Raspberry Pi 5 Notecard Cellular Connection

Hardware Notecarrier Pi
1

I have a working trash detection program, and Wi-Fi on my Notecard works fine with the raspberry Pi 5 and Notecard. I simply cannot get it connected to cellular and to keep a connection. Please help! And yes I do have a Cell+WIFI card.

2

Hi @David3,

Welcome to the Blues Forums!

Can you share a little more about the problem you are experiencing? What Notecard are you using, I see you mentioned that it’s a Cell+WiFi but is it a narrowband or wideband Notecard?

What log/error messages are you seeing?

Thanks,
Alex

3

Hi, thanks for getting back to me. I believe have the wideband Notecard. I just need to ensure it can connect to my projects’ code and send location coordinates via cellular, with no WIFI connection :slight_smile:

4

No problem! Just to confirm, do you have the external antenna connected to the Notecard? When using WiFi, the Notecard can use the onboard antenna, but for Cellular an external antenna must be used.

5

yes i have the antenna that came with the Notecarrier PI. I have it plugged in the “main” slot :slight_smile:

6

any chance you can help?

7

What error messages are you seeing? Can you explain the process you are using to send your data and what Notecard APIs you are using?

8

Thank you for your response. I started fresh and got the card connected to the Notehub and the connection to WIFI is good but when I go to connect it to cellular it unfortunately does not want to connect. Here is the prompt I’m using: "{“req”:“card.wireless”,“mode”:“m”,“on”:true} and other prompts to try to connect it to cellular, with no progress. The antenna is connected, but I cannot get a connection. Any help would be appreciated!

David

9

Ok, that gives me somewhere to start!

Can you try this request instead?

{"req": "card.wireless", "mode": "-"}

This will reset the mode of the cellular radio. Let’s check if you have any network availability before you restrict the radio to just CAT M1. The "on":true property has no effect on the request.

Can you share which country you are in and that you know you are on the list of Blues Partner supported countries - Notecard Datasheet - NOTE-MBGLN - IoT Connectivity at Blues?

10

I am located in the USA. Heres what I get after running that request: >>> {“req”: “card.wireless”, “mode”: “-”}
{
“mode”: “auto”,
“imei”: “",
“modem”: "*”,
“rat”: “wifi-2.4”
},
“status”: “{modem-off}”
}

11

When you follow it up with:

{"req":"hub.sync"}

and then:

{"req":"hub.status"}

What is the response?

12

I rebooted the PI and then went from the top, first accessing the Notecard cellular, then the 2 prompts you suggested. There was no break, i did it all in a few seconds. Plz help. I checked notehub and it did not infact connect

{“req”: “card.wireless”, “mode”: “-”}
{
“mode”: “auto”,
“net”: {
“imei”: “",
“modem”: "*”,
“rat”: “wifi-2.4”
},
“status”: “{modem-off}”
}

{“req”:“hub.sync”}
{}

{“req”:“hub.status”}
{
“status”: “idle {disconnected} {idle}”
}

13

You may need to set the transport mechanism so that Cellular is prioritized over WiFi:

{"req": "card.transport", "method": "cell" }

and if you want to return to using both:

{"req": "card.transport", "method": "-" }
or
{"req": "card.transport", "method": "wifi-cell" }