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Bouncing a LoRa message off the moon

electronics360.globalspec.com

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Re: Bouncing a LoRa message off the moon

#61

Post by 7kay »

marcodiego wrote: post #25

LoRa has some ridiculous range with minimal use of power. Being able to bounce it off the moon may allow communication between a whole Earth hemisphere. At the least, this allows beyond-horizon communication.

As others have already pointed out this exercise used a huge dish(a radio telescope[1]) and significant power. This is in no way an economically viable mode of communication. Using satellites in low earth orbit requires less power and a significantly smaller antenna. Putting LoRa on satellites has been done before, see e.g. [2].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwingeloo_Radio_Observatory

[2]: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4...

Re: Bouncing a LoRa message off the moon

#63

Post by progre »

noman-land wrote: post #20
jmole wrote: post #2

of all the things to bounce off the moon, why a consumer IoT protocol? Alien 1: The humans are talking again. Alien 2: What did they say? Alien 1: The front door is locked.

I think it would be extremely neat to have a fully citizen run global p2p infrastructure that is nearly free, resilient to electrical and internet outages, and able to reach remote and distant places.

That would be neat! But before anyone thinks they can build a citizen p2p version of internet this way: LoRa can do bits per minute. Think old time telegraph throghput.

Re: Bouncing a LoRa message off the moon

#64

Post by d21d3q »

gh02t wrote: post #21
jmole wrote: post #2

of all the things to bounce off the moon, why a consumer IoT protocol? Alien 1: The humans are talking again. Alien 2: What did they say? Alien 1: The front door is locked.

LoRa isn't really a consumer protocol, more of an industrial one. It's mostly intended for widely distributed sensor networks.

Actually LoRa is not a protocol but physical layer, way of modulating RF. LoRaWAN is probably that consumer protocol which you refer to. There is also Symphony Link protocol (proprietary).

And I wouldn't use LoRaWAN protocol in industrial application, because you have limited way of ACKing every message (more like UDP for sending sensor data rather than TCP), no option for OTA, and Symphony Link claims to have it, so that I would call it more industrial.

Re: Bouncing a LoRa message off the moon

#65

Post by tinus_hn »

jjoonathan wrote: post #4
jmole wrote: post #2

of all the things to bounce off the moon, why a consumer IoT protocol? Alien 1: The humans are talking again. Alien 2: What did they say? Alien 1: The front door is locked.

Because it doubles the range of the PR stunt. If they had driven the chip with a raspberry pi (or, more importantly, said so enough times to land the keyword in the article), they could have quadrupled the range of the PR stunt.

They could use virtual reality nanotechnology in the blockchain!

Re: Bouncing a LoRa message off the moon

#66

Post by OJFord »

d21d3q wrote: post #64
gh02t wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LoRa isn't really a consumer protocol, more of an industrial one. It's mostly intended for widely distributed sensor networks.

Actually LoRa is not a protocol but physical layer, way of modulating RF. LoRaWAN is probably that consumer protocol which you refer to. There is also Symphony Link protocol (proprietary). And I wouldn't use LoRaWAN protocol in industrial application, because you have limited way of ACKing every message (more like UDP for sending sensor data rather than TCP), no option for OTA, and Symphony Link claims to have it, so…

So UDP isn't industry-ready yet either then?

Re: Bouncing a LoRa message off the moon

#67

Post by karteum »

marcodiego wrote: post #25

LoRa has some ridiculous range with minimal use of power. Being able to bounce it off the moon may allow communication between a whole Earth hemisphere. At the least, this allows beyond-horizon communication.

Well, here in that case they were using an approach that would be illegal by EU regulations (not sure about US) considering the EIRP limits :)

And if you want real low-power long-range communications with the other side of the earth, you may be interested to have a look at WSPR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSPR_(amateur_radio_software) !

Re: Bouncing a LoRa message off the moon

#69

Post by [deleted] »

noman-land wrote: post #20
jmole wrote: post #2

of all the things to bounce off the moon, why a consumer IoT protocol? Alien 1: The humans are talking again. Alien 2: What did they say? Alien 1: The front door is locked.

I think it would be extremely neat to have a fully citizen run global p2p infrastructure that is nearly free, resilient to electrical and internet outages, and able to reach remote and distant places.

[deleted]

Re: Bouncing a LoRa message off the moon

#70

Post by gh02t »

d21d3q wrote: post #64
gh02t wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LoRa isn't really a consumer protocol, more of an industrial one. It's mostly intended for widely distributed sensor networks.

Actually LoRa is not a protocol but physical layer, way of modulating RF. LoRaWAN is probably that consumer protocol which you refer to. There is also Symphony Link protocol (proprietary). And I wouldn't use LoRaWAN protocol in industrial application, because you have limited way of ACKing every message (more like UDP for sending sensor data rather than TCP), no option for OTA, and Symphony Link claims to have it, so…

Correct, I was hand waving over the distinction but I suppose it's important. LoRa itself is the radio layer. I still think of it as something targeting industrial use cases, though there have been some neat hobbyist projects using it.
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