26 posts tagged with "helium hotspot"

On Nov 2nd, my bride Lee & I set off to 4 cities in Europe to conduct a Helium Foundation project called "Helium In The Wild" with three goals.

First, to see how Helium was being used in the wild. Obviously sensor usage isn't huge yet, and lots of b.s. has been thrown around the interwebz about what is and isn't happening with it. My gut is that we're totally and fine and about where I'd expect us to be for a very new and ambitious project, but...

I wanted to meet real people on the ground who are building with Helium and see for myself just how far along it actually is, who's using it, and how.

Second, to rally local communities together so they could learn, network and grow the Helium ecosystem locally. One of the amazing strengths of all these decentralized projects is that they're decentralized. Duh. It's also a weakness, as it can be hard to find focus points where you actually meet other people in real life who are interested in the same things you are.

Third, to show with "boots on the ground" that the Helium Foundation is strongly supporting IoT projects outside of the US. I know, I know, there's been a ton of news about 5G lately. For those of you A) outside the USA and B) into IoT, it has felt at times as if the Helium project has abandoned IoT. It hasn't, and part of this project was to demonstrate that.

Our first stop was Lisbon, where Solana Breakpoint was kicking off. We did the flight in two steps; San Diego to London, and London to Lisbon. On the London to Lisbon flight, I'll estimate about 60% of the passengers were there for Solana. That seemed exciting, as the reason I was starting in Lisbon was to see how much of the Solana ecosystem was building on, in, and around Helium.

As I asked around the airport gate waiting to board the flight to Lisbon (no, I don't have a problem meeting strangers), what I found was that, while most people had *heard* of Helium, very few knew what it was, what it did, or had any idea of the size of it.

That trend continued throughout my Solana Breakpoint experience. It reinforces (to me) that we're still super early in this whole thing, and while the move to Solana is a huge deal in the Helium community, it hasn't really spread as "hot news" throughout the Solana developer community yet.

Now, it's not the like the very first thing I did was go straight to Solana Breakpoint. I wanted to meet some Helium homies first, and Lisbon is the home base for Hotspotty OGs Daniel and Max. Daniel was the one who walked me through (on YouTube) building my very first Helium Hotspot, back when the DIY program was open. For the record, the DIY program is not open now, but it's on the roadmap for the future. I'd expect mid to late 2023 at a guess. Ok, back to Lisbon!

Lee & I cruised over to the coffee shop that Daniel used to co-own (before he switched full time to Hotspotty) to meet up with a few other Helium peeps.

Max was at the shop as well, and while we were there, the mappers that RAK Wireless donated as part of support for the tour showed up. Daniel immediately started working to get them set up.

As Daniel started to tear into the mappers, I got to visit with Miroslav Marko, owner of Heliotics, and Charbel Matta, owner of CM7. Both of them are working on building businesses on Helium, and both were in Lisbon to check out Solana Breakpoint and catch up with the Helium community. Meeting these two was a great indication of the current state of building out the IoT side of Helium.

Both are deeply technical, already have a related business, and see the value in a global, permissionless, decentralized network. It was heartening to talk with both of 'em, and along with Max (Hotspotty) and Joey Hiller (Helium Foundation), we spent most of the rest of the day together walking around, sharing a meal, and talking about Helium.

This first day was super encouraging; we were meeting people who were building on and excited about Helium! We spent the next four days checking out Solana Breakpoint, where we definitely didn't meet as many people who were so deeply involved in Helium. Still, we watched closely as both Nova and the Helium Foundation demonstrated a clear commitment to continue to grow Helium.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxfxJn\_uTF0

Amir spent about half the time talking about IoT, and the other half talking about the 5G plans as well as how the network is readying itself to take on more protocols. I've seen a fair amount of "Nova is abandoning IoT" FUD, but pretty clearly that's not the case.

There were other excellent presentations there that I'll go deeper into. Let's start with Abhay Kumar's. Abhay is the new CEO at the Helium Foundation , and he talked extensively about the move over to Solana.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Auk06eIRanI

Abhay spent time explaining what Helium is, which is something we (the community) need to remember is an unfinished task. I'll skip forward quite a bit here to the lessons learned at the last stop on the tour, Barcelona, where I found that most people in the Smart Cities space have never heard of Helium.

Look, in growing the Helium IoT network to over 970k Hotspots in over 75,000 cities in the last three years, the Helium community has made a pretty good start towards achieving the long term goal, which is to "provide ubiquitous affordable connectivity to the Internet for all things and people." We (community members, including myself) tend to think of Helium as a pretty big deal, and something "everyone" knows about. They don't. Not even close. We have a ton of work to do when it comes to just letting people know we exist, let alone what Helium can do! Ok, back to Abhay's talk.

Abhay talked about the IoT side and also introduced the MOBILE network. He didn't go deep into either one. His talk wasn't about explaining Helium in depth, it was about making sure the Solana community understood, at a high level, what Helium is bringing as far as an opportunity for Solana developers and the ecosystem.

He introduced the idea of HIP 51, the Helium DAO. Now, for those of us in the world of Helium, HIP 51 is old news, but for the crowd, a lot of this was new.

Abhay also talked about HIP 70, which is the one that proposed a new architecture for core parts of the blockchain. Dig more into HIP 70 here, but the short version relevant here is that it allows Helium to move to a new L1, taking the burden of building a blockchain off the Helium community. It means we, whether "we" means Nova, or the Helium Foundation, or you, can do the thing we're the best at, which is deploy coverage and build businesses related to that coverage.

One of the first exciting things that happens with the move to Solana is the minting of almost a million NFTs, one for each Hotspot. The implications of this aren't yet understood, but what I think we'll see is an explosion in flexibility on ownership splits, enabling better incentives for healthier network growth, and some very interesting smart contract applications.

Until I re-watched Abhay's talk, I missed one of the key parts; Helium Foundation has acquired the Strata Protocol. Strata is a protocol to launch tokens on Solana, so this makes sense. This makes it reasonably likely for the Foundation to hit its goal of getting Helium on Solana mainnet by Q1 2023.

Noah Prince from Strata joined Abhay on stage to go through a demo of Hotspots earning MOBILE tokens and interacting with HNT. He touched on security aspects, including circuit breakers. As an example, if more than, say 20% of the MOBILE tokens leave the treasury in some configurable window, say 24 hours, there's an automatic shut down.

Noah also demo'd the Backpack wallet to show how you'd claim rewards. With about a million hotspots, if all rewards were released all the time, it would spam the chain with transactions. The way they've set it up is that a Hotspot NFT will be like a piñata; it'll hold all your rewards until you hit it, at which point it'll release 'em to you. Simple. He also showed how you can redeem MOBILE for HNT, which is a one-way operation; you can't buy MOBILE, you can only earn it or redeem it for HNT. With that HNT you can buy Data Credits and then use the Network.

What's left is the integration with Helium's cloud. That is a system of Oracles counting all the packets that are used by all the Hotspots and provide Proof of Coverage rewards and figure out the lifetime rewards for all entities. Challenges include taking all the current Hotspots and rewards and bringing them into the Solana system. Minting a million Hotspot NFTs at $.40/mint is an enormous cost which they may try and solve with NFT compression. With many technical problems still to be solved, the core functionality of how the DAOs and subDAOs work appears to be sorted out.

Next, Joey Hiller, Jose Marcelino, and Carrie Kellar presented on how some of the use cases that start to occur with Helium on Solana.

https://youtu.be/ckcPH7CBreI

Joey's demonstration referenced his IKEA air quality sensor build, internet connected chicken coops and supply chain tracking for small coffee shops; it's always fun to listen to his talks. Jose Marcelino from RAK Wireless joined Joey to go through a demo with Trackpac, which is BFGNeil's company that uses Browan Tabs and other trackers to provide a super easy experience with using Helium.

Now, one of the things we hear all the time from the FUDpatrol is how no one is using Helium, which is (fairly obviously to those of us using it) bullshit. Still, it was nice to see Jose put numbers to just one customer's use; 1,200,000 check ins from Trackpac trackers since early 2022, all on the Helium network.

Getting a Trackpac tracker to work is simple; download an app, scan a QR code, and you're tracking whatever it is you want. RAK Wireless & Trackpac worked together to track buses and shuttles for Solana participants to move between the 3 main venues during Solana Breakpoint. Proving that the Helium IoT network is super cheap to use, tracking 26 vehicles across the city for 3 days cost 46.8 cents in total. (26 trackers x 1.8 cents per tracker for the 3 days).

Carrie Kellar, the CTO and co-founder of Baxus, shared the stage and talked about how Baxus is creating infrastructure for tangible assets, starting with whiskey and wine. Baxus has created a pipeline for collectors to authenticate, store, and insure their wine and whiskey. They allow you to mint an NFT that acts as proof of ownership and authentication which users can trade or use as collateral for loans.

Baxus is using Helium to provide proof of presence as well as temperature and other sensor data to show the environment of a specific cask or barrel throughout its lifetime. This gives a collector the ability to audit, in real time, the location, state, and history of a specific unit. Casks are outfitted with temperature and humidity sensors, and will soon have trackers attached. Now, I'm not a wine or whiskey collector, but I do like nice things and, like many of us, I've got a Gollum-like obsession with seeing the state of something I own whenever I want to. Watching Carrie talk, I could see the power in layering the ability to get all this data cheaply on top of an NFT.

The upshot of the Baxus presentation is that we've got yet another industry being born on the back of Helium and unlocking the potential present in a different L1. Before Helium, there wasn't the cheap and ubiquitous coverage across rural areas and down in wine cellars that you need in order to track barrels of wine and casks of whiskey. Now there is. Yes, the world is changing, and if you're reading this, you're witnessing history. You can expect to see something like this happening for every type of ingredient and collectible thing that exists.

This was all super exciting to see. From the broad perspectives of Amir and Abhay down to the use cases that Jose, Joey, and Carrie demo'd, this was evidence of Nova and Helium Foundation's efforts at growing the Helium ecosystem and ensuring the transition to a new blockchain unlocks a ton of new value (not just a faster chain that works better.)

What's next in the Helium In The Wild series? Why, the Helium Train Hackathon, of course. My post on that will come out in the next few days. In the meantime, rest assured that the Helium ecosystem is alive and kicking, and though it may still be a baby, it has all the hallmarks of growing up to be a giant. Rock on!

"Innovate, be relentless, and make the network usage grow" says Robert Putt, an early Helium adopter and LoRaWAN expert. Rob wrote one of the most useful articles on getting your Hotspot off relay (back when that was an issue) and has spent years in the LoRaWAN space. He's now working with the well known BFGNeil on the Trackpac project.

Helium has been an incredibly exciting ride so far, but as far as the general public goes, has one main stumbling point: It's not yet being used.

While that may seem like a giant problem, there are two critical (and often un-noticed) aspects: Remember, the network is still brand new. While it neatly solved the "chicken and egg" problem when it comes to how to deploy gateways when no one is using gateways yet, we're left now with a (golden) egg: A giant, unused network.

This giant unused network has two main problems, both of which are what the Silicon Valley folks call "high quality" problems.

First, it grew so fast it outpaced the ability of the market to produce hardware to be used on it. In fact, it grew so fast that it outpaced the market's ability to keep up with supplying the hardware to build it, never mind the sensors to use on it. This caused the main consternation, unfairly attributed to Helium Inc, of not being able to place an order for a miner. Helium built the first 5,000 miners. The other 895,000 or so were produced by third party manufacturers that had to go through a vetting process and immediately have the order ship.

The sensors that will produce the most network data have not been built yet. This applies both to current available sensor ideas like vehicle trackers and soil data trackers as well as future solutions that only make sense when you have a widespread, cheap to use LoRa network. One example of a Not-Yet-Here sensor is a LoRa-enabled device permanently fastened to a catalytic converter. The technology exists to do this, but no one has built that business yet. Will you be the one to do it?

As Jameson Buffmire, VP of Decentralized Wireless over at CalChip Connect, has said:

"The enemy of innovation is not competition, it's inertia"

-Jameson Buffmire, VP Decentralized Wireless at CalChip Connect

The problem is not that there's a ton of competition, it's that this isn't the way we've done things before. Integrating LoRa, satellite, cell, and the rest of the protocols isn't brand new, but it ain't, by a long shot, commonplace.

