Datasheet

One thing to note in Python byte strings aren't exactly like text strings and you might not be able to do all the text

processing (like find, replace, etc.) as you expect. However you can convert a byte string into text by assuming a

specific text encoding like ASCII. For example to receive a packet and convert the contents to an ASCII text string you

can run code like:

Notice this code first receives a packet, then checks if one was actually found (the packet is not None check--if no

packet is received a value of None is returned), and then converts the packet data to a string assuming an ASCII text

encoding.

Beyond RX & TX

Beyond basic sending and receiving there are a few properties of the RFM69 class you might want to interact with:

tx_power - This is a power level (in dB) to use when transmitting with the radio. By default this is set to a

moderate 13 dB value, however you can increase this depending on the type of radio you're using. For high

power radios (the modules sold by Adafruit) they support a range of TX power from 5 to 23 dB. Try increasing

this to the maximum 23 dB level (however check your local laws for permission to transmit with such power!) to

get the most distance and range.

rssi - The received signal strength indicator is a property you can read to see the strength of the radio signal

being received. This is updated when packets are received and returns a value in decibels (typically negative,

so the

smaller

the number and closer to 0, the higher the strength / better the signal).

That's all there is to the basic RFM9x radio usage!

Remember the CircuitPython module is designed for sending and

packet = rfm9x.receive() # Wait for a packet to be received (up to 0.5 seconds)

if packet is not None:

packet_text = str(packet, 'ascii')

print('Received: {0}'.format(packet_text))

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-rfm69hcw-and-rfm96-rfm95-rfm98-lora-packet-padio-

breakouts

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