I have no red lights nothing. Wait, what? However, the use of 2dBi antenna provides a better coverage. Currently, What happens if you dont update your aftermarket antenna specs on the Helium app? I dont know which one should I choose.
The execution can be complicated.
I would probably put it on 10 meters (+- 1-2 meters). Location is far more important than antenna (or elevation, for that matter). Its an example of the incredible earning potential that exists when providing asymmetric value to the network.
More over here.
The topic of radio propagation involves a tremendously deep dive all the way down to the fundamentals of physics, but well keep it pretty simple. Classically in radio communications, higher gain antennas are used only to cover lager distances with no real interest in local coverage. I am thinking about 6dbi but if 7 or 8dbi will work better then I will go for it.
document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Ill round this out with what to definitely NOT do.
regards. McGills got a wide range. However, there is now a new and brilliant tool available from McGill Microwave Systems which has been specifically designed for Helium installations, which for the first time can now provide instant answers to this question we will discuss this later in the article! Keep in mind that the goal of many ham radio operators is incredible range, but that can come at the cost of broad coverage. If you want to run your EIRP numbers, heres how.
The 900 MHz frequency needs some runway, ideally 50/15m to fan out enough to diffract around obstacles.
While it looks huge and cool and rad, it is the wrong antenna to use for these deployments.
Dont worry so much about the right antenna.
I want to get Senscap M1 with antenna but I dont know which antenna shoud i get
In general, 6-9 dBi is going to be your range, and anything in there should work well. The McGill 13dBi Directional antenna still boasts a HPWH of 18 Degrees and a HPWV of 65 degrees, whilst still maintaining a very large gain vs others on the market (Combined with ultra-low VSWR for maximum power transmit and receive efficiency). Your house walls, window glass and even house trees falls under the category of barriers.
Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. You did, On a mountain where you cant possible transmit behind you (because the mountain will block your signal) and you have an enormous view of civilization and your nearest hotspot is more than 5 miles away?
Forests are RF sinks. Lets analyse the below Directional Antenna and its placement, Good Location Better Antenna Choice McGill Microwave 13dBi Directional Panel Antenna. You can think of this as how a flashlight can concentrate a beam of light. Canada Distribution Open Now Area: San Francisco, CA. Lets not get too into the weeds here. in the middle of the circle place there is two streets crossing each other with car traffic and a subway station underneath Further, in a terrain like this with mountains, the propagation of the RF signal can take more than just line-of-sight signals.
Beyond 9 the pattern generally gets too precise to provide the Wide coverage (the W in WUPU) that we want. Try a. In attic is usually 33C. My Bobcat isnt sending or receiving any info. No antenna will blast through hills. McGill are also good antennas.
UPDATE: HeliumVision now reports this for all hotspot owners who have entered this on Helium app.
6dbi, 6.5dbi or even bigger ?I would say my town is between the hills. 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.
Theyll all work well. Any decent brand from 6-9 dBi will do as well as anything else in the location youre describing. This is yet another reason not to set up inside.
Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh. Thank you and welcome :).
Remember, youll earn the most by delivering the most valuable & provable coverage to the network. The Helium network is the fastest growing decentralized LoRa network in the world. Click Here to goto IoT Off-Grid Canada. Cables: Bingfu, Best Tangerine Racoon Elevation: Second Floor Window.
As you can see, there are 3 main frequencies of antennas in the market and getting the right frequency compatible with your region is vital.
This is only partly the reason why McGill antennas are the most sought after in the industry today. Most of the witnesses its getting are further north.
Itll decrease signal strength if you assert a gain that puts you over the legal limit. You can also run that idea backwards; if youre in a really flat area where you dont have a lot of obstacles, a high gain antenna might be your best bet.
The Glamos Walker is specifically designed for Helium and can be used to Instantly establish what is the Best Helium Antenna to use for a given location as well as providing a host of other valuable information and diagnostic capability when connected to the system APP.
We are also very active in commercial telecommunications applications in the Oil & Gas, Rail, Marine, Medical, Automotive, 5G and last, but not least, the Helium/IOT marketplace! whats the best one ? All those spiky buildings sticking out will gobble up your radio signals. According to some excellent work done by the inimitable @para1 on Discord, most hotspots do most of their witnessing within a 10km range. You can go to this. Location is far more important. Ok, weve got one more thing to consider before wrapping up.