This brings us to the second problem that comes from having a giant network no one is using -- without usage you don't have a real world stress-test, and without a stress test you don't know if you can rely on it. Clever operators like Paul over on at disk91 are mitigating this risk by building networks that CAN roam onto Helium but also have other networks roaming built in as a redundancy.

This is probably the way we'll see Helium usage grow. For a long time, usage will slowly accrete as more and more fleets start to roam onto it. Unlike the bubbly early days, this gives the network time to work out bugs without catastrophic failure and build a reputation for reliability and ease of use. In the long term it'll probably become the de facto worldwide LoRaWAN it set out to be, and few people will remember this initial build out turbulence.

Remember, what it looks like right now is NOT what it'll look like in a year. Here's an example of today (September 30th, 2022) on a Chirpstack server run by Trackpac.

Now we circle back to where we started, with Rob Putt's idea: If you want to be a successful player in the long term world of IoT, now is the time to be relentless and build. Whether you figure out how to use Chirpstack, develop a new sensor, build the ability for others to use and re-sell network services, or just pay attention to the massive innovation going on in the wider space, this is an inflection point for those willing to do the work.

Very few are paying attention, the field is wide open. The limits are your imagination - it doesn't get any better.

"Go for build."​

Helium is a complex system. If you don't understand it, that complexity can be REALLY frustrating.

There are radio frequency concepts, Hotspot density rules, different antennas, cables, splitters, and a constantly changing Network. Those all combine to make an extraordinarily complex system. In any complex system, the big opportunity is to look for big patterns and useful data; digging into the weeds can make ya want to tear your hair out sometimes!

Let's go through a few basic truths, then I'll intro you to a tool that'll help make sense of one of the most important parts of the Network for a lot of folks: Earnings.

Truth 1: The amount of HNT any Hotspot will earn will steadily decrease over its lifetime due to the growth of the network. Think of this as a pie that both gets smaller over time (the halving every 2 years) AND gets cut into more and more slices as more Hotspots join and the rewards get divvied up to more and more earners.

This means that when your rewards shrink, it's not a scam or a rug, it's actually a sign the thing is working: The network is GROWING. That's a good sign for the overall health of the network.

Truth #2: Over time, the Hotspots that earn the most will be ones that provide the most utility to the network. Utility can be measured in two majorly different ways: Proof of Coverage, or PoC, and Data Flow, which is measured in the amount of data transferred through a Hotspot.

At the start of growth, network utility is measured through the first three letters of WUPU (Wide, Unique, Proveable, and Useful) to provide PoC. PoC is what we're all focusing on now in March 2022, because no one is really using the network at scale yet. PoC is the driving force behind the growth of the network, and is a powerfully elegant way of using tokenomics to build a network before you need it.

Once the network starts to actually get used at scale, utility will be measured by how much data your Hotspot processes.

So, if your Hotspot isn't earning, first ask yourself how much value its providing to the network. Common mistakes are to think that you're special and the network owes you something. You're not, it doesn't. This is a decentralized network built to incentivize superb radio coverage. Admittedly, it's not perfect, but it's not (by a long shot) a scam or a rug. It's an uncaring measure of excellence, and by definition, most of us will be average.

Truth #3: The data for just about every network statistic is publicly available. It may not be easy for the common internet user to understand, but it's there. That's what we'll dive into for the rest of this, mostly focusing on a rad tool called Helium Analytics, which you can find here.

The raw data for Helium Analytics comes from what's called an ETL. ETL stands for Extract, Transform, and Load, and it's basically a copy of the data contained in the Helium blockchain. You can run your own ETL, but it can get expensive to store all of that data. As of March 2022, the blockchain is about 4 terabytes of data. That's a lot, and a great reason to let someone else take that on.

Thankfully, Dave Akers over at Helium Analytics has done just that. Let's dive in to the tool he's built to help you understand all the data the Helium blockchain holds!

Let's start with what you want to know: Is my Hotspot doing what it's supposed to do when it comes to earnings?

Now, "supposed to do" means different things to different people. For me, I look at past earnings in 7 day chunks, and I expect that over time those earnings will drop. I'll typically use the Watchium app for keeping an eye on what my Hotspots are doing (use code GRISTLEKING to get early access), but you can also use the Helium Explorer.

If there is a sudden drop or rise that doesn't match what I'm expecting, then I look at the global average, both the targeted average (what *should* have happened) and the actual average. Helium Analytics makes this ultra easy. For these examples I'll be using today, but you can use the date box in the top right to dive deep into the past. :)

Go to the Daily Data Rewards Summary, then look all the over on the right side, under "Actuals."

Now for me, I'm kind of a location snob: If it's not awesome OR serving a very specific coverage purchase, I won't put one up. I like my locations to be 3x global average at the minimum. Not everyone can do that, I'm just sharing with you what I'm looking for. The important thing here is to see if there's a temporary global shift in earnings along with where your Hotspot(s) stacks up.

The next thing to pay attention to is whether those dials are in the green or the red. If they're in the red, you can expect your earnings to be down. If they're in the green, expect earnings to be (generally) up. All of us who've run Hotspots for any amount of time know that earnings are spiky; you've got days where you feel like you're nailing it and days where you wonder what's wrong. Those are normal.

Ok, now you have a pretty good idea of where everybody else is, and you should have a good idea of where you are. But...you've heard that "everyone" on Twitter/Discord/Reddit/FB/YT is complaining of rewards being down. That's something you can check over on the Rewards Distribution tab.

This is a "distribution graph" (Dave at Helium Analytics particularly likes these) with 3 colors on it. The orange line is what happened yesterday. The red line is what's happening today. If those two lines are overlapping (the way they are in this screen shot, you can be pretty sure that rewards across the Network are not down.

If you see something like this, where the red "today" line is left of the orange "yesterday" line, you know rewards are down across the Network.

The blue area is the number of hotspots at each point. As you can see if you click through the days, MOST hotspots make .4 or less per day.

The left side Y-axis is the number of Hotspots in each "group", the right side Y-axis is the total amount of HNT each "group" of Hotspots made, and the bottom is how much HNT each individual Hotspot made.

A "group" of Hotspots is all the Hotspots that made the same amount, say .46915 HNT that day.

Now let's focus back on the next thing that makes sense for your average Hotspot owner, which is how many Hotspots are actually active on the Network. This was surprising to me; at any one time, about 30% of all Hotspots are offline! Dave says he's been watching that stat for a while, and it's stayed reasonably constant throughout the growth of the network.

Now, WHY 30% of Hotspots are offline at any one time is a mystery to me, though I've heard lots of potentially true explanations. My takeaway as a Hotspot owner who is interested in earnings is that it's fine for those of us online; we don't have to split such thin slices of pie. :)

The last thing to dig into is the Challenge Summary data, and while you can dig in REEEAL deep, I stop right at the top, looking at the Average Challenges (that's per day) and the PoC interval (this is how often an average Hotspot will Beacon). In this case, 544 minutes equal about every 9 hours. Now, that's a rough calc, but close enough for me to use.

One thing to note here is that the PoC interval can be changed on the blockchain. The Helium team will do this in the short-term future just to keep the blockchain from getting too congested while we still have "full fat" Hotspots on it. When this was written (the morning of March 25th, 2022), the interval was 475.

A few hours later, that interval had changed to 950. Kind of cool to be writing a blog post right in the middle of Helium history.

Maybe that's a little on the nerdy side. If you want to check this, you can see any of the chain vars over here, on Helium.Plus.

You can certainly dive deeper, and we do in this video, but for now I think you've got the most useful basics to help determine for yourself the health of the Network. Rock on!

https://youtu.be/Y2O4MeHXNDY

Hey, if you're enjoying the content on this blog and want to either support it OR you want to join a crew of enthusiastic Helium participants, check out the courses I've built to help you understand Helium or consider joining the Gristle Crüe! Thanks so much for reading, and have a rad day!

Archived Comments​

Chris Rowse - 6/27/2022​

Hi, Tries Helium Analytics .... looks like the last ETL date was 11 May Has it gone? Thanks Chris

Nik - 6/27/2022​

Hi Chris, nope, it's still up, the ETL is behind though.

Do you have the best antenna for your location? What kind of coverage is your Helium Hotspot providing? Is the location you've identified as good on Helium.Vision actually that good?

https://youtu.be/beHpEHt0wQU

The way to answer these questions definitively is to test your setup. No amount of simulation, prediction, or just thinking (or even hoping) will replace the stone-cold facts of an actual test.

I've covered a few ways to test various components, but this time we'll dig in to where the rubber meets the road:

QUESTION: How will a specific antenna at a specific proposed location actually perform?​

Let's start by defining what kind of data you'd need to answer that question.

First, you're going to want to know if your ANTENNA is actually working, and how well it's working.

Second, you'll want to know HOW MANY Hotspots your proposed location can be witnessed by. Since beacons & witnesses are two sides of the same coin, it's pretty reasonable to assume that "if they can hear you, you can hear them." Yes, that's an assumption. Yes, I'm familiar with the assumption ASS-U-ME problem. This particular assumption is very likely to be useful, though it may not be as accurate as we'd like.

Third, if you plan on actually using the Helium Network (which is where all the long term profits are), a test should show you what kind of coverage your proposed location will provide beyond just being witnessed by other Hotspots.

I'm using a GLAMOS Walker, along with its companion app/site, to do my testing.

Here's how it works in broad strokes, then we'll dig into the details.

1. Set up the GLAMOS.​

2. Take the GLAMOS to your proposed location, attach the antenna(s) you're going to use or test, and fire off a bunch of beacons.​

3. Head back over to the GLAMOS app to see your results.​

GLAMOS SET UP - PART 1​

The set up is straightforward. Slaven, the creator of the GLAMOS, gives world class support, so if you get stuck when you're going through the directions, check in on the Discord #glamos channel for help from him or the GLAMOS community.

The first thing to do is create an account over on the GLAMOS app, then follow the instructions below. I've included both Slaven's demo video as well as a written out version.

https://youtu.be/KNUkJyHfcTE

1. Go to the GLAMOS app, then create an account or sign in.
2. Go to Devices on the top menu, and Add Device

Now add in the Serial Number and DevEUI of your device. You should have received an email with these when you bought the GLAMOS, so you can just copy/paste 'em in. Or, like me, you can miss the email, turn the GLAMOS on and go to Settings --> Keys then manually type 'em in.

Trust me, you should use the copy/paste option. :)

Ok, so you might think now that all you've got to do is attach the antenna you want to test, head to your location, and mash that SEND - ONCE button.

Not so fast, turbo. You need to add in the gateways (aka Helium Hotspots) you want to test. That could be a large area, or it could just be the deployment net you're using. If you'd like to test all the gateways within a radius of a point, you'll need to set that up. Here's how:

Go to the Menu bar at the top of the app and click on Gateways, then click on the Add Gateway button.

Every Gateway has to know what Server it's going to use. In this case, we're using Helium, but the GLAMOS can also be used for other protocols & projects.

Now you've got a choice: Do you want to test a very specific part of the Network, say a few Helium Hotspots you've deployed to see if they can "see" each other, or do you want to do testing of all gateways over a wider area? I wanted to test a couple antennas over a wide area, so I chose "Add all gateways in range to server", like this:

Select a center point and a radius, then let 'er rip.

Back in the Gateways menu you'll now see your new Server, woohoo! Cool, so now your GLAMOS knows what to do. Next up is telling it who to do it with. You'll need to get it connected to your Console account on the Helium Network. Yep, the data credits to run this thing will come from your account. Relax, it's pennies.

