Using FeatherWing to receive 900 MHz

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catgirlinspace
 
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Using FeatherWing to receive 900 MHz

Post by catgirlinspace »

Hi! I'm looking into getting either a RFM95W or a RFM69HCW board to use as a receiver for a 900 MHz signal. The description containing this has me a bit confused though.
All radios are sold individually and can only talk to radios of the same part number.
I want to use this to receive the 900 MHz signal emitted from our electric meter to track our house's usage. Can either of these boards do that? Does it matter which board I go with?

Thanks!

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bidrohini
 
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Re: Using FeatherWing to receive 900 MHz

Post by bidrohini »

RFM95W supports 868 or 915 MHz signals. RFM69HCW supports 433 MHz. For 900 MHz signals, you must choose RFM95W.

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adafruit_support_mike
 
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Re: Using FeatherWing to receive 900 MHz

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

catgirlinspace wrote: Sun Jan 29, 2023 11:07 pm I want to use this to receive the 900 MHz signal emitted from our electric meter to track our house's usage. Can either of these boards do that?
You could probably configure the radio to receive 900MHz, but that's only the smallest part of the problem.

The big part is using the same modulation as the radio you want to listen to. There are *lots* of ways to make a radio send a 1 or a 0: Amplitude-Shift Keying (ASK), On/Off Keying (OOK), Frequency-Shift Keying (FSK), Phase-Shift Keying (PSK), Quadrature/Amplitude Modulation (QAM), to say nothing of all the broadband tricks like using 'chirps'.. a burst where the frequency constantly increases or decreases (increasing being one value, decreasing being the other), and so on.

If you don't know the modulation, I'd suggest starting with a Software Defined Radio (SDR) module:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/1497

That hands the problem of dealing with modulation off to a program on your computer, and gives you the freedom to play with the options.

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jerryn
 
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Re: Using FeatherWing to receive 900 MHz

Post by jerryn »

bidrohini wrote: Sun Jan 29, 2023 11:53 pm RFM95W supports 868 or 915 MHz signals. RFM69HCW supports 433 MHz. For 900 MHz signals, you must choose RFM95W.
Just to clarify, the RFM69HCW also supports both 433 and 900 MHz.
The RFM69 and RFM9x use different protocols and are not compatible but there are RFM69 version for both 433 and 900 MHz

https://www.adafruit.com/product/3070
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3071

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catgirlinspace
 
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Re: Using FeatherWing to receive 900 MHz

Post by catgirlinspace »

adafruit_support_mike wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2023 3:46 am
catgirlinspace wrote: Sun Jan 29, 2023 11:07 pm I want to use this to receive the 900 MHz signal emitted from our electric meter to track our house's usage. Can either of these boards do that?
You could probably configure the radio to receive 900MHz, but that's only the smallest part of the problem.

The big part is using the same modulation as the radio you want to listen to. There are *lots* of ways to make a radio send a 1 or a 0: Amplitude-Shift Keying (ASK), On/Off Keying (OOK), Frequency-Shift Keying (FSK), Phase-Shift Keying (PSK), Quadrature/Amplitude Modulation (QAM), to say nothing of all the broadband tricks like using 'chirps'.. a burst where the frequency constantly increases or decreases (increasing being one value, decreasing being the other), and so on.

If you don't know the modulation, I'd suggest starting with a Software Defined Radio (SDR) module:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/1497

That hands the problem of dealing with modulation off to a program on your computer, and gives you the freedom to play with the options.
ah, I wasn't aware of all those different modulations! I'm very new to doing anything with hardware, most stuff I've done in the past is just making little games and web apps. I think I'll go with a software defined radio then. Thanks for the information!

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