Below, we have a hotspot using a McGill Microwave Tuned & Optimised 6dBi Omni Directional antenna located in a inner town location, at a lower height. Can't find an item on our website?
This alternative antenna design is known as Directional /Panel antennas -also known as Sector Antennas. In search of HNT, there are many things HotSpot owners can do to maximize their earning potential.
Add the gain (dBi) from your antenna and subtract the losses from any connections to figure out your Effective Isotropic Radiated Power (EIRP). I cant Where can I buy an 868Mhz 8dbi indoor antenna for Bobcat Bobcat 300 miner won't enter BT pairing mode. If youre looking for work in the Helium ecosystem, check out Helium Jobs. We use cookies on our websites for a number of purposes, including analytics and performance, functionality and advertising. Smaller gain antennas like 3 dBi or 4 dBi are typically very small antennas for example 300 mm long making them popular also in applications where customers dont wish to install large size antennas in neighbourhoods where they feel may be sensitive. Ive spent a considerable amount of time trying to find a straight answer to this, but apologize if youve addressed it before. These will not protect your antenna from a direct lightning strike. The fanciest, coolest, most high tech antenna in the world wont get you much if youre in a crappy location down low. Finally, Lines of Sight can be blocked by forests.
Check the YouTube interview with Matthew Patrick for more on collecting good stats for Helium related decisions. Height is King is what the McGill team often say when working with clients on optimising setups. At some distance theyre so spread out that youre basically not going to make a connection, so the effective window shrinks back down.
The device has the following functionality. Im going to anthropomorphize this a bit, but their only option is to communicate with DBP. Hey Gunny, if youve got a clear line of sight to that other hotspot youre likely to connect with it.
American based hotspots start off by pushing out 27 dBm.
Remember, topography isnt just hills and mountains, it includes buildings, trees, and other obstacles. Here is a step by step method for understanding how to choose the best antenna for your hotspot placement. Is it After Plugin Bobcat miner it turns power off after few RG-6 Cable on my home from old DirectTV dish - Can I use Press J to jump to the feed. Im in a small building at the first floor so not so high, other buildings are higher Almost always better to get the antenna outside & up high if possible. Seeing many things online and getting confused as I dont want to spend too much so what would be my best options, https://explorer.helium.com/hotspots/11ADQM15ioZM4KnQoTG7sUAfFe73mox61fdSpZmzUFQcFXKjxyy, Higher gain antenna probably wont do as much as getting your antenna outside and up higher. They charged my card but never received any order confirmation and they wont return support emails. In this well focus on the choice of antenna to maximize the earnings. This Lines of Sight idea has an important implication in understanding how some of the top earning hotspot/antenna combos are doing so well. As a rule how long would you run each gain option as a test to have an appropriate data sources to pick a winner? Nik, you are a great help to the community, much appreciated.
Hey Nik, great job with the information above. Hi nik this my location and i want your advice which antenna you recommended to use or a 4dBi(Bobcat) antenna, and is good enough for most miners that are in well populated areas with lot of miners around. The antenna used with the HotSpot and the elevation from the ground determine the coverage offered by the HotSpot.
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Attenuation can happen with earth, buildings, forests, and even window coatings. Water allows radio signals to travel much further than normal; look at any hotspot next to a body of water and youll see it will connect with other hotspots at much further ranges across the water than it will across land.
Thanks for your time, Nik! Well that antenna is usually a 2dBi(Rak, Nebra miner, etc.) Well, although not a classical high altitude location that is generally ideal for such a Directional Antennas (the building is only 140m above sea level), these results have been obtained using our latest Antenna innovation our McGill Tuned & Optimised 13dBi Directional Panel antenna. Hi Lyubo, fine to set up the stock Bobcat antenna outside, I believe its outdoor rated. Kind Infrared Lynx Elevation: 15 above ground, Area: Denver, CO. Antenna: Taoglas 8 dbi. Cables: 4 LMR400, Scrawny Eggplant Panda Elevation: 35 Area: Lakewood, OH Antenna 4 dBi Multipole Cables: N/A, Ancient Cider Grasshopper Elevation: 40 Area: Kansas City, MO Antenna: RAK Wireless 8 dBi Cables: 30 LMR400, Oblong Slate Platypus Elevation: 400 Area: New York City, NY Antenna: Proxicast 10 dBi Cables: LMR400, Ripe Banana Goblin Elevation: 2nd floor window Area: Vancouver, BC Antenna: Stock 3 dBi Cables: N/A, Trendy Rainbow Lizard Elevation: 1st floor window Area: Vancouver, BC Antenna: Stock 3 dBi Cables: N/A, Striped Pewter Osprey Elevation: 20 Area: Los Angeles, CA Antenna: RAk 5.8 Cables: LMR400.