PART 2: PROVISION GLAMOS ON HELIUM CONSOLE​

Slaven, the creator of the GLAMOS, has made a little vid for ya on how to navigate this.

https://youtu.be/pwa3mXbS3x8

Just in case you need that decoder script link from the video, here it is. The one I started with is below, but that's being updated all the time. Use the link for the latest version.

function Decoder(bytes, port) { 
  // Decode an uplink message from a buffer (array) of bytes to an object of fields. 
  //Decoder for GLAMOS Walker device. 
  
  var decoded = {}; 
  
  decoded.latitude = ((bytes[0]<<16)>>>0) + ((bytes[1]<<8)>>>0) + bytes[2]; 
  decoded.latitude  = (decoded.latitude / 16777215.0 * 180) - 90; 
  decoded.latitude = +decoded.latitude .toFixed(7); 
  
  decoded.longitude = ((bytes[3]<<16)>>>0) + ((bytes[4]<<8)>>>0) + bytes[5]; 
  decoded.longitude = (decoded.longitude / 16777215.0 * 360) - 180;
  decoded.longitude = +decoded.longitude .toFixed(7); 
  
  var altValue = ((bytes[6]<<8)>>>0) + bytes[7]; 
  var sign = bytes[6] & (1 << 7); 
  if(sign) 
  { 
    decoded.altitude = 0xFFFF0000 | altValue; 
  } 
  else 
  { 
    decoded.altitude = altValue; 
  } 
  
  decoded.ant  = bytes[8]; 
  
  decoded.accuracy = 3; 
  
  decoded.position_num = bytes[9]; 
  
  
  return decoded; 
}

Ok, so now your GLAMOS Walker is set up, it's connected to the Helium Network and you're ready to start testing. Nice work!

TESTING ANTENNAS WITH THE GLAMOS​

If you have antennas with N-type fittings (many of them do), you'll need an adaptor to go from the GLAMOS to the antenna. Current GLAMOS have a little connector-adaptor kit. I bought mine a while ago, so mine didn't. I mean, you know me: I would've made cables anyway.

You can order custom cables from McGill Microwave. I'd recommend 4-5' of LMR 240, and get SMA-Male and N-Male connectors. Obvi you can use the GLAMOS to test antenna cables as well, so if you want to get wild order different lengths and types, but for now we'll keep it simple.

Cables are generally a good idea because standing too close to the antenna when you test it can skew the results. I made one that was 4' long so I can sit at the base of my testing rig and work the GLAMOS away from the antenna.

I start by checking to make sure the antenna is actually working and all my connections are good. For this, I use a little VNA I got off Banggood, though you can get 'em off Amazon as well. Here's a VSWR reading of 1.267 off the HNTenna, excellent as usual. For the purposes of this test we just want to make sure the VSWR is lower than 2. All of the antennas in this test were between 1.175 and 1.367. So far, so good.

Now to test with the GLAMOS! I followed Slaven's advice and set up the GLAMOS to send 10 messages each time. I did that 2 times for each antenna, so I had decent numbers to work with.

You can find this setting in the GLAMOS under SEND - MULTI --> SAME SF(loop) -- REPEAT (set that to 10x).

The readings off a single packet don't give you enough data to make a good decision. Data credits are cheap as chips, so burn 'em up. In this case I tested 5 antennas 20 times each, and with a few misfires I managed to spend 277 DC. Whoop de doo. You get 10,000 DC for $1 US.

I spent the next hour just mounting, connecting, testing, disconnecting, mounting, reconnecting, testing, disconnecting...

Once you're done testing, head back to a computer and pull up the GLAMOS app so you can dig into the data. You can look at the data on the GLAMOS in the field if you want, but I like big screens. On your desktop in the app, go to Analytics, select the Device, Date, Time, and Type of test, then filter and fidget and sort to your heart's delight.

The results from this test of 5 antennas were pretty cool, at least for me. I tested the HNTenna, a Laird 6 dBi, 2 eBay cheapies, and the giant 13 dBi sector antenna I used before I knew what I was doing. Here are the results.

The obvious takeaway is wrong, just FYI. I threw that 13 dBi in there just to see what would happen, knowing it would have skewed results. Remember, every 3 dB is a doubling in power, so a 13 dBi is pushing out a focused signal more than octuple (what a word!) the power of a little 3 dBi. That means it'll "win" hands down in every measure of signal strength.

I was pleased to see the HNTenna did well, and I was surprised how good at least one of the eBay cheapies was. I would've expected the Laird to do a bit better, though it definitely had the most messages received. For reference, and so you don't go out and immediately replace your antenna with a ridiculously overpowered sector, I had that Mega Sector up for a MONTH with earnings in the bottom 10% of all Helium Hotspots before I managed to tweak the settings and dial down the power significantly so it'd fall within acceptable levels. Once I did that it performed well, although now that I have the HNTenna on it it's doing just as well or better at about a third of the price and a hundreth of the install hassle.

The GLAMOS app really lets you dig around in the data, listing out how each antenna for all the gateways that witnessed it. Here's the Laird, for example:

Check out that far right column where it tells you whether or not the signal would have fallen within the current (PoCv10) RSSI/SNR ratio. That will change with the update to PoCv11. Super useful!

You can use the GLAMOS to test more than antennas; you can test locations, whether indoor or outdoor will perform better, and by how much, and how a long cable might effect your actual reach. We haven't even gotten into using it for testing sensors yet, I'll leave that for another post.

So, what antenna should you buy? I'd start by picking up a GLAMOS testing unit before I went and bought any more antennas. Learn how to use it, then test your antennas, test your locations, and deploy a smarter, better, more efficient (and more profitable) Helium Network.

So...How Does This Help Me With Providing Coverage and Earning Profit?​

Helium is a blockchain network that rewards users who provide WUPU (Wide, Unique, Proveable, and Useful) coverage. The better your WUPU coverage, the more you'll earn. Now, WUPU isn't a Helium metric, it's something I teach people about to help them understand at broad strokes how to assess a potential deployment.

If you want to have a high earning hotspot, testing the Wide and Proveable aspects of coverage is essential. Now, whether or not your coverage is Unique or Useful is something you'll need to assess in different ways. I'd start with my post on HIP 17 and scaling, then check out how to use the Network.

Rock on in your Helium glory, and best of luck to you in your deployments!

Archived Comments​

Randy Armitage - 12/8/2021​

Hey Nik I went to #mappers on the Helium Discord looking for info on how to use my Glamos to support the mapping project. Scrolled to the bottom of the pinned messages, which led to this article. While informative, the content doesn't seem to cover much of what the title hints at. Am I missing something or is the process of testing antennas very similar to generating coverage data? Thanx ?

Nik - 12/8/2021​

Hi Randy, in general, good coverage is a proxy for good earnings. It's not precise, as earnings will depend on local density and scaling, but if you want to earn HNT on Helium one of the essential aspects is knowing what coverage your location/antenna combo will provide.

Nathan - 12/16/2021​

Hey! Great article! Love all the data and very thankful for your amazing blog here! I just recently received my glamos walker (super exciting) and I am seemingly having the same issue as randy. I got it in order to contribute to the helium mapping project and after having set it up, find myself confused on whether I am actually contributing. Testing my own antennas is nice (which I'll try sometime in the future) but I can't seem to figure out A) If I'm actually providing coverage data for the network B) How to setup the glamos to automatically contribute once turned on. Any insight or hints in the right direction would be great.

Nik - 12/16/2021​

Hi Nathan, I don't think there's an auto-fire Mapper style setting on the GLAMOS. It's designed built to test a bunch of different specific spots to make sure a sensor at that spot can reach a gateway, not to continuously beacon in order to provide coverage. I'll change the name of the post, as it seems to be misleading people.

Ben - 12/25/2021​

Hey Nik, question about this assumption made in the article — “Second, you’ll want to know HOW MANY Hotspots your proposed location can be witnessed by. Since beacons & witnesses are two sides of the same coin, it’s pretty reasonable to assume that “if they can hear you, you can hear them.” I’ve just gotten and set up my miner recently, inside, stock antenna, 650 ft above the ground in a high rise overlooking the suburbs (for background). I’m actually finding that this assumption doesn’t seem to be true, in that I’m getting people witnessing my beacons for 55km+ but I don’t seem to be able to connect with anyone beyond a kilometer of me. Any ideas or thoughts? I’ve read about the principle of antenna reciprocity, and the only think I can think of is maybe the window that’s in front of the antenna is blocking really weak signals and making them impossible to distinguish from noise.

Nik - 12/26/2021​

Hi Ben, it's not technically correct, it's just a useful model to use. It's likely that many hotspots around you are not as well placed. Think about this as well; you always get to know what hotspots witnessed your beacon, but you don't always win the lottery to witness the beacons of other hotspots.

Tom - 1/12/2022​

Hey Nik, off topic here but I heard you on the Hotspot Podcast and you did a great job. My question is, you me mentioned T-Mo approaching a large hotspot fleet owner with a threat to cut them off. I could not find anything on this(articles, etc.). Is there a link you could share? Thanks as always and congrats on your Helium community Noble award. (you got my vote!) Tom

Nik - 1/12/2022​

Hi Tom, thanks! Nothing I can share on that beyond the podcast convo; the fleet owner is pretty private.

Tom - 1/12/2022​

Fully understand. Thanks.

Helium is a rapidly growing and wild ecosystem. Like any other new ecosystem, things are constantly changing, and the main sources of information most new users rely on (Explorer and the Helium app) can be up 48 hours behind.

That means when you check your Hotspot via Explorer on Tuesday, you could be looking at Sunday's information when it comes to whether or not you're relayed, or whether your Hotspot is online.

This isn't because Helium lnc likes to be slow, it's because the whole thing is so popular and grew so fast that the reporting side of things hasn't caught up yet. That, by the way, is a very non-technical explanation. The actual explanation is deeply technical. In any event...what do you do when your Hotspot stops working?

What I've found with hotspots over the course of consulting sessions with hundreds of clients and moderating the official Helium Discord since last spring is 2 main facts:

1. If you have a problem, you're probably not alone. There IS a solution or at least an explanation, you just have to find it.
2. If you haven't made any adjustments and your hotspot suddenly goes offline, the absolute best thing to do is wait, usually 48 hours.

With all that said, if you're absolutely driven to do SOMETHING because your hotspot is having problems, here are a few resources to use as you get it sorted out.

Helium Power User Superpower #1​

First, and this isn't what you want to hear, but patience is a superpower when it comes to Helium. If you have your hotspot plugged into power and an ethernet cable (NOT on WiFi), your next best step to earn maximum HNT is probably to go fishing for a week. That's not the way most of us are used to solving problems, but if you've got a production hotspot and you haven't changed anything, there's not a whole lot to do.

If you DID change something (swapped the antenna, moved the hotspot, reasserted the location, etc), use Superpower #1.

Helium Power User Superpower #2​

Second, about the only thing you CAN do is open up the port on your router that makes sure your hotspot can talk to the Helium Network. That port is 44158. There are a few thousand pages on the internet at this point devoted to telling you how to open port 44158 for your Hotspot.

Helium Power User Superpower #3​

Third, the "Search" box on the Official Helium Discord is probably the single most useful thing you can use. Are you "unable to initiate a session" when you try to use Discovery? Copy/paste that phrase into Discord search; you'll find the latest on what's going on.

Helium Power User Superpower #4​

Fourth, the second most useful thing after the Search box on Discord is probably @BFGNeil's HeliumStatus tool. It runs $2/month to use it, at least as of March 2022.

Helium Power User Superpower #5​

As of mid-March 2022, we are starting to see an enormous growth in apps that help you understand the Helium Network. Here are some of my faves:

• Watchium - Keep track of your Hotspot status and get basic info on what's gone wrong
• Hotspotty - Track your fleet and get alerts when a Hotspot goes down
• Helium Analytics - Keep an eye on where you are in the relation to the global average.

What About The Gamers?!​

Finally, a word about gamers, cheaters, hackers and other of those ilk. In general, they're usually not worth it for the average Helium user to pay attention to. Sure, they're getting sexy daily HNT earnings or they have an obviously cheating deployment pattern, but for the most part the Helium team is shutting them down quickly or limiting what they earn. Gaming WAS a huge problem; the Modesto cluster back in late summer of 2020 was exhibit A. Now gaming is an annoyance and distraction, but not really a network problem.

