Receiving location of tag and distances without bridge node on R3B

hi everyone, I am trying to connect to the tag using a bluetooth dongle on a linux system. I’m using the python script mentioned here and trying to change it to use bluez however I have not had much luck. and I receive empty messages. I was wondering if anyone has any script that has been able to do this. I have 3 anchors one tag and the script does manage to connect to the tag it just does not receive anything. is it necessary to have a gateway node? I am hoping to just use the ble connection to get the distances. is there anyone who has had any luck doing so maybe able to share some notes? thank you so much.