Moving data from one location to another sometimes could be complicated and challenging. Occasionally, the distance that your project needs to cover is out of the range of normal radio specifications. If we talk about CC1101 scenarios, we could talk about many different factors that could affect the communication: from frequency, dBm limitations to a clear and flat environments.
Even some restrictions and limitations in hardware and software should be considered to expand the link between the two radios connection. Some of the ideas and libraries of this post come from my last SDR post with Raspberry Pi and CC1101.
The idea
Imagine that you have to move data from the location of Raspberry Pi #1 to Raspberry Pi #2 but the distance is the problem. How you can design something cheap and adequate to use it as “Extender”?
Hardware
If you make a research about different SDR radios or possible alternatives, LoRa radio technology could be an option. Also the nrf24l01 radio is a good alternative which implements high frequency(2.4GHz), and it is cheap as well.
I prefer to use the CC1101s because their library is very stable for Raspberry Pi; and the most important part is that I can use them in different frequencies: 315, 433, 868, 915 MHz if I decide to implement another projects with them.
Software
The SpaceTeddy library is our best option to implement the “Extender” idea with Raspberry Pis.
The “Extender” is going to be another Raspberry Pi with a CC1101 radio as well. To do this, we have to enumerate the radios to know where to send the packets or from where we will receive them:
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