--- title: "LoRaWAN across a farm and village | Nexus Observatory" description: "Soil probes in every field report to gateways on the water tower and the church spire; the adaptive data rate, time on air and duty cycle are computed from…" url: https://observatory.global/environments/networks/iot-farm/ publisher: Nexus Observatory Inc. updated: 2026-10-29 --- LoRaWAN across a farm and village. A parish of fields with a soil probe in each one. Two gateways, on the water tower and the church spire, hear them all. Layers Scenario A parish of fields with a soil probe in each one. Two gateways, on the water tower and the church spire, hear them all. 01/05 500 MHz 1 GHz 2 GHz 5 GHz 10 GHz 20 GHz 40 GHz EU868 LoRaWAN: 863–870 MHz · λ 35 cm · LPWAN, 1 % duty cycle · LoRa Alliance RP002-1.0.4 Network scenes # LoRaWAN across a farm and village Soil probes in every field report to gateways on the water tower and the church spire; the adaptive data rate, time on air and duty cycle are computed from the link budget. [Radio access in a city centre](https://observatory.global/environments/networks/ran-city/) [Open RAN in a suburb](https://observatory.global/environments/networks/oran-suburb/) [AI-RAN at a stadium](https://observatory.global/environments/networks/ai-ran-stadium/) [Private 5G in an open-pit mine](https://observatory.global/environments/networks/private5g-mine/) [Private 5G at a container port](https://observatory.global/environments/networks/private5g-port/) [LoRaWAN across a farm and village](https://observatory.global/environments/networks/iot-farm/) [IoT in the city: a street-light mesh and LoRaWAN](https://observatory.global/environments/networks/iot-city/) [Industrial IoT in a process plant](https://observatory.global/environments/networks/iot-plant/) [Satellite direct to device in a mountain valley](https://observatory.global/environments/networks/ntn-d2d/) [Microwave backhaul across a river valley](https://observatory.global/environments/networks/backhaul-fresnel/) The place: [Rural village and farmland](https://observatory.global/environments/rural-village/) ## In this scene **Gateway on the water tower**: An outdoor LoRaWAN gateway at the top of the water tower: it hears every probe in the parish at the fastest data rate. (LoRaWAN L2 1.0.4 (TS001-1.0.4), LoRa Alliance RP002-1.0.4) Scene input: end devices 14 dBm EIRP, gateway antenna 3 dBi, 10 dB fade margin **Gateway in the church spire**: A second gateway in the spire: every uplink is heard by both, so either can fail. (LoRaWAN L2 1.0.4 (TS001-1.0.4), LoRa Alliance RP002-1.0.4) **Soil-moisture probe and end device**: A probe at three depths with a LoRaWAN radio on a short post: one 20-byte reading every 15 minutes. (LoRaWAN L2 1.0.4 (TS001-1.0.4), LoRa Alliance RP002-1.0.4, ETSI EN 300 220-2) **Network server (in the cloud)**: De-duplicates the uplinks heard by both gateways, runs the adaptive data rate and hands the readings to the farm application. (LoRaWAN Backend Interfaces 1.0 (TS002)) ## Links and interfaces **Backhaul to the network server**: Each gateway forwards what it hears over the village fibre or a cellular link. (LoRaWAN Backend Interfaces 1.0) ## Computed for this scenario **Gateways in service**: 2 of 2 **End devices served**: 40 of 40 **Mean spreading factor**: SF7.0 **Mean time on air, 20 B**: 57 ms **SF12 ring radius**: 24.7 km **Uplinks an hour at SF12 under 1 % duty cycle**: 27 ## Scenarios **Two gateways**: Every probe is heard by both gateways at SF7. **Tower gateway down**: The water-tower gateway fails; the spire gateway alone still closes every link. **US915 plan**: The same farm on the US915 channel plan: dwell-time rules replace the duty cycle. ## Tour transcript 1. A parish of fields with a soil probe in each one. Two gateways, on the water tower and the church spire, hear them all. 2. The water-tower gateway: at this height the whole parish is inside its SF7 ring. 3. A soil probe and its end device: 20 bytes every 15 minutes, 57 ms on air at SF7. 4. The tower gateway fails; the spire gateway alone closes every link, at a higher SF for the far fields. 5. Both gateways forward to the network server, which removes duplicates and runs the adaptive data rate. ## How the numbers are computed Path loss is Okumura–Hata for open areas at 868 MHz with the gateway height above the ground. Sensitivity per spreading factor is −174 dBm/Hz + 10 log10(125 kHz) + 6 dB + the demodulation SNR (−7.5 dB at SF7 to −20 dB at SF12); a device takes the lowest SF that closes with a 10 dB margin. Time on air follows the LoRa modem formula for a 20-byte payload; the duty cycle is the 1 % of the EU868 g1 sub-band. © 2026 Nexus Observatory Inc. **Legal** [Privacy notice](https://observatory.global/legal/privacy/) · [Terms of use](https://observatory.global/legal/terms/) · [Cookie policy](https://observatory.global/legal/cookies/) · [Accessibility](https://observatory.global/legal/accessibility/) · [Official languages](https://observatory.global/official-languages/) · [Trademarks](https://observatory.global/trademarks/) · [Notices](https://observatory.global/notices/) **Company** [About](https://observatory.global/about/) · [Stewardship](https://observatory.global/consortium/) · [Contact](https://observatory.global/contact/)