25 docs tagged with "helium hotspot"

Got a question about Helium? Which miner is best? How are rewards calculated? What antenna should you get? How much will you earn? Where should you put your hotspot?

This was written in late 2020/early 2020 for folks curious about optimizing a Helium Hotspot placement. Some statements are out of date, though the meat of it all is generally correct.

I sat down with Vishal from HeliumHiker to go through his pretty rad set of tools for getting deep into a Helium hotspot. I first found Vishal through using his Challenge Receipt Analysis dashboard which is my go-to tool for checking my hotspots and make sure they're singing. Looks like I might need to dig into this one and sort out the invalid witness issue...

Are Helium Hotspots dangerous to be around? How much RF energy do they emit? Should you or your hosts be worried about the exposure levels? Let's run through the facts, then you can make your own decision.

It's been a heck of a ride so far, from the beginnings of looking for a better way to find lost paraglider pilots all the way out to being featured by Helium as a top hotspot optimization expert.

Got questions about what kind of cable you should use to connect your Helium hotspot to your antenna? Want a Helium-specific cable loss table?

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

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.

Well, the race is officially on. With at least two unofficial halvings coming in the near future, it's pretty darn important right now to:

One of the most frequently asked questions in all of the Helium space is: “How much will I earn?”

Getting the most out of a Helium hotspot deployment requires a strategy to maximize your placement, antenna elevation, and then physically deploying the thing.

The constant question with Helium is, "How much will my hotspot earn?" While I've covered the strategy for maximizing that in other posts, it sure is nice when you have a tool that helps dial in your accuracy. HotspotRF aims to be one of those tools, and when it first came out I sat down with the owner, Aidan Curry, to walk through how to use it. That interview is at the bottom of this post, but I thought I'd check in on the tool and see what's new. As it turns out, a TON!

With a generous assist from the folks over at HNTenna, here's a step by step method for setting up your RUT 240 (the cell modem that allows an off grid Helium Hotspot to connect to the internet.)

It seems pretty straightforward; generate power and a connection to the internet, and you've got an off grid Helium Hotspot setup. Still, you'll have a few minor details to sort out, like what type of enclosure, how to mount it, how to make sure it stays weatherproof if you use an external antenna, and how to vent it.

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.

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.

How do you use PoE? Do you need a splitter, an injector, or both? How does it all work?

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.

What the heck is a Helium Light Hotspot, and why does it matter? If you're not tech savvy, the whole thing can seem confusing. Let's clear it up.

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.

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?

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.

Seeing other deployments is one of the fastest ways to get great ideas (and avoid costly mistakes!)

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.

Here is a step by step method for understanding how to choose the best antenna for your hotspot placement. Each placement demands a well matched antenna in order to provide value to the Helium Network and consequently earn the most HNT possible for that location. Do NOT, by the way, try to get the giant antenna in the picture below. While it looks huge and cool and rad, it is the wrong antenna to use for these deployments. I spent a fair amount of blood and treasure to learn that lesson. You don't need to.