For the example code so far I had been using the Dragino LoRa GPS HAT for Raspberry PI which after looking at the schematic (to figure out how the chip select line was connected) worked pretty well.

I had also purchased a Lora RFM95 IOT Board for RPI from Elecrow and was keen to get that working for applications which don’t require Global Positioning System (GPS) support.

The RFM95 chip select line is connected to pin 26 (GPIO7), the reset line to pin 15(GPIO22) and the interrupt line (RFM96 DIO0) to pin 22(GPIO25).

The shield had a Light Emitting Diode (LED) connected to General Purpose Input Output (GPIO) 23 so the first step was to get that to flash.

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Copyright (c) July 2018, devMobile Software
//
// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
// You may obtain a copy of the License at
//
//     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
//
// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
// limitations under the License.
//
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
namespace devMobile.IoT.Rfm9x.ElecrowLed
{
	using System;
	using System.Threading;
	using Windows.ApplicationModel.Background;
	using Windows.Devices.Gpio;

	public sealed class StartupTask : IBackgroundTask
	{
		public void Run(IBackgroundTaskInstance taskInstance)
		{
			GpioController gpioController = GpioController.GetDefault();
			GpioPin yellowLedPin = gpioController.OpenPin(23);
			yellowLedPin.SetDriveMode(GpioPinDriveMode.Output);

			while (true)
			{
				if (yellowLedPin.Read() == GpioPinValue.High)
				{
					yellowLedPin.Write(GpioPinValue.Low);
				}
				else
				{
					yellowLedPin.Write(GpioPinValue.High);
				}
				Thread.Sleep(500);
			}
		}
	}
}

To confirm I could access the RMF95 registers over the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) I read the RegVersion register.

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Copyright (c) July 2018, devMobile Software
//
// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
// You may obtain a copy of the License at
//
//     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
//
// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
// limitations under the License.
//
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
namespace devMobile.IoT.Rfm9x.ElecrowSPI
{
	using System;
	using System.Diagnostics;
	using System.Threading;
	using Windows.ApplicationModel.Background;
	using Windows.Devices.Spi;

	public sealed class StartupTask : IBackgroundTask
    {
		public void Run(IBackgroundTaskInstance taskInstance)
		{
			SpiController spiController = SpiController.GetDefaultAsync().AsTask().GetAwaiter().GetResult();
			var settings = new SpiConnectionSettings(1)	// GPIO7 Elecrow shield
			{
				ClockFrequency = 500000,
				Mode = SpiMode.Mode0,	// From SemTech docs pg 80 CPOL=0, CPHA=0
			};

			SpiDevice Device = spiController.GetDevice(settings);

			while (true)
			{
				byte[] writeBuffer = new byte[] { 0x42 }; // RegVersion
				byte[] readBuffer = new byte[1];

				Device.TransferSequential(writeBuffer, readBuffer);

				byte registerValue = readBuffer[0];
				Debug.WriteLine("Register 0x{0:x2} - Value 0X{1:x2} - Bits {2}", 0x42, registerValue, Convert.ToString(registerValue, 2).PadLeft(8, '0'));

				Thread.Sleep(10000);
			}
		}
	}
}

The debug output confirmed I was reading the right value from the RegVer register

Register 0x42 - Value 0X12 - Bits 00010010
Register 0x42 - Value 0X12 - Bits 00010010
Register 0x42 - Value 0X12 - Bits 00010010
Register 0x42 - Value 0X12 - Bits 00010010

I’m going to unsolder the coil antenna and replace it with a short SMA Extension drop cable so I can connect an external antenna.