Hi - just to get some conversation going, I'm about in the same situation - have been playing with a pair of HopeRF RFM_95W from ebay and just got a pair of the Modtronix inair9b. Also have been working with Congduc's low cost gateway, currently using an RFM_95W / RaspberryPi with the software slightly modified and for the node a Modtronix module with an Arduino Pro Mini (love those!) and a ds18b20 temp probe, testing Lion battery life w/ a high efficiency 3.3v buck converter.
For a real LoRaWAN compliant gateway I'm considering the MTAC-LORA-915 project, still on the fence however.