Helium is made up of some of the smartest people I've met; they are NOT unaware that gaming exists, they're working hard to eliminate it, they're very capable, and they have plenty of other things to do that are equally important when it comes to the health of the network.

Rules For Helium Mining Success​

At the end of the day, your "job" as a Helium deployer is to take care of what's in your control. Keep your Hotspot connected to power & internet by cables (do NOT use WiFi). Get the antenna high, use a thick enough antenna cable to limit loss, and make sure your antenna is providing WUPU (wide, unique, proveable, and useful) coverage. That's how you'll earn the most.

This shit ain't complicated, it's just hard.

If you need further help with optimizing your hotspot, read through the rest of this blog or join the Gristle Crüe!

We've helped some of the highest earners on the Helium Network go from zero to hero, and we'd love to walk you through how to maximize your Helium opportunity.

Rock on!

Archived Comments​

Charles Davis - 11/22/2021​

I'm waiting for my miner. From the manufacturer (being patient). Your overview was very stout with fundamental advice that I could grasp. I was about to over-supply on antenna use. Your zen about patience found a home with me, I will keep that in mind. Thanks for the steady hand.

Nik - 11/23/2021​

Right on Charles. Patience is a superpower in the world of Helium.

Spencer - 11/25/2021​

Brand new to this game. Day one my Nebra Outdoor was working great with decent earning. Day 2 and onward it’s not connected to network. If it connected via Ethernet port to the router and worked for a day , would the router just quit working? Eth ports work for other devices, just no longer my Nebra hotspot.

Nik - 11/25/2021​

Hi Spencer, what is the Nebra diagnostic tool telling you? Have you checked out the interview I did on BFGNeil's HeliumStatus.io? Goes beyond the relay issue and into troubleshooting. Nebras in particular can be a PITA. Carefully check all the physical connections in the box; they can be loose. Also look up the Nebra light patterns and what they're telling you.

Spencer - 11/25/2021​

Thank you. I will start with the video. Just perplexing as it was working and now not. Lights all good with exception of blue flashing 4x telling me no network connection. The real beauty of this is the hotspot is at a relatives and now quite a distance from me. I did try to run a diagnostic check but couldn’t connect to the unit via Bluetooth.

Nik - 11/25/2021​

Just went through the same thing with a client (4x blue flash). Make sure that port is open on your network, then test with Neil's tool. Do not use Explorer or the App for up to date info.

Spencer - 11/27/2021​

Hi Nik, I have tried to reach out through the contact link on this page. It keeps telling me that my message isn’t delivered. I would like to discuss your services for what I hope is basic but just not basic enough for me. Thank you

Nik - 11/27/2021​

Hi Spencer, that's odd, I've received & replied to a bunch of your emails. You can email me directly at [my first name, spelled correctly (no "c")], then @ and this website. Maybe your email provider is blocking my replies? Alternately, you can just order the Hotspot Rescue Service here.

macbannai - 12/24/2021​

So far all my deployments are using WiFi and it struck me when you suggested on your deliverance video that wifi is disastrous, perhaps you can elaborate on why WiFi is so disastrous other than an obvious low bandwidth scenario, for example what if wifi signal isn't an issue?

40-60 Hotspots, all about 1,500m away from any other, with any one of 'em having clear line of sight to at least 30 others.

Wait, you want more, and you want to know how I came up with that (with help)? Start by reading my post on PoC cycles, otherwise you'll be missing some key points. Done? Great!

Let's start with the worst case for HNT earnings: You're a lone wolf Hotspot, with no Hotspots within tx/rx distance. You can't Witness, so you miss out on 75% of available earnings. Even with a few Hotspots around you, the odds that any of your Hotspots will Beacon and initiate the larger part of the earnings cycle is low. Short version: You're not going to earn very much.

The next worst case is the opposite. You're surrounded by thousands of other Hotspots who are overcrowding the hex density rules and no one is earning very much because all your earnings are scaled. Again, you're not going to earn very much.

Ok, so now we've established the "my porridge is too hot" and "my porridge is too cold" sides. Where's the happy medium?

For help with wading through the data, I turned to the #gigs-and-bounties channel on Discord, though Helium.Jobs is another great option for getting help with anything Helium related. In this case, the folks over at LongFi Solutions responded to my request and we started into it.

Let's start with my hypothesis (which was wrong, by the way). Here's a decent way of thinking about it, it was just missing enough data points.

https://youtu.be/GtwO3EoJzPY

I thought the minimum number of hotspots you'd need in order to reliably witness beacons and therefore earn the majority of PoC rewards, would be around 300, just like Albuquerque. Here you can see the 24 average HNT earnings for any given res 8 hex using HeliumVision.

The average monthly HNT earnings of a Hotspot in Albuquerque is around 14 HNT. That may not sound much, but it's higher than anything else I could find, by a lot. I spent some time centering the map in Hotspotty on cities and seeing how many hotspots were there as well as average earnings.

It's a fast (well, slow because you're asking the map for a TON of info) and dirty way to get a "broad strokes" overview, although as you'll see, it allows you to miss some important points. Here's what I jotted down.

[ninja_tables id="2507"]

I figured that was a good start, but knew I should probably ask around for help with data that was a little more carefully assessed and parsed. Plus, where was the gold?

Where were the best spots in the country to deploy, and how many Hotspots do you REALLY need? Teling me that San Francisco is not a good place to deploy a Hotspot really isn't that helpful.

So, here's what the folks LongFi Solutions found when they dug in to my question.

What is that saying? What the heck is it? On the Y axis is the 30 day average of HNT earnings per Hotpots. On the X axis is the number of Hotspots in the city. We're zooming in progressively on each graph.

Caveats: I asked for the data on the top 500 US cities. I know, I know, I'm not a statistician. There are probably a ton of things you could get wrong by misinterpreting the data, and among the things not accounted for (off the top of my head) we're missing topography and signal strength/data size (spreading factor) changes around the world. Still, a few interesting points popped out.

Wait, you want to play with this data yourself? Cool, please share what you find here so we can all learn more! Download the data here, it's a 32 MB file, just FYI.

Here are my takeaways:

• You probably need at least 40 hotspots to be earning well.
• 40 hotspots isn't a guarantee, it's just a reasonable target.
• Once you get beyond 300 hotspots, it's not that you can't earn, it's that avg earnings are low, which is important for fleet deployers.

Here are additional takeaways from the LongFi Solutions crew (specifically, @the-wildcard on Discord)

• It's interesting to see how things converge as you move to the right, I guess it's to be expected though
• With the pace of new hotspots coming online, a lot of these numbers include hotspots that haven't earned yet. Will revisit in a week or 2 to see what's changed.
• Most interesting to me was that the cities with the highest average earnings per hotspot have 40-60 deployed, a little lower than what I'd expected would be needed to maximize

A few additional points are worth mentioning. Remember, I was looking for best areas, not necessarily the best locations. Locations are straightforward: Get the thing high with clear line of sight and view to lots of Hotspots. Area is harder; how many Hotspots do you really need?

Now we're all one step closer to finding out. If YOU are a data geek and would like to contribute, please let me know what you're thinking in the comments, I'd love to include you in the collective wisdom!

If you'd like to join a group of like-minded individuals when it comes to learning about and optimizing Helium deployments, check out the Gristle Crüe!

Until next time, rock on!

Archived Comments​

KH - 10/13/2021​

Thanks for this.. But did you forget about the reward witness scale and HIP 15 in your throughts?

Nik - 10/13/2021​

Not so much forgot as "didn't include". Working with fleet deployments lately, they need to start "big picture" and once they find a likely place, explore further.

Brad - 10/13/2021​

Hi Nik, Can you clarify: "You probably need at least 40 hotspots to be earning well, and by earning well I mean as of Oct 12th an avg monthly HNT earning of 14 or above." Does that mean you need to be WITNESSING at least 40 hotspots to be earning well? If so, is that measured by the number of "recently witnessed" hotspots in Helium Vision? Some of my stats: HS 1: 15 recently witnessed. Earning .39 HNT per day HS 2: 25 recently witnessed. Earning .53 HNT per day HS 3: 28 recently witnessed. Earning .28 HNT per day HS 4: 15 recently witnessed. Earning .25 HNT per day Those are all in a metro area with around 150 other hotspots. There are no other hotspots in the same hex as mine at resolution 8. All have other hotspots in some of the adjoining hexes. All are at rewards scale 1. HS 1 & 4 witness the same number of hotspots but their earnings are significantly different. HS 3 witnesses more that HS 2 but makes significantly fewer HNT. I know it's more complicated that just witnessing hotspots, but what would be causing these differences if the number of witnessed hotspots is 75% of the rewards and what can I do to improve rewards? These are all Bobcats with the stock antenna inside a single pane of glass. I'm planning on changing to outdoor antennas 15-20 feet higher than they all are now. I assume this should increase rewards significantly, or is there more I should do? Thanks!

Nik - 10/13/2021​

Hi Brad, 40-60 is just a starting point. Take a look at the scatter plot graphs to get an idea of where the avg earnings in a cluster of 150-ish is. Getting your antenna outside and higher almost always increases rewards. Rock on!

Shaggy - 11/30/2021​

HEY so thanks for all the great info. good pictures. And answering so many questions all the time. My biggest hang up right now is what cellular modem to use I see the rut used a lot which I read it has option to use VPN on it. Are you guys using them? Because without having a static ip address which not all cell providers have them... so does VPN keep it from being relayed? Then what type of sim are u using what brand and is it unlimited or special iot m2m type or just a cheap 20 or 30 dollar unlimited data talk text with or without static and what brand? Anyone with a handful of set up on cell modems using a family plan let me know please.

Nik - 11/30/2021​

No worries Shaggy, check over here for the latest on the 240 setup.

Bronson - 2/22/2022​

Question? ... 40-60 in what size of an area? In the article, you did it by cities, but what does that mean area or hex-wise?

Nik - 2/22/2022​

Depends on local topography. 40-60 that can *generally* see each other seems to work well, although lately I've seen clusters as small as 20 where at least one Hotspot was up in the .2 HNT/day (double the global avg).

Gábor - 4/1/2022​

Hi Nik! I live in a quite hilly area and I found a good spot which isn’t scaled and the nearest hotspot is 30km away with no line of sight. I was thinking about placing 5-6 hotspots in that hilly area among villages which have line of sight of each other. Do you think like 5-10 hotspots will be enough to earn very well if they all see each other? Thank you for your help!

Nik - 4/1/2022​

Hi Gábor, that's along the lines of what the Network is looking for (correctly placed proveable coverage) but with 5-10 you may not have as many beacons issued as you'd need to earn maximally. I'd think about how you use the Network as part of the ROI plans.

Short version: Use a low gain antenna, report your location and antenna gain accurately. If you're in the US, this isn't a big deal, as our radios pump out enough power to get excellent range even with a low gain antenna. If you're in a region (UK, EU, etc) where your radio output is low, PoCv11 will probably decrease your range significantly.

Updated Deep Dive over here.​

Want to read on for posterity? Cool!

PoCv11 is designed to help the Network more accurately assess location from radio frequency strength signals and to keep Hotspots in RF regulatory compliance. It cleans up a few mistakes Helium made early on in trying to assess radio signal strength in an attempt to combat gaming.

That's it. If you are accurately reporting your antenna gain and your location, there's no penalty and nothing else you need to do.

