Search results for: "best antenna"

  • Wingbits Optimization: Graphs1090 Plus

    Ok, so ya caught the Wing­bits bug and are will­ing to play the game just to see how good you can get? It’s fun to mess around with the Tar1090 tool (which I’ve cov­ered in a pre­vi­ous post) and see the pret­ty pic­tures, but…what about them numbers? Pret­ty clear­ly here we’re see­ing that Set­up 2…

  • Ready To Learn About DePIN?

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    What is DePIN? DePIN stands for Decen­tral­ized Phys­i­cal Infra­struc­ture Networks. A DePIN project is one where you buy some piece of hard­ware that pro­vides a ser­vice. It could be a dash­cam for your car that col­lects images as you dri­ve. It could be a radio and anten­na that pro­vides wire­less cov­er­age. It could be a…

  • Wingbits For The Advanced User: Tar1090

    Wingbits For The Advanced User: Tar1090

    I’ve writ­ten about the basics of Wing­bits in a recent post; if you haven’t read that yet or you’re new to the project, take about 7 min­utes and read through it; it’ll make the rest of this much eas­i­er to understand.  This is the first in a few of the “Advanced User Series” posts on…

  • A Rough Guide to Wingbits

    A Rough Guide to Wingbits

    I’ve been watch­ing Wing­bits for a while now. They’re a new DePIN reward­ing you for track­ing com­mer­cial and pri­vate planes, and some parts of the project remind me of the ear­ly days of Heli­um, back when I wrote the orig­i­nal Rough Guide for Heli­um. Wing­bits is a project that allows you to choose your hard­ware…

  • What devices can you use on Helium?

    What devices can you use on Helium?

    Heli­um opened the door for a lot of us into the world of LoRaWAN, which stands for Long Range Wide Area Net­works. After all the excite­ment of get­ting up Hotspots (tech­ni­cal­ly, “gate­ways”) up to earn HNT for pro­vid­ing cov­er­age, we’re left ask­ing, “What can you do with Helium?” One of the best places to start…

  • People Counter Update: Many Obstacles, Much Learning

    People Counter Update: Many Obstacles, Much Learning

    Way back in Feb­ru­ary of 2022, I wrote a Heli­um Foun­da­tion grant to deploy peo­ple coun­ters on a trail here in San Diego. The grant was approved, I used the first tranche to buy the devices, and then ran into a series of obsta­cles that are com­mon enough in this world of busi­ness, IoT, and…

  • How Do You Assess A Blockchain + Meatspace Project?

    How do you know if a new blockchain + meat­space (B+M) project (like Heli­um, or GEOD­Net, or Plan­et­watch) is like­ly to suc­ceed? What are the key indi­ca­tors of suc­cess or failure?  Since join­ing the Heli­um Net­work when the Hotspot count was around 7k, I’ve got­ten to see what it’s like to be part of a…

  • The Essential Tools You Need For Excellent Helium Deployments

    The Essential Tools You Need For Excellent Helium Deployments

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    What tools will you need to install Heli­um Hotspots? After putting up Hotspots on hous­es, build­ings, moun­tains, and poles, and spend­ing more mon­ey than I’d like to admit on all kinds of tools, I thought I’d put togeth­er a list for you to find all of ’em in one place. No mat­ter how basic or…

  • How Do You Cheat On The Helium Network?

    This is a gen­er­al expla­na­tion of how gamers are steal­ing HNT on the net­work. This is not a “how to”. Most of us putting up Heli­um Hotspots have no idea how the sys­tem works. It can feel