SparkFun RFM69HCW 868/915MHz RF Module Products

Description

The SparkFun WRL-12775 RFM69HCW 915MHz Breakout is a board that breaks out all the pins for the RFM69HCW module and widens the 2.0mm pin spacing RFM69HCW to 2.54mm (0.1in) breadboard spacing.

This board also features pin through holes to solder a simple wire antenna or a PCBPrinted Circuit Board to SMASubMiniature version A (SMA) connector cable for an SMASubMiniature version A (SMA) connector antenna. The range of these modules can go up to 500 meters line-of-sight using simple wire antennas, where higher ranges can be achieved by using a better antenna or by lowering the data bit rate.

The RFM69HCW modules have a continuous transmit mode or packet mode that has the benefit of error correction and can also auto-retransmit. There are many RFM69 Arduino libraries available, such as as the LowPowerLab's RFM69 Library and AirSpayce's Radiohead Library which also supports many other radios.

Although the SparkFun board includes the 915MHz RFM69HCW version, it can also be used at 868MHz when changing the software configuration to this frequency. There is only minor passive component differences between the two versions of the 868MHz and 915MHz RFM69HCW and open air testing reveals no significant signal strength difference using the 915MHz RFM69HCW with 868MHz settings.

Specs

SparkFun RFM69HCW 915MHz Module Specs
Parameter	Description
Module	SparkFun RFM69HCW 915MHz Breakout Module (WRL-12775)
RFM69	RFM69HCW 915MHz (Datasheet PDF)
Transceiver IC	Semtech SX1231 (Datasheet PDF)
Frequency	915MHz (890MHz min, 1020MHz max) ISMIndustrial, Scientific, and Medical radio bands band
Modulation	FSKFrequency-Shift Keying modulation, GFSKGaussian Frequency-Shift Keying modulation, MSKMinimum-Shift Keying modulation, GMSKGaussian Minimum-Shift Keying modulation, and OOKOn-Off Keying modulation
Air Data Rate (bpsbits per second)	Configurable with FSKFrequency-Shift Keying modulation Bit rates up to 300kbps
Receiving Sensitivity (dBmDecibel-milliwatts (dBm) is a power level that expresses decibels in terms of milliwatts on a logarithmic scale.)	Down to -120dBm at 1.2kbps
Transmitting Power (dBmDecibel-milliwatts (dBm) is a power level that expresses decibels in terms of milliwatts on a logarithmic scale.)	Up to +20dBm (100mW) Power Output Capability Programmable with 1dB steps between -18dBm min and +20dBm max
I/O Data Interface	I/O Data Pins are 3.3V SPISerial Peripheral Interface (SCKSerial Clock line, MISOMaster In Slave Out (MISO) is the SPI data output line from the slave device, MOSIMaster Out Slave In (MOSI) is the SPI data output line from the master device, CSChip Select (CS) is the SPI output line from the master device to indicate that data is being sent. Also referred to as CSN or Slave Select (SS).) RST Reset IRQ interrupt GPIO: 5 Digital I/O Pins
Data Packets	Preamble, Sync word, Address and Message (payload) and optional CRCCyclic Redundancy Check Payload with AESAdvanced Encryption Standard (AES) is a specification for the encryption of electronic data established by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2001. It was developed an alternative to the Data Encryption Standard (DES), which was starting to become vulnerable to brute-force attacks.-128 encryption and length up to 255 bytes Optional 2-bytes CRCCyclic Redundancy Check checksum
Operating Supply Voltage	1.8V to 2.4V DC for 17dBm 2.4V to 3.6V DC for 20dBm
Transmission Current	130mA @ +20dBm 95mA @ +17dB 45mA @ +13dBm 33mA @ +10dBm 20mA @ 0dBm
Receiving Current	16mA
Networking	Supports multipoint networks with individual node addresses. Up to 256 networks Up to 255 nodes per network
Board Size	20.32mm x 27.94mm (0.8in x 1.1in)