Normally I love to explain complicated things, but this one is so damn simple it's hard to do better than Amir Haleem, CEO at Helium:

i'll try and summarize what PoC V11 does:

adds regional support for PoC - today the network treats all PoC activity as if it's operating in the US. this is a problem as different regions run on different radio frequencies and at different power levels (by law), so what is considered valid or invalid varies substantially. V11 adds regional awareness based on the asserted location of the Hotspot

removes SNR from the validity checks - today both the signal-to-noise ratio and free space path loss calculation (FSPL) is used to determine whether PoC packets are valid or not. this was an attempt to make it more difficult for gamers to lie about their location. it hasn't worked well and is being removed. SNR proved to be fairly useless as a mechanism, so now only an FSPL calculation is used to determine whether Hotspots are where they say they are in relation to each other

adds a regional frequency check - V11 introduces a check to make sure that PoC packets are being sent at the correct frequency for the region the Hotspots are located in. for example if a Hotspot is transmitting packets in the US frequency bands but based in South Korea, those packets would now be invalid

complies with local power output regulations - different regions have different maximum power output laws for unlicensed radios. in the US, for example, the max EIRP is 36dBm. in the EU this is 16.5dBm. currently in PoC v10 the power output is hardcoded to 27dBm for the US and rest of the world, and 14dBm for the EU. V11 will reduce the power output if the combination of the maximum output power + antenna gain exceeds the local laws - for example, a Hotspot operating in the US with a 5.8dBi antenna would have a total EIRP of the Hotspot power output (27dBm) + the 5.8dBi antenna = 32.8dBm total EIRP, which is below the 36dBm allowed. nothing would change in this case. if instead the antenna was changed to a 10dBi antenna bringing the total EIRP to 27dBm + 10dBi = 37dBm, the miner software will reduce the power output of the Hotspot by 1dBm so that the total is less than equal to the 36dBm allowed by law. in the EU a 5.8dBi antenna would cause the Hotspot power output to be reduced to 10.7dBm so that the total EIRP is 16.5dBm

PoC V11 does not have anything to do with the 10 witness maximum, or the witness randomization changes that were added recently. we're hoping to activate PoC V11 in early October. it is currently not active.

But, but, but, it COSTS MONEY to state my antenna gain! Relax, dawg. It costs 55,000 DC. That sounds like a lot. It's not.

1 DC = $. 00001. So, 55,000 x .00001 = $.55. You can afford that.

I know you want to get all worked up about PoCv11 and how it will change things. Relax, it's not a big deal as long as you're playing by the rules. It's part of Helium's efforts to improve the network. Color within the lines (report your location, antenna gain, and elevation accurately) and PoCv11 will only make things better.

Archived Comments​

David - 10/15/2021​

Without sounding critical, it's important that people understand that the above relates a lot more to the US, in the UK where a good set up, LMR400 cable, roof mounted several metres above your house with good line of sight will still see a RAK 5.8 reach 4-5 hexes if you're lucky due to the already reduced power (I have 24 hotspots in a variety of environments running and have tried multiple antenna in multiple locations for weeks at a time so have a little experience) spending money on a decent 8 DBI makes a huge difference in HNT earnings here, and there's a strong feeling that those in the EU are getting hit hard for spending hundreds on a good set up, whilst most US users aren't bothered so the "don't worry" comments are from those likely to be based in the US and therefore unaffected - an "I'm alright Jack" attitude and I'd suggest an emphasis in the your writing that it's a US focus only. There's also a lot of confusion on Discord as to whether the reduction in power is only temporarily applied at the point of broadcasting a beacon and the full strength of the antenna is still available the rest of the time, or if its applied for both broadcast and receive.

Nik - 10/15/2021​

Great points David, thanks for bringing 'em up!

Jonathan Pampers - 10/18/2021​

Correct me if I am wrong, but surely those in the EU (or other countries with a lower EIRP level) can't really grumble about Helium lowering power outputs so that they are within legal levels? If the long-term growth of the network is what people want, surely hundreds/thousands of hotspots operating over legal levels in a country is a good way to go about getting it banned?

David - 10/20/2021​

Hi Jonathan While I agree its got to be legal, the main issue is commercial viability- if no matter what you did your hotspot could only reach 2 RES 8 hexes, and required a good roof mount to get even that, would the current reward structure justify its long term viability and would that provide effective coverage to build the network that is envisioned? If you're looking at a European population nearly 2.5X that of the USA, then it's vital for global growth that it works effectively here, and if it is reduced, then compensation has to be increased per hotspot for people to continue to invest in the boxes and grow the network - if after POC11 a US box with a 5.8 can reach 6 miles and a European box with the same antenna can reach only 2 after it's power is reduced (which is what you currently might see with a standard 1.2 DBI here if very lucky) then assuming circular coverage you're looking at a massive difference in coverage per hotspot - 13 square miles vs 113 square miles and a massive difference in rewards earned. For HNT to work and increase in value over time you need to see continued increased global coverage, people just won't continue to invest in boxes in Europe if it isn't financially beneficial to the buyer here, destroying the HNT value for US owners.

Jonathan Pampers - 10/21/2021​

I agree with you there David. From the southeast asian perspective, we have similar EIRP limits to the EU, and whilst the economic disparity between SEA and the USA might still be enough incentive in the short term, there does need to be an effective long-term incentive for people to establish good coverage.

Mario - 10/21/2021​

@David, thx so much for your thoughts! You're completely right. Got my bobcats on September 7th (2 months late) to Croatia (EU) and been struggling ever since to catch up. 8 bobcats, extra taxes, LMR-400, outdoor rooftop setups, poe, splitters, solar panel, LifeP04 batteries etc. for one off-grid, >300 hours of work & troubleshooting. Not too cheap, especially cuz 75% of the stuff I needed to order from outside of Croatia... If I count in the hours spent, well, the ROI is... lets just say underwhelming. Averaging 0.3 HNT per miner with shifting to WUPU mindset isn't what I expected but still pushing through and struggling. At least for now (honestly). Or maybe I'm doing something wrong but still haven't figured out what... For example, Slow Hotpink Camel has >90 witnesses. Discovery >110. Not relayed, port open, ping-ok. rooftop, RAK antenna, 2 feet LMR400 cable... Yet, in the last days it's made 1.426 HNT TOTAL. Thats 0.2 average a day. I mean seriously wtf, some on first floors or indoors make that much. I just don't think its fair because in comparison to others with (worse or same no. of witnesses etc.) its way less. If only someone can point me in the right direction. @gristleking? :) Anyway, enjoy the rest of your days people and good luck to us on this endeavour.

Nikko - 10/22/2021​

Does your general rule of thumb to place your miner location within 150m of its actual location still apply?

Nik - 10/22/2021​

Yep. The closer the better, but 150m will probably continue to be fine. I mean, we won't know until after PoCv11 actually hits, but I'm guessing it'll be fine.

Vapaaherra - 11/7/2021​

Hi Nik! Thanks for all the great content regarding Helium mining! A question from a European reader concerning PoC v11: is 3 dbi & more power from the hotspot equal to, say, 5.8 dbi & reduced power from the hotspot in the EU, or is there going to be a benefit in the future to use a higher gain antenna in the EU? Is it still going to provide longer range and/or different shape of the radio “donut”?

Nik - 11/8/2021​

Vapaaherra, as I understand it, all hotspots in a region will be transmitting at equal power once PoCv11 goes into effect, as long as the hotspot owners accurately enter their gain into the app. Now, I'm sure that a bunch of people will either forget to update or will try entering various other numbers outside of what they're doing in an attempt to connect with more local hotspots. I'm not sure how that will work out, other than accuracy within a dB or 2 is probably close enough. That's just a guess though. We're all pretty darn curious about how it'll pan out. Here in the US I'm just going to use a low gain antenna (3 dBi), report it accurately and see what happens.

Volkan - 11/9/2021​

What is the implication for the UK then? If I have understood this correctly - we are currently, even with stock antennas, broadcasting over the legal limit. With PoC v11 we will see the overall signal strength reduced to be just under the 16.5dbmi that is allowed (as I understand it the changes will hard code attenuation to deliberately NOT equal but just undershoot the legal limits) Will this mean we see reduced network coverage due to signal throttling? Will this result in a different outcome / rebalancing of transmit scales in hex's due to reduced signal strength? From the outside it seems like a change that will barely affect the US but will have quite big implications in the UK / EU

Nik - 11/9/2021​

That appears to be an accurate assessment. I don't think we'll see a rebalancing of transmit scales, although that's a very interesting idea to apply regionally. Write a HIP up!

Dizzy - 11/10/2021​

I dont know how it is in the Europe and other countries but US citizens have a lot of power and control on our governments rules. Perhaps there is method to voice the antenna power limit so low?

Mark - 11/13/2021​

Thanks King for sharing your experience. When setting antenna gain, should the dbi losses via antenna cable length and connections be factored in for accuracy?

Nik - 11/13/2021​

Yep. Remember, they're trying to measure what will be received, which will include your gain & loss from antenna, cables, connectors. Prolly not a huge deal to be off by 1 dBm, so if you're not engineer-accurate no big deal.

Why My Helium Mining Profitability WENT DOWN?! - 11/21/2021​

[…] Gristle King POCV11 review – https://gristleking.com/what-does-pocv11-mean-for-me/ Check the current status of the Helium network – […]

Ethan - 11/30/2021​

Hey Nik, As of today (11/30/2021), with SNR being removed from the calculation and leaving only RSSI, do you have the RSSI limits that would make a witness event 'invalid' or 'valid'. See the following link for the previous POcv10 SNR vs RSSI limits graph. Let me know if the link doesn't work. https://ibb.co/8PZ7gk4

Nik - 11/30/2021​

I don't think we've moved to PoCv11 yet Ethan, so the old chart is still in play.

Jay - 12/11/2021​

I have a 6dbi with 30' feet of lmr400. I input it at 5.8 because I know there is some loss with 30' of cable. Not sure if I did it right but I guess will see on Monday.

Nik - 12/11/2021​

Technically that amount of cable loss will be 1.4 plus your connectors, so you're closer to 4.6, maybe 4.5.

Renas - 12/13/2021​

Hey Nik, great post. Will pocV11 regulate power in both transmit and receive or just transmit? Are the power limitations only dependant on what antenna gain you input in the app or can Helium detect your actual power? If it is merely dependant on what you input in the app, could you not in theory still use a 8 dBi and input 3 dBi in the app in an attempt to not get your power limited? Thanks in advance!

Nik - 12/13/2021​

Hi Renas, PoCv11 evaluates signals on both sides, transmit and receive. If you put in an inaccurate number, the further that number away is from reality, the more likely you'll have an invalid witness event. Remember, power DOUBLES every 3 dB. If you use an 8 dBi and input 3, your antenna will both sending and receiving an additional 5 dB, which is almost quadruple (2 x 2) what it "should" be. As long as you accurately report your setup, there's no further action required. As far as I know, there's no way to detect if you're accurately reporting or not other than the submitted reports. Helium can't detect what your actual power is, just what's being reported by your miner.

Stan - 12/13/2021​

I am in UK. Following Niks advice I got HNtenna's for my 2 hotspots and I reach hotspots 60km away. That is a lot more than 4 hexes. I also get far better rewards than most around me and a noticeably better at receiving transmissions than many who appear to have higher gain antenna up higher than mine and reaching 80 to 100kms on transmit. Just get an HNtenna !!

Nik - 12/13/2021​

Thanks for the report Stan, glad it's working well for ya!

Dennis - 12/15/2021​

Hello, Love your content, thank you! Quick question... do we need to reset our location and pay the fee also or do we just resubmit the Antenna and dbi gain using the wallet app?

Nik - 12/15/2021​

Shouldn't need to reassert your location (unless you actually move your hotspot). Just make sure your gain is reported accurately and you should be fine. :)

anders - 12/17/2021​

What is the benefit of having a higher gain antenna in EU when the power signal is getting limited so much? If I compare using a 8 dbi antenna and the power gets reduced to match the power of a 3 dbi antenna, wouldn't it always be better to use a 3 dbi antenna in all cases since the power signal would be the same anyway? Also, the 3 dbi antenna would cover a bigger beam path than the 8 dBi. So using a 8 dBi you would lose coverage AND signal strength with pocv11. Is this correct or am i misunderstanding this? Thanks Nik.

Nik - 12/17/2021​

I think you're accurately assessing the situation. I don't see a benefit to a higher gain antenna in the EU (or almost anywhere). There are exceptions, for sure, but in general a low gain antenna up high & outside will earn the most for any given location.

