1 watt T-beam

[Ryan Wood]

Looks like Lilygo is making a 1w version of the T-beam.

https://lilygo.cc/en-ca/products/t-beam-1w?srsltid=AfmBOoq5qTYmcotX3RmCqePKHnuHbwkHTbBEfx7lvhIkec9JjqtgRBpp

Not sure what legal TX strength limits are.

Ryan

[Moshe Braner]

I don't see in that page where the "1 watt" is.  The sx1262 can only reach about 0.1W.  And the legal limit on the ISM band is far less than 1W, in most if not all places.

[Moshe Braner]

OK, this page: https://github.com/Xinyuan-LilyGO/LilyGo-LoRa-Series/blob/master/docs/en/t_beam_1w/t_beam_1w_hw.md explains that that board has a power-amplifier on the output side of the sx1262.  So yes can reach 1 watt.  But not legally.  Unless you are a licensed ham and use the ham band, like this (albeit that is on a different board):

https://github.com/lyusupov/SoftRF/wiki/Ham-Edition

"Primary purpose of this SoftRF Ham Edition is to operate as an APRS Beacon in hands of aircraft pilots who are also qualified as Licensed Amateur Radio Operators.

The time interval of position reports varies from 60 to 80 seconds (the band fair use policy requirement). Be aware that, unlike other SoftRF Editions, the Ham one is not designed for collision avoidance. It is best suited for:

• monitoring of your flight progress by Ground Support Team ;
• Search and Rescue operations."

[VirusPilot]

ADS-L  O-Band @ 500mW (869.525MHz) would be a legal application (uplink of weather and traffic data) at least here in Europe

[Adam Mościcki]

looks like sold out :(

https://lilygo.cc/en-us/products/t-beam-1w?variant=52020061733045

Adam

SQ3PAI

[R. van Twisk]

Please don't use 1W T-Beams on protocols and frequencies that are not allowed.

That will only congest the radio spectrum and won't do anybody any good. It won't help the person with a 1W T-Beam and it won't help the receivers of said data packets send by these powerful transmitters.

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[R. van Twisk]

Hey,

I was maybe a bit short on explaining why “just boost it and use a 1 W transceiver” isn’t a great idea — thanks to the person on Discord who called me out on that.

The reason I’m nervous about people using 1 W transceivers (and possibly hacking the software to actually reach that power, if that’s even feasible on that T-Beam) is that we don’t gain much from misbehaving transmitters. As Moshe also rightly said: it’s not legal — but beyond that, it actively disrupts how the system is supposed to work.

If all transceivers agree on something like 22 dBm, then the transmit and receive sides are balanced. With a 1 W T-Beam, that balance is likely broken: the receive path often doesn’t match the transmit capability. Most of these radio protocols rely on time-multiplexing and mechanisms like Listen Before Talk. If no signal is detected, the device assumes the channel is free and transmits.

Now imagine a node transmitting at 1 W, but with a receive path or antenna that can’t properly hear traffic from farther away. It may conclude the channel is idle, transmit at high power, and unintentionally suppress other transmissions that it simply can’t hear — even though they are very real for everyone else.

We see the same kind of problem with Wi-Fi. Some routers don’t adhere to the specs and just blast at excessive power. The result isn’t better throughput — it’s congestion. Other devices see higher error rates and start retransmitting, which makes everything worse.

So yeah, that’s why I’m worried about this. It’s not about being conservative — it’s about not breaking the shared radio environment.

Hope that explains my concerns.

On 30 Jan 2026, at 13:47, Adam Mościcki <adam68....@gmail.com> wrote:

[Adam Mościcki]

Full agree ... TX power must must match RX 

I'm licensed radio user but prefer low TX  

'73

SQ3PAI

Adam 

[Moshe Braner]

From the radio tech perspective, it is amazing what can be done with just 20 mW or so of tx power.  It is of course sufficient for short-range collision avoidance.  But also, OGN stations can "see" these devices from 100 km away.  Therefore, there is no *need* for higher power.  If your range is poor, check the antennas.

[VirusPilot]

As mentioned earlier, the T-Beam 1W would be great as an uplink basestation e.g. for ADS-L Issue 2 compliant uplink data (traffic, weather) on 869.525 MHz, similar to what PilotAware is doing with their Atom stations.