Comment by comboy

13 hours ago

$20? These networks do not try to hide your location and triangulating known frequencies is trivial.

How trivial is it, really? These are spread spectrum devices that could have very sparse duty cycles. If you sending only millisecond bursts a couple of times an hour, for telemetry and whatnot, it would seem pretty hard to get a good fix, especially when moving. I haven't analyzed lora traffic, so just talking out of my ass.

  • LoRa uses chirping which are much longer than milliseconds. You can clearly see them in a spectrum display. It's a very slow protocol. Not as slow as WISPR or JT8 but still slow. The flip side is that it's robust (the chirping provides a lot of interference protection against fixed-frequency interference for example)

  • With a couple of GPS-synchronized receivers stationed in an area, child's play. LoRA airtime is extraordinarily long for common spreading factors.