 1-2ms (ping google.com)

Need to buy a new one, don’t have one spare. But good idea.

#4

You actually need to test to AWS, as TTN is deployed on there servers, so depended if you use eu1, nam1 or au1, you need to watch the latency to them

https://cloudpingtest.com/aws

https://ping.psa.fun/

https://www.cloudping.cloud/aws

#5

I did the latency checks today and it wasn’t an issue. I also changed the antenna with another coil antenna and with a more rigit one. But hasn’t changed anything. Then I switched the library made by Heltec with the TTN_ESP32 and what, everything is working. So, I don’t know wheter the Heltec library is working for others just despite me or no one is really using that.