Rob Irwin - 12/18/2021​

Thank you so much for all the advice you put out here and on Youtube Nik, my knowledge of helium mining has accelerated so quickly since discovering your site. Could you help me with a specific bit of advice regarding POCv11 and the UK/EU please? I have an indoor nebra currently with an 8dbi nebra antenna, 6 meters of LMR-400 cable and a lightning arrestor. Now that POCv11 has kicked in does this mean my Nebra is throttling the output to a full 4.1dbi and taking into account the loss for the cable and arrestor or would the antenna now be something like 3dbi due to cable and fitting losses? Secondly, does this throttling effectively change the signal pattern of the 8dbi antenna to look more like a 3dbi antenna or would it stay narrow and long, just weaker? I'd like to know if its worth the effort to change to a 5.8dbi or even lower dbi antenna. I'm in a remote location you see and there aren't many other hotspots around which is why I have been using the 8dbi.

Nik - 12/18/2021​

Hi Rob, the Nebra won't throttle anything, but Helium will depending on what you enter into the app. Take the antenna gain, subtract the cable/connector loss, and enter that into the app. Cable loss won't change the pattern, it'll just weaken the signal throughout that pattern.

Mario - 12/19/2021​

Hi Nik. You said it’s not a big deal as long as I'm playing by the rules... but in my case it's a huge deal. PoCv11 did the opposite for me (getting 20 invalids that I didn't have before) and earnings down "clipped" by 60% (round vanilla dragonfly). Everything asserted correctly, 3dbi McGill antenna gain - 3m(10ft) LMR-400 Times Microwave cable (0,384 loss) - Times Microwave arrestor (0,2 loss) - 0,1 for connectors = 2,316 dbi asserted. High up overlooking the city. Was making 0.7 HNT before PoCv11, now down to 0.25. Any suggestions what to do, please...? (EU located, Bobcat 2GB, RUT240)

Nik - 12/19/2021​

Hi Mario, interesting that you're doing everything "right" and your earnings went down. My *guess* is that your invalids are coming from nearby hotspots who haven't updated their antenna gain, which will change the reported values into the involid zone. That's just my guess. It's an off grid?

Stefan - 12/20/2021​

Nothing actually changed since POCV11, my hotspot is 150m away from the real location and my antenne dbi is 5 instead of 4. So POCV11 isn't a big deal....

Nik - 12/20/2021​

100%, thank you Stefan!

Hi - 12/23/2021​

Hi everyone :) one question. Where did 16,5 dbm came from when in Europe MAX EIPR = 25mw and this is 14 dbm. In that case we cannot use any antenna or I missing someting?

DimmiD - 12/28/2021​

Hi Nik! I understand, that PoCv11 reduces the power of the transmitted signal. But what does mean " PoCv11 evaluates signals on both sides, transmit and receive" for the receiving side? Is the receiving (the witnessing) miner applying its antenna gain mathematically to the physically measured RSSI? Best Regards! Dimmi

Nik - 12/28/2021​

The final "number" used to assess antenna signal strength takes into account both the gain on the tx side and the sensitivity (gain) on the rx side.

Matthew Yim - 12/30/2021​

I bought the RAK 8dbi antenna from them direct and it comes with a 3ft cable but they don’t specify the type of cable it is. I recently just switched from a 5.8 dbi and I noticed my earnings decreased by about half, that is after a day of increasing by 15%. What should I put in for the antenna gain in my settings? Lastly, I’m in the suburbs (ASHBURN, Va, USA) and my miner is 9 meters up on the second floor window with a decent view outside. Do you think 5.8dbi would be better? Regardless both antennas came with cables that were no specified so I don’t know what to put for the gain?!? What’s a ballpark I should put because I have just been putting the antenna gain.

Nik - 12/30/2021​

A day isn't long enough to make a good decision. You're fine to just put 5.8 in the app, though if you want, you can account for cable loss. I don't think it'll make a huge difference.

Matthew Yim - 12/30/2021​

Thanks nick but from what I have specified do you think 5.8dbi or 8dbi is better?

Matthew Yim - 12/30/2021​

Also when I compare the same hotspot that I witness, I am trying to compare the RSSI and SNR values. Is a better signal a lower negative number for RSSI and a higher more positive number for SNR?

Nik - 12/30/2021​

Best to test it, but for now, read this.

Matthew Yim - 12/30/2021​

Will do thanks! But could you address my final question? I have been comparing the witness transactions between the same beaconer (5.8dbi antenna vs 8dbi antenna). I noticed that while the RSSI values are LESS NEGATIVE for the 8dbi, for the most part, and the SNR is MORE NEGATIVE (these are in comparison to the 5.8dbi). Does a LESS NEGATIVE RSSI such as -101 vs -103 mean a stronger signal? Also, in terms of SNR, is a MORE NEGATIVE SNR better, such as -5 vs 5? Thank you!

Nik - 12/30/2021​

Yes, -101 is stronger than -103. Totally worth reading this article on RSSI & SNR as it relates to Helium.

Why My Helium Mining Profitability WENT DOWN?! – PennsylvaniaDigitalNews.com - 1/9/2022​

[…] Gristle King POCV11 review – https://gristleking.com/what-does-pocv11-mean-for-me/ Check the current status of the Helium network – […]

Mark Hallworth - 1/22/2022​

Hello Nik, thanks for the great posts as usual always very informative, not sure if you remember me i was getting the RAK 5.8dbi antenna on a 10ft pole, its been doing really well, just to let everyone know it witnessed a beacon 189km away which is approx 116miles i was gobsmacked, so pocv11 doesnt seem to reduce or limit the receiving side of the antenna, ive also sent a beacon myself 109km so pretty good stats, it can also witness local hotspots to me, this is on 9metres of lmr400 mcgill microwave cable, i havent added the loss yet but i will be doing, i do have a question, would i benefit from trying an 8dbi, as some hotspots im witnessing are also being witnessed in red areas which affets rewards, so was looking to go even farther away to green areas so they are less prone to send a beacon to those red ones. Cheers.

Nik - 1/22/2022​

Right on! No need to go to an 8 dBi, you typically won't see a huge difference in range when you go up in dBi with LoRa. Higher gain is used more to punch through known obstacles. PoCv11 won't effect your gain at all on the receiving side (as far as I know), it'll just take it into account. It will, however, dial you back on the tx side if you're over the legal limit.

Terry - 2/4/2022​

Hi.. from the UK here and i have been putting 3.5 for my 4db antenna with 5mtr LMR400 cable... is that correct or should i just leave at 4? Reading up through the thread it seems to suggest that helium will throttle the power and rx dependant on what is sees set, is this the correct assumption?

Nik - 2/4/2022​

Hi Terry, Helium will only throttle power if your gain takes you over the legal limit.

Steve - 2/8/2022​

I know someone asked above, but surely people arent going to update their antenna (EU) UNLESS they get invalid warnings. Its not a guarantee leaving a lower dbi in the app and using a higher dbi antenna will result in this, until tried. So surely people are going to try to keep a higher transmit power

Nik - 2/8/2022​

That's a reasonable assumption, though I bet people will be driven more by earnings than invalid warnings. ;)

Drei - 2/9/2022​

In the UK and I just got my miners. Looking around me the reward has dropped drastically. I also have 2 bobcats which I may not get to use. Is there any point getting any better antennas? I was thinking to use a 12dbi inside the loft and another 4 to 6 dbi outside mounted on the chimney, this would be with 2 different hotspots, or maybe one in the back garden, but won't be doing much for distance, maybe 50 meters max. Or just stick to 1 hotspot. if so which way? In the loft with a stronger antenna and removing around 5dbi from it? Or the external one of 6dbi or 4dbi and reporting it like you suggested at -1.4dbi.

Nik - 2/9/2022​

One hotspot per location is best practice. External antennas almost always outperform ones indoors. Remember to report the EIRP, not actual cable loss. So, ANTENNA GAIN minus CABLE LOSS is what you enter into the app. If you had a 6 dBi antenna with 1.2 dB of cable loss, you'd report an antenna with a 4.8 gain. Does that make sense?

Patrick - 2/12/2022​

Hi Nik, Thank you for all your great support to the Helium community! I think I read somewhere that you used to like patch/directional antenna but not after the inroduction of PoCv11. Is that true and if so why is that? Thanks a lot! Patrick

Nik - 2/12/2022​

Actually, the other way around. Prior to PoCv11 they were very difficult to get to work well because you had to offset the gain. With PoCv11 in place you no longer get penalized by the additional gain. Still, you're almost always better off with an omni anyway, so there's not a huge point in using directionals.

Jacobus - 2/13/2022​

As far as TRANSMITTING is concerned: In Dutch regulations I see 25 mW ERP which is 14 dBm ERP, which corresponds to 16.15 (not 16.5) dBm EIRP. EU CE certificate for Bobcat miner 300 2 GB EU version says LoRa RF power is 9.90 dBm ERP. So I would argue 14 - 9.90 = 4.1 dBm is the maximum nett antenna gain, including losses caused by cable, connectors and lightning arrestor, if I dont want my TX power to be reduced by PoCv11. As for RECEIVING: For RX a high gain could still be interesting, right? If the majority of your earnings come from witnessing (and not from beaconing) than you might consider using a higher antenna gain and accepting the possible reduction of beaconing, as long as you maximize your earnings by witnessing more other hotspots. And then of course there will be people specifying lower antenna gain then they use in reality, as long as they don't get invalid witnesses. To have "best of both TX and RX worlds". Since I try to really clear this up for myself, I was curious where you found the 16.5 dBm EIRP for Europe. Thanks!

Nik - 2/13/2022​

Hi Jacobus Great question & observation, sounds like you know about this than I do. :) I'll have to dig around for the 16.5 number, that came from Amir Haleem's quote. I found the EIRP on page 27 of the LoRa-Alliance LoRaWAN Regional Parameters document. "By default, the Max EIRP is considered to be +16 dBm". If you find anything else I can improve, please let me know. Thanks for bringing this up!

John - 2/14/2022​

Hello Nik! Quick question or your opinion: if our current HEX is already occupied will it be worth it to place (on the app not actually) the miner on the next HEX which is empty!? The distance is 250m from the actual location.. Thanks in advance :)

Nik - 2/14/2022​

Hi John, The official line is that you should assert the location where it is. My take is that mis-asserting your Hotspot is fine within, say, 150 meters for privacy reasons. You can certainly test it out beyond that. Make sure you're checking all res and not just 8.

Hey - 3/6/2022​

Hey, for example if I have 7.5 antenna and my tottal los brings me to 5.8 dbi, should I add 5.8 into application or put 3dbi in order to avoid limiting my power output? I live in EU.

Nik - 3/6/2022​

If you put it lower than it is you may end up broadcasting outside of legal limits. I'd just keep it accurate and use your calculated 5.8.

Ben - 4/9/2022​

Hi Nik, I am in the U.K. and installing a 6dbi mcGill optimised antenna with 32 feet of lmr600. Should I input it at 5 because I know there is some loss with 32 feet of cable. I am now thinking the LMR600 was a bad investment due to new POC rules and I should have stuck to the RG58. Do you know the DBI output of the EU Bobcat 300 miner?

Ben - 4/9/2022​

Hi Nik, I have been doing some research and I don’t think the 16.5DBM for the EU is correct. Everything I have read it’s coming back at 20DBM? Can you confirm, maybe it’s recently changed in 2022. If I google what is the eirp limit Europe, I get a global list, even if I search for U.K. all comes back at 20DBM can you confirm your findings. Thanks Ben

omarov - 12/23/2022​

hi man. how could I know what the best (RX/ TX DBI) is according to my installation.. any calculations or advise antenna 10dbi . lmr400 30 meter antenna 10 dbi. lmr400 5meters antenna 8,5 dbi. lmr400 20 meters. and specific calculation can assume what should I adjust my flarm booster,,,>>>??? thank you

Our pilot project is complete, and boy have we learned a ton from this one! While many are still focusing on earning HNT for Helium Hotspot deployments, the obvious move for those of us interested in longevity is actually USING the Network.

Over the course of a week, supported by Tommy and Ryan at Lonestar Tracking, Matthew at Digital Matter, Travis at Helium, and Jeremy C (@jerm on Discord), I deployed 2 off-grid Helium Hotspots high in the mountains of Utah (one at over 8,000' and one above 11,000') to track 30+ paragliders as they flew during the annual Red Rocks Fly In as well as raced during the inaugural X Red Rocks Hike & Fly race.

