Getting the Challenger LoRa up on The Things Network – #1

The Challenger RP2040 LoRa board is fully compatible with the The Things Network (TTN) and in this short article we will show you the steps on how to get a device up and talking on the network.

It is assumed that you already have a LoRa gateway up and running and is configured properly. This example is targeted towards EU clients but much of it applies to other countries as well. Also this example is based on the community edition of TTN.

Now, lets get started !

Step 1 – Create a TTN application where we can put our end devices

All devices need to be registered in the TTN database before they are allowed to post messages. This registration is done under the “Applications” section on the TTN console.

Once we’ve entered the Applications section in the console we now need to create an application to which we later can assign an end device. When you click on the blue “+ Add application” button you end up with the following dialog. Here you can fill in information about your application. In this example I am simply creating an application that we will be using for different tests.

Step 2 – Create an end device

Once the application is created we can now go ahead and create end devices that sends actual data to TTN. In the new window click on the blue “+ Add end device” button to create a new end device and you will get the following dialog.

For now you need to click on the “try manual device registration” link or the Manually tab which will take you to the following dialog.

For this example we are using ABP activation which means that we will be filling in the generated keys in the Arduino application in the next section where we get the board set up. Make sure you click on the “Generate” for all the fields so that you get a new key, device address and end device id.

Now click on the blue button at the bottom of the page the says “Register end device”. The end device is now ready to be used and for this we need to set up the board as well.