It's a holiday in the US for financial services (who I work for as an IT architect) so I'm actually off today and can work on this head scratcher a bit. Back to work tomorrow.
On the Uno gateway I tried moving the radio to the hardware SPI, and uncommented the
// W5100 Ethernet module SPI enable (optional if using a shield/module that manages SPI_EN signal)
#define MY_W5100_SPI_EN 4
since I am actually using an Ethernet shield. I thought that might work but it didn't. The radio is apparently not accessible. I attached a digital scope and I see traffic on SPI, but it may just be the Ethernet. My scope decodes the SPI, but I don't recognize anything in the decoding. But granted, I have no clue.
Wanting to try something different I took a different Uno, a different radio, and made a copy of the sensor node that I made on the Nano. So basically I have two sensor nodes, one on Uno (ID 101) and one on the original Nano (ID 102). The only difference, literally, is the Nano is on a small breadboard. Both have 8" flying leads to the radio. Capacitors at the radios. Everything is within 14" to 24" apart on my floor. In this scenario the RPi/Ethernet is the gateway.
Good news is it all works. I reset my Vera. Was able to include the two new nodes and two new sensors with no problem. Only had to tweak the door sensors on the Vera a little bit to get the arming switch to work. It's all good.
BUT, The debug on the Uno/Sensor node shows NACK errors just like the Uno/Ethernet gateway did. Not as many, but some. See below.
__ __ ____
| \/ |_ _/ ___| ___ _ __ ___ ___ _ __ ___
| |\/| | | | \___ \ / _ \ `_ \/ __|/ _ \| `__/ __|
| | | | |_| |___| | __/ | | \__ \ _ | | \__ \
|_| |_|\__, |____/ \___|_| |_|___/\___/|_| |___/
|___/ 2.2.0-rc.2
17 MCO:BGN:INIT NODE,CP=RNNNA---,VER=2.2.0-rc.2
26 MCO:BGN:BFR
27 TSM:INIT
29 TSF:WUR:MS=0
35 TSM:INIT:TSP OK
37 TSF:SID:OK,ID=2
39 TSM:FPAR
75 TSF:MSG:SEND,2-2-255-255,s=255,c=3,t=7,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=OK:
602 TSF:MSG:READ,0-0-2,s=255,c=3,t=8,pt=1,l=1,sg=0:0
607 TSF:MSG:FPAR OK,ID=0,D=1
2082 TSM:FPAR:OK
2083 TSM:ID
2084 TSM:ID:OK
2086 TSM:UPL
2123 !TSF:MSG:SEND,2-2-0-0,s=255,c=3,t=24,pt=1,l=1,sg=0,ft=0,st=NACK:1
2129 TSF:MSG:READ,0-0-2,s=255,c=3,t=25,pt=1,l=1,sg=0:1
2135 TSF:MSG:PONG RECV,HP=1
2138 TSM:UPL:OK
2139 TSM:READY:ID=2,PAR=0,DIS=1
2178 !TSF:MSG:SEND,2-2-0-0,s=255,c=3,t=15,pt=6,l=2,sg=0,ft=0,st=NACK:0100
4189 TSF:MSG:SEND,2-2-0-0,s=255,c=0,t=17,pt=0,l=10,sg=0,ft=1,st=OK:2.2.0-rc.2
4198 TSF:MSG:SEND,2-2-0-0,s=255,c=3,t=6,pt=1,l=1,sg=0,ft=0,st=OK:0
4239 TSF:MSG:READ,0-0-2,s=255,c=3,t=6,pt=0,l=1,sg=0:I
4248 TSF:MSG:SEND,2-2-0-0,s=255,c=3,t=11,pt=0,l=17,sg=0,ft=0,st=OK:ArduinoDoorSensor
4263 TSF:MSG:SEND,2-2-0-0,s=255,c=3,t=12,pt=0,l=11,sg=0,ft=0,st=OK:Version 1.x
4279 TSF:MSG:SEND,2-2-0-0,s=102,c=0,t=0,pt=0,l=0,sg=0,ft=0,st=OK:
4285 MCO:REG:REQ
4322 !TSF:MSG:SEND,2-2-0-0,s=255,c=3,t=26,pt=1,l=1,sg=0,ft=0,st=NACK:2
4329 TSF:MSG:READ,0-0-2,s=255,c=3,t=27,pt=1,l=1,sg=0:1
4334 MCO:PIM:NODE REG=1
4336 MCO:BGN:STP
4337 MCO:BGN:INIT OK,TSP=1
14357 TSF:MSG:SEND,2-2-0-0,s=102,c=1,t=16,pt=2,l=2,sg=0,ft=1,st=OK:1
While the Nano node, also w/ the RPi gateway, shows none. This is getting into my head. I swapped the radios between the Uno node and Nano node and no change. Is it the Uno platform? Should be pretty much the same as Nano/Uno I think. But I'm no expert.
tl;dr -- I have no clue.
Here's the original Nano sensor node

And the new Uno sensor node

This is the Uno gateway node with radio moved to the hardware SPI (which didn't work), It worked before on Uno with the soft SPI. but w/ errors.

So a wealth of information but I have no answers and no more ideas. I'm still trying things but if anyone has an idea why the Uno [seems] to be complicit in causing these NACKs, if only by association, i'm interested. Next I may try a Nano as the gateway. I have a few I just need to solder on some headers. By the weekend at best
--d