I've written about the prep for that here, as well as how paragliding got me into Helium. For now, let's follow along with what it looks like when you actually deploy Helium Hotspots for real world usage.

It started with the usual last minute scramble to get everything ready for a big project. The night before I was out in the shop cutting masts and prepping enclosures to make sure I had everything ready for a big week! During the past year, I've learned a bunch about getting these things out in the wild. The latest improvement I learned from a client (thanks Dave H!) was using these little tripods for a "plant it anywhere" setup that's easy to carry.

When you get where you're going, just fasten the tripods into the ground with long lag bolts and you're set!

The trackers I used were Digital Matter Oyster trackers, about 160 grams and the size of a few phones stacked on top of each other. The advantages these trackers have is that there aren't any buttons to turn off or on, the battery life is measured from weeks to years, and they're pretty rugged. Originally designed to track vehicles, they were an excellent step in the direction of tracking far less predictable things. A paraglider has the entire sky within which to move.

I arrived late Friday night into Monroe, Utah, then met up the next morning with Stacy Whitmore, president of the local flying club, CUASA. We jumped in my truck (which is pretty easy to pick out in a crowd) and headed up to place the two Helium Hotspots, one at Cove Launch, and one on top of Monroe Peak.

Cove was first up, and after a 40 minute drive up a rough road, we arrived at a truly glorious place to put a hotspot. With a view of the Sevier Valley to the north and south, it was an excellent first step.

https://youtu.be/qsoJ-\_zuxrU

As you can see in the video above, these 2 hotspots weren't the only ones providing coverage. Since pilots can get up to 18,000' (the legal limit) the trackers have a clear line of sight..everywhere. We were seeing 80+ mile sensor communication to the gateways, which is impressive!

With the gateways set up, it was time to start flying!

https://youtu.be/ijnTEm6Mrf8

As I handed out trackers to paragliders and watched their progress through the sky, a few things became clear.

First, the Network works. While the tech can be complicated and the whole thing is not yet push-a-button easy, it does work. That's rad.

Second, the deployment pattern of Hotspots becomes far more important when you start to optimize for Network coverage and not just earnings. I jumped at the first two locations because both were high and had great views. It worked, but there were plenty of coverage holes that I could've filled in with a different pattern. When I cover this event next year, I'll use 2 or 3 more hotspots and place them in a ring around the valley rather than on just one side. I'll also use Kudzu to estimate coverage, which was something I'd wanted to do but ran out of time.

Third, using vehicle trackers to track paragliders is an excellent start, but free flight pilots in general (paraglider and hang gliders) need a few options that we hadn't configured in the trackers. Here's an example of the day in the life of a tracker, from the time I handed it out in the LZ (landing zone, which is where pilots in Monroe usually meet to start the day) all the way to the end of the day when the pilot went back to their hotel.

Before going further, I want to make it clear that this was a pilot program. This is NOT what the end product of a free flight tracker will look like. The goal of this project was to see what was possible and where we needed to improve.

Most of the improvements can come from better Hotspot placement and configuration settings within the tracker. Some improvements specific to free flight will come from hardware modifications. We started off with 2 minute intervals and eventually got 'em down to 30 second intervals by the end of the week. While that pushes out more *potential* data points, if you don't have coverage from a Hotspot it doesn't matter how much data your sensor is pushing out; it won't get seen.

A bunch of things can go wrong. The interval is important; if you set it for an hour you'll have a battery life measured in years, but for a 2 hour flight you'll only get 2 data points, like this:

Here's another pilot who did that same flight but had a tracker with much shorter intervals. You can see the difference it makes!

The configuration settings presented an additional set of challenges. For paragliding, I wanted a tracker that could be found if the pilot either had an emergency and landed conscious (and able to push a button), or landed and was unconscious. These trackers were set up for long battery life, so once they stopped moving for a period of time they went to sleep. That's very useful for tracking vehicles on land, but not very useful for paragliders flying in adventure country.

Keep in mind that these trackers only report their positions if they can communicate with a Hotspot. No Hotspot, no comms.

Going to sleep once movement has stopped presents the issue of not being able to be found if a pilot crashes and is unconscious or just not able to move. The solutions for solving that could be creating an on/off button for the tracker so that you can conserve battery at home, when you don't need to be tracked, but push out signals every 2 minutes when you go flying.

The rad aspect of creating off grid Helium Hotspots is that you could put a Hotspot in a helicopter and fly a search pattern with a very wide "bubble" of coverage. As long as trackers are on and pinging, you're very likely to find them. This creates another potential solution for "crash detection" in trackers where they'd continue to ping at 1 or 2 minute intervals if they detected a sudden stopping of movement.

Finally, this project brought to light the usefulness of an "emergency" button, just like you have on an inReach mini.

You might ask, "What's the point of having another device that does the same thing?" Well, there are three good reasons. First, when working in high consequence environments, a basic rule of safety is "Two is one and one is none." Having a backup can be the difference between being found within hours of a crash and not being found for days.

Second, because these two devices work using different technologies, they offer a wider spectrum of "findability." While an inReach can be found by communicating with satellites, if it's deep in a canyon and doesn't have a clear "view" of a satellite, it becomes less useful. A LoRa tracker, on the other hand, puts out an omnidirectional beacon at a minimum range of 60 meters in dense brush and a max range of 80+ miles with clear line of sight. A helo carrying a mobile Helium-compatible Hotspot can fly around and provide a bubble of fairly focused coverage, greatly speeding up the tracking possibilities.

Third, as gruesome as it sounds, if you auger in and hit hard, the impact is likely to break not only your bones but also the electronic tracking devices you're carrying. If those electronic devices are on opposite sides of your body, it is more likely that at least one of them will not bear the full force of the impact and will remain trackable. I know, ugly and terrible, but also practical.

Practicality is the watchword here. The long term health of the Network is based upon the usability of it. Projects like these, where we put sensors and gateways (Hotspots) out into the wild and see how they do, go a long way towards all of us leaning how to use this fantastically cool technology to improve our lives.

If you'd like to see the presentation I gave at the 2021 Red Rocks Fly In about Helium for paragliders, here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsNQa0fL0WI

My entire involvement with Helium started with a lost paraglider, but finding lost paragliders is just a beginning. I am super pumped to be on this journey and to share as much as I can with you, so that together we can build a superbly useful tool for whatever problem you want to solve. Here's to safe flying, to useful Networks, and to advancing our knowledge and understanding that this giant new realm of IoT opportunity available to us all.

To life!

Resources​

Feel free to reach out to any of these companies for help with your projects, and of course, tell 'em the Gristle King sent ya! :)

Lonestar Tracking - Based out of Texas, Lonestar makes it super easy to buy devices and start tracking whatever you'd like.

Digital Matter devices

Helium Network

CUASA - Central Utah Air Sports Association - If you have hotspots you want to place off grid, this crew is way open to having you put them up on high sites around the Sevier Valley. Reach out to Stacy or Jeff to see if you can work with them.

If you're looking for work in the Helium ecosystem, please check out this rad project I'm a part of called Helium Jobs. You can post and find jobs there, help support the ecosystem by making it easier to connect professionally, and let the world know that YOU exist and want to help contribute within the Network. Rock on!

Archived Comments​

Mario - 10/10/2021​

Inspiring. Dreaming of the day when I finish setting up my helium miners (for good) and start to think off, how can I, using Helium network, make other people's life easier/better. :)

Joseph Campos - 10/12/2021​

Great job Nik! Your passion shows and it is awesome that it is aligned with helping keep people safe. Good job in the presentation video, you do a good job of explaining what can be a complicated subject sticking to the "why" the group would care.

Nik - 10/12/2021​

Thanks Joseph, much appreciated!

Reports From The Field: Tracking With Helium - Gristle King - A Guide to Helium - 11/2/2021​

[…] up was to pro­vide cus­tom track­ing for race par­tic­i­pants. Hav­ing recent­ly done the very first paraglid­ing track­ing event up in Utah, for the X Red Rocks race, I man­aged to avoid a few mis­takes, repeat a few more, and learn a […]

Precios Louzado - 11/8/2021​

great job. Is it possible to integrate 3rd party appliances on helium devices as a hub for transacting on the blockchain.

Nik - 11/8/2021​

You should be able to use just about any sensor. Helium maintains a list of "Helium ready" ones here.

Cody - 5/5/2022​

You are doing incredible work Nik. Appreciate you sharing.

Nik - 5/6/2022​

Thanks Cody!

I got into Helium accidentally. I was looking for a way to find and communicate with other paragliders out back of beyond. I had participated in a Search and Rescue for a well known paraglider out in remote Nevada at the end of summer 2020.

The missing paraglider pilot (James Johnston, aka Kiwi) had GPS and a cell phone, and it still took hundreds of people, including hunters, hikers, bike riders, ATV mounted search parties, planes, helicopters, drones, and satellite imagery 30 days to find him. Here's a 20 minute presentation on just the crowd-source satellite imagery side.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UgtrcyWreE

I flew up with my friend David Hunt in his small plane to help with the aerial search. We left early in the morning on the third day after Kiwi was reported missing and it became clear that the more people searching, the better.

We got bumped around in turbulent Nevada desert air for a few days before flying back to San Diego without having found the missing pilot. For almost the entire journey, David and I talked about better options for being found. Should we have a backup GPS, or was there another device or technology that could be useful? We found Recco Reflectors, which are useful if a local SAR crew has a helicopter with the technology, but...not many crews in the US have that.

Then another paraglider pilot and buddy of mine, Zach Armstrong, stumbled across this thing called LoRa. LoRa stands for LOng RAnge, and is the radio protocol used by Helium. As we searched around the internet for more on LoRa, we found two cool options. One was Meshtastic, a system designed by a paraglider that used LoRa to form mesh groups of communications nets. You and your buddies can all talk to each other across long distances using devices you build.

We built a couple devices and tested 'em out, thinking of them as a good option, but to be honest, pretty fiddly.

I found a way to 3D print cases locally, made a couple more devices and handed out my extras to local pilots to test while we flew in the mountains. They weren't easy to use unless you really like to tinker. Not everyone does.

Then I stumbled on Helium. It came up when you looked for "LoRa" back in August 2020 on the Googs. I'd been involved with crypto before, so I wasn't afraid of it and didn't think it was a scam. I saw a Helium "Hotspot" down the street from my house earning a tremendous amount of HNT, or Helium Network Tokens. That caught my attention. I got onto the Helium Discord back when you could read through every thread from the start in about a week and a half, and did just that.

Serendipitously, Helium opened up a DIY program at about the same time, where you could buy the parts to make your own Helium Hotspot and onboard it onto the Network. Along with my buddy TJ Ferrara, we applied for and received "alpha codes", then dug into how to actually use the things.

Here's TJ getting our first one online.

Here's TJ up on my roof, putting the finishing cable management touches on that first miner. We were so pumped to have one up and running!

Of course, I had to constantly tinker with it (it was all new and exciting), and the pole was too much for me to manage safely by myself, so I hooked my wife Lee up to the pole with a climbing harness and rope, and she patiently belayed the pole as I tilted it up and down to dial in the hotspot and antenna at the top. She's seen my many phases of crazy, and she gamely went along with this one.

Ok, so that got us into Helium, but how does that relate to paragliding?

Well, with our first hotspot done, I set my sights on getting an antenna way out in the mountains near my favorite paragliding spot. It'd provide us a way to test Helium Network coverage and see if we could use trackers to, well, track paragliders.

We started with Helium Tabs, but those left something to be desired. Form factor = cool, Performance = Not so much. I put one on my new bike and it managed to stop tracking within about a day.

I started ordering parts to build a giant off grid setup. I was so excited about the whole thing I'd send blow-by-blow videos to my Dad.

https://youtu.be/whRloJZ\_9RE

Guided by Paul over at Tourmaline Wireless, who drilled the holes and walked me through the layout, I got the first hotspot put together and ready to hike in. Here's Paul sussing out the best interior setup in his shop.