Hi Nik.I hope you can help with this. Lets go through 3 examples. is that too hot for miner?i can place it on second floor of my house but will have to run a 5m cable. This is the location of the HotSpot.
I live out in the country with hills and trees, my nearest fellow hotspot is over a mile away. Theres a chance the signal will bounce off something and get to the far side, but thats unreliable. https://explorer.helium.com/hotspots/1121aRSBSxheung9eFVStXmcV3hsyjU6wcWYkhUNeVGBD8H1qPKh, hi. Thank you so much for your hard work and support to the community, Im looking for the SenseCAP M1 hotspot EU868 Second, for those of you who just want AN ANSWER: Simple: Pick up one of these if youre on a budget (use code GRISTLEKING to knock off another 5%), get this if have plenty to spend or choose from the McGill selection. Ability to connect multiple antennas to the hand held tool, one after the other and records instantly which antennas witnesses the most hotspots in your area. (Probably why Helium chose LoRa).
In this journey, HotSpot owners perform the most vital task by deploying the Helium HotSpots to increase the coverage.
Every increase of 10 dBm has a tenfold increase in power. That means a 6 dBi antenna will give you 33 dBm of EIRP with a US hotspot.
In a terrain like this a 2dBi antenna with a spherical coverage would be not suitable, given the other miners are few and further apart.
Like this: If you set up your antenna so that youve got lots of clear space around it before it hits obstacles, those radios waves have enough spread to start bending around those obstacles. Antenna: Stock, Cables: N/A.
However, given the unique application here of Helium and the desire to connect with all hotspots irrespective of location, the McGill Microwave higher gain Antenna design are completely unique in that we have designed these antennas to push more power into the sidelobes of the main beam giving the McGill Antennas a clear advantage in still being able to connect with hotspots much closer in, while still covering long range. How much power will you lose? Look at the scenario below. And DBP earns like crazy. Georgi.
This is my location https://explorer.helium.com/hotspots/hex/881ec152b7fffff 900 MHz frequency needs some runway, ideally 50/15m to fan out enough to diffract around obstacles. From the above discussion, it can be seen that, until now, there is no one obvious selection for a given location. I havent used a signal booster on any of my setups so far, and some of them are miles from the nearest Hotspot. Dense forest in between you and other antennas is about the only time a higher gain (up to 9 dBi) makes sense, and even then it may not make a giant difference. Hopefully the above article has given a basic overview to Antenna selection which the reader finds helpful. If you live in the 24th floor of a high-rise, you are already in a great place. Hey Nik,
The picture below show some of the most common antenna dBi in the market and their RF coverage.
Id re-ping them on email one more time, and check through your spam for confirmation. Good morning, I have a 9dbi mcgill antenna on the roof at 20 meters height + or I leave a hospot link but it gives me invalids in several hospots at 30km https://explorer.helium.com/hotspots/112gw67DtWkv9oK6kGi3EX2LnKZPAU4D5AeYR1EtF8P42sfamUsW help please simulation , Would a 6dbi mcgill one be better? Even although at the time of writing (March 2022) the overall Helium earnings for everyone are lower, this antenna still clears around 30HNT per month (Equivalent to 1 HNT Per day) and is mounted in on a 2 Metre pole on the side of our building with a 6 metre LMR 600 cable assembly directly connected to a standard hotspot.
It has Lines of Sight to a lot of other hotspots, BUT those other hotspots dont have great lines of sight to other hotspots around em. This is similar when trying to radiate the RF signal through such objects.
