nRF52840 Coded Phy Range Problem

[Aamir]

Hi,

I am using nRF52840 Enineering C chip on a custom board using SDK v15.3.0 with SoftDevice v6.1.1

I have modified the Blinky Central code and the Blinky Peripheral code to work in Long Range mode using Coded Phy.

The receiver on the Central is ON 100% of the time, and the peripheral is advertising at 100 ms interval.

The Range results I got while changing the tx power of peripheral is as follows:

Coded Phy 8 dbm tx power - 250 meters

Coded phy 0 dbm tx power - 170 meters.

1MBps Phy 0 dbm tx power - ~100 meters

1MBps Phy 8 dbm tx power - 150 meters

This is way less than expected, how can the range be increased further ?

[Simonr]

Hi Aamir

Are you able to test using two nRF52840DKs to confirm whether or not the issue is due to the custom boards? I can't see a reason why your code would fail. Could you upload the gerber files of your chip as well as attach a link to the antennas product page/datasheet? If you don't want to share this with the community please just say so and I will set this case to Private mode so that only you and Nordic engineers will be able to see this case. 

Best regards,

Simon

[Aamir]

Hi Simon,

Thanks for your support.

Also I only have Preview DKs with me and they are not supporting advertising over Coded Phy,

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/49916/nrf52840-coded-phy-peripheral-problem

secondly, I want to clarify, we buy the SOC Chips from HolyIOT, it comes with the chip mounted and the antenna as well. we only make rest of the pcb design and mount the SOC on our board.

So, are you asking about our PCB design or the SOC ?

[Aamir]

Here is the datasheet for the SoC

HolyIOT nRF52840.pdf