I got permission to place the thing on a mountain the backcountry of San Diego, then TJ & I hiked in 60+ lb backpacks filled with gear and set the thing up. Fun, and unfun. It was a giant antenna that I didn't need, plus more solar panel and battery than was necessary, but it was my first one. I ended up having to dial the antenna gain down with software, a project that introduced to some really cool and competent people (looking at you, @jerm on Discord), and it taught me a lot about what you actually want in an antenna vs what looks cool.

With the off grid hotspot in place and providing coverage from the Mexican border up to north of Los Angeles, I figured we could start testing tracking, but I needed more rugged tracking devices. I turned to Lonestar Tracking and bought a few Digital Matter Oysters from them along with a tracking subscription plan.

I handed out the devices to local paragliders, and we tested them. They worked (I've written about these tests over here.)

So that brings us now, October 2021, a year after the Kiwi SAR, to the Red Rocks Fly In and the XRed Rocks. The Fly In is an annual gathering of paragliding and hang gliding pilots, over 300 of us! It happens up in Monroe, Utah, and is a week of sharing the skies with other free flight enthusiasts. This year, there's something new: The X Red Rocks.

X Red Rocks (XRR) is a paragliding "hike and fly" race organized by one of my free flight heroes, Gavin McClurg. Gavin has participated in the super gnarly hike and fly race called the The Red Bull X Alps, held in (you guessed it) the Alps. He wanted to share that joy (and the joy of type 2 and 3 fun) with the rest of us back here in the US, so he put together the XRR.

In fact, it was Gavin's movie, The Rocky Mountains Traverse, that got me into paragliding back in 2016.

Unlike the month long journey that Gavin went on, the XRR is a 3 day event where, each day you hike up into the mountains to a launch with your paraglider, unpack, unfold, and launch off the mountain, fly as far as you can and land, then pack up, hike up, unpack, unfold, and launch again until you've finished whatever the day's task is.

Of course, I registered for it. :)

I wanted to participate, but I also wanted to combine business and pleasure, and to give back to both my free flight (paraglider and hang glider) community as well as showcase what Helium could do.

The way this event is set up is basically the reason I got into Helium; flying in remote to semi-remote areas without perfect cell coverage.

I wanted a way for my paragliding community to have a third option, maybe a last chance, after GPS & cell phones, to be tracked in case we got lost. I know that LoRa isn't a magic pill, and that it won't replace a Garmin inReach Mini with a global constellation of satellites, or telcos with their giant cell tower sites everywhere.

Still, it's a way for regular people, just like you and me, to deploy a wireless network that provides actual use. That is (pardon my language) fucking radical. I love radical things.

So, with this in mind, I rallied the troops. I called Tommy at Lonestar, Matthew at Digital Matter, talked with the Helium crew about what I wanted to do and why, and all of them very generously volunteered to donate time, materials, and expertise to the project.

I'll be bringing up 2 of my off grid hotspots, Helium is sending me a few of the off grid setups that Paul built for them as well as a bunch of trackers, Lonestar is covering tracking, and Digital Matter is providing enough trackers to cover all the rest of the pilots. If YOU want to be involved in some way, reach out!

I'll be driving up Friday the 24th of September and will spend the weekend setting up Helium Hotspots in the mountains around Monroe. On Tuesday the 28th I'll be giving a presentation on Helium to my paragliding community up in Richfield, UT (8 pm, swing on by!) and on Thursday the XRR kicks off. Ryan from Lonestar and Travis from Helium are coming up to help everything run smoothly and to answer questions, and hopefully to help convince free flight clubs that wherever we have a launch, we should probably add a Helium compatible hotspot to it.

I would love for you to follow along on the journey as we hike, fly, race, and use the Helium Network to demonstrate what a small, committed group of people can actually do. If you're in Utah and want to come help out with setup, troubleshooting, lending us a Helium Hotspot, or just participating in a joyous effort, please reach out or just post to comments.

Come along for the ride!

Archived Comments​

Richard Ogden - 9/24/2021​

Life is for living ! Well done fella.

Derek Clair - 9/24/2021​

I am in Riverton (Salt Lake), and would actually be very interested in hearing/talking all the Helium things; willing to make the drive too if you’ll have me. What is the venue? Or an address, I’m there!

Nik - 9/24/2021​

Hi Derek, 8:00 PM. Tuesday, Monroe City Park (Across from Bullies) Main St. Monroe.

FRED GARNER - 9/25/2021​

Hi Guys I am in I have been trying to do just what you are going with Helium I am an aircraft and anything that flies on the airstreams I have track aircraft use ADS-b Sillite Radar in and out of airports and I and also a stock that misses with Crypto and that is how I got into Helium hots I am interested in helping people that are doing what they love and I want to help them stay safe would love to help that is all I do is track planes and would to help there is more to this whole thing. use my email I would love to talk. You every here of Mike Patty, Steve Fosit he died doing what he loved and they never found Him. I will do what I can do I have 3 gigs of bandwidth Please get back to me. FRED GARNER

Darin Johnson - 9/27/2021​

I'm kinda like you. I found Helium by accident. I was watching videos on mining cryptocurrency, and one came up along the lines of "plug this box in and make money." Another one said before you get into mining something, do your research. What's the usage, is it covered by something already established, etc? So I watch more videos, and while some are talking about "optimum antenna placement" and the like, NONE are talking about what Helium can DO!!! So I keep looking around and when I finally found it, IT BLEW MY (language) FUCKING MIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Apple's AirTag just came out a few months ago and it's claim to fame is that other user's phones can help you locate your lost things. Imagine if Google, or Tile, or another company came out with a platform agnostic tracker that uses the Helium Network. All Helium needs is a little push, the right company making something that shows off the power of the network and it will absolutely EXPLODE!!!! I want to be there, I want to be part of this!!!!!!!

G - 10/6/2021​

Hi Nik, Can you please give a reasonable explanation to the best of your knowledge how is this possible. And if so can your expertise replicate it? Thanks! G https://explorer.helium.com/hotspots/11ZMRjPTazmb9Gf2s4qpZCW5yEd9Bb1gbSUhGGiobxjDAfxTjve

Nik - 10/6/2021​

Probably cheating. I can't/won't replicate cheating. :)

Hotspotty started as a way for Daniel Andrade (@spillere on Discord) to manage the growing fleet of Helium Hotspots he was rolling out together with Maxime Goossens and Alexis Argent.

In the beginning we had a tiny script that would send our daily rewards to a Telegram group.

It's, uh, grown from that. :)

Let's start with a little background on the Hotspotty team. Daniel is a Brazilian born itinerant consultant trained as an electrical engineer with an interest in web design & coding. He has contributed heavily to the Helium community.

Maxime is their engineering wizard, combining a drive to solve complex problems with an ability to show you, very quickly, the useful parts of the data.

Alexis has a strong interest in open source communications and blockchain technology. He's founded 2 companies in VoIP and Wireless distribution.

They recently walked me through the latest incarnation of Hotspotty in the accompanying video (vid link at the bottom).

What is Hotspotty, and how can you use it to help you within the Helium ecosystem?​

Hotspotty is designed to be an all-encompassing tool for Helium users, from owners of single hotspots out to groups running a fleet of thousands. What does all-encompassing...encompass? Let's go through the high points.

Understand the Network​

First, Hotspotty helps you visualize the complex math, equations, and rules that govern the growth of a healthy Helium network. If you've ever been confounded trying to wrap your head around HIP 17 with its density target, or number of siblings, or density max rules, Hotspotty makes the whole simple to understand from the perspective of any hotspot on the planet.

Now you can see what the edge of any hex looks like (NOT a straight line), and also very quickly see where the "problem" hexes are so you can work to clear them. If you want to dive a bit deeper into HIP 17, I've got a post written up on it over here.

Collaborate with your team​

Now, let's say you work with other people to manage your Network. You might have Installers, or Hosts, or a Fleet Manager, or even a Region Manager. You can separate out all those roles into Contacts or Members, assign them labels, and give them appropriate access.

Contacts may not be internal members; they could be an installer you just want to use occasionally, or a host who doesn't need to see your whole network but does need to get paid out monthly (or however you do it, this is NOT tax advice!)

Hotspotty allows you to also have Workspace Members who DO get access to the inside track. You can add these to your Members list, invite 'em in, and let them collaborate with you.

Optimize your deployment​

Ok, so once you've started building your team, how do you optimize your Helium Network deployments? By diving into the Map section of the Hotspotty app and taking a look at the various tools available. As of Sep 18th, 2021, most of the tools focus on *avoiding* bad places rather than finding the best places, but that second part is coming, and soon.

What is a "bad" place in the land of Helium? I'd define it generally in three ways:

• Density - Local and Regional
• Topography - Signals blocked by earth
• Volume - Enough Hotspots to reliably connect & initiate the earning sequence

I've talked a bunch about optimizing your hotspot placement (see my Rough Guide for a deep dive), but it can be complicated to run all the numbers hotspot by hotspot.

Seeing a "bad" place on Hotspotty is as easy as opening the app, clicking on the Map section, then clicking on the Hexes tab, and if you want to see specific resolutions, clicking on the Filter button.

There's another cool feature you can use just for quick checks, and that's seeing where hotspots are too close together to have a *valid* witness (the "300 meter" rule.) Here's what it looks like when you turn on the layer in the settings cog, at the top right.

See all those line between hotspots? Every one of those indicates that those hotspots are too close to each other to be a valid witness. Neat, eh?

Collaborate with the Helium community​

Now comes one of the coolest parts of Hotspotty, though it'll take all of us working together to make useful: Collaboration. Of course, you can collaborate with your internal team, and that's cool, but as Max from Hotspotty says after looking through reams of data:

What we discovered is actually quite interesting; most of the optimization is beyond your control.  Your earnings are defined by your environment.

-Max @ Hotspotty

Managing the Environment - Contacting Hotspot Owners​

How do you manage your environment? By talking to other people! Hotspotty allows you to do this in a reasonably anonymous way. You can send a message to any hotspot, and if that hotspot owner ever looks at Hotspotty, they'll see someone has messaged them. They can choose to ignore it, or they can "claim" the wallet associated the hotspot the received the message and start a conversation with you.

What does it look like? Let's walk through the 4 step process.

Step 1: Identify the problem. In this case, I filtered America's Finest City (San Diego) by res 7's, then just randomly selected one to see if there was an easy fix. I mean, Hotspotty is telling me we only have to move 1 of 'em!

Step 2: Dig in and look for easy wins. In this case, there's a hotspot that right on the edge of the res 7 AND is also super-crowding another hotspot. Easy fix!

Step 3: Identify the exact Hotspot.

Step 4: Initiate contact. Be cool, offer help. Do NOT be a jackwagon! Only showing them how THEY can move to benefit YOU is NOT helping the community. :)

Managing the environment: Spawning a Discord Channel​

Another rad way to invite your local crew to participate is by "spawning" a Discord channel based on a specific hex. You choose your problem hex, spawn the Discord (which will open up a new channel in the Hotspotty Discord), then rally folks into it. I've done the "rally" side by working in the much larger regional channels over on the Helium official discord and saying, "Hey, if you're in [San Diego] and want to improve our reward scale, jump on into the discussion and let's crank up earnings together, [here]!"

As an example, here's the San Diego res 4 Discord channel.

Manage payouts​

Finally, you can manage payouts. The Hotspotty v1 is still alive and well for this. On v2 (which is what I've covered in this post) as of today, you can just get the correct numbers for what you need to pay out, but can't automagically make it so your wallet pays another wallet on some certain date/time, but that's coming.

Ready to dive in? Cruise over to Hotspotty and sign up to get started. Enjoy, and let's make the Helium Network radical together!

VISIT THE HOTSPOTTY WEBSITE

The full interview is over on the Toobz, or you can watch it right here.

https://youtu.be/7v19oWawO1Q

Until next time, rock on!

If you’re looking for work in the Helium ecosystem, please check out this rad project I’m a part of called Helium Jobs. You can post and find jobs there, help support the ecosystem by making it easier to connect professionally, and let the world know that YOU exist and want to help contribute within the Network. Rock on!

Archived Comments​

AndyCA - 9/20/2021​

Thank you. Such a useful tool.