As a rough rule of thumb, each connection (hotspot to antenna cable, antenna cable to antenna, or going through an enclosure wall using a connector) will drop your EIRP by .5 dB. Remember, topography includes not just hills, mountains, and water, but all the buildings, bridges, and other structures that might block your radio signal. Not near any cell tower and antenna is high above the roof lines in a suburban neighborhood. helium rak dbi antenna Lower dBi values such as 3 dBi or 4 dBi are ideal for locations especially those with the advantage of height- in dense urban environments where many hotspots are located in a concentrated area.
What about buildings? what would be the best? We are having Milesight helium hotspot, model:UG65-868M-EA-H32. Nik,
That means that DBP is seeing a lot of hotspots that ARENT seeing a lot of hotspots. It currently therefore ranks well within the top 1,500 hotspots globally so within the top 0.01% of the 600,000 or so hotspots in the world.
You dont need to. Topography refers to the buildings, earth, and water that surround, channel, and block your radio signals (propagation.)
or the 8 dBi to go through all buildings through the place ? To the south, the signals are blocked or attenuated by interior and exterior walls, but apparently there is a small window or opening where those weakened signals are escaping, then going pretty far over the water. No RF Filters, no Amplifiers are used here. Our data sheets are conservative to ensure we keep that promise for all customers.
There is also a Tuned and optimised version available for the USA/AUS/AS/IN frequency bands here. In the back of the building it is enclosed space with other buildings Hi.
This hotspot is placed on the north side inside a building. As I said at the beginning, the general rule for topography is this: The flatter your topography, the higher gain antenna you can use, up to 9 dBi for 95% of placements. First: Hotspot placement optimization is FAR more important than what antenna you use, more on that here. Just an update since putting up my antenna. It can record the receiving hotspots individual RSSI received power level and SNR Signal to Noise Ratio levels for a given tested Antenna. Before you read this and assume that you must have a high gain antenna in order to get great earnings, please keep in mind that these hotspot owners are generally tinkerers and often have some expertise in RF theory. As visible here, the location of the HotSpot relative to the other buildings makes the use of a 9dBi antenna not suitable, since the RF coverage goes over the rest of the building. Depending on who you listen to, LoRa doesnt go through much more than 60 meters of dense forest. second issue is placement of hotspot.
Imagine your antenna is a torch, emitting light from it.
Then once you pick a winner update the specs on the Helium app? Remember, location is FAR more important than antennas.
should i use the 2.8 dBi because of the round circle space at short distance ? This is the location of the HotSpot.
So the take away is more powerful doesn't always mean the best in RF world; It's all about how to provide the best coverage in the terrain you are in. Still, you can see why in *most* cases, you want a low or medium gain antenna up high.
As a reward for this important work, Helium blockchain rewards HotSpot owners with Helium cryptocurrency(HNT). Jumpy Iron Ferret Elevation: 34th story, Area: Chicago, IL.
Please can you recommend the suitable antenna models for this hotspot to improve coverage and earnings. Does that make sense? However, there is a brand new hand held Helium Analyser field tool now available from McGill Microwave Systems which, for the very first time, now enables the user to answer the question themselves of Whats the best antenna to use for my Helium Hotspot location.
McGill Microwave Systems are perhaps best known globally in the Helium/IoT community for our best-in-the-world McGill Antennas & Ultra Low Loss, High Performance LMR Coaxial Cable assemblies.
Just keep it by the window overlooking outside.
Heres another I definitely didnt go to art school drawing to demonstrate the idea of runway and diffraction.
Here is a great example demonstrating attenuation and topography.
Ideally youd want a few other hotspots AND have a use in mind for the coverage Helium provides. https://mightygadget.co.uk/upgrade-your-helium-hotspot-antenna-for-a-greater-range-in-the-uk-with-a-mikrotik-lora-6-5dbi-omni-antenna/, Learn more about Reddits use of cookies. Put it outdoors at least 10 above all the buildings around you. They are also a popular choice for internal or external window mounting applications as an upgrade to the stock antennas supplied with the hotspot. As you can see, there are 3 main frequencies of antennas in the market and getting the right frequency compatible with your region is vital.
s it still worth it to set up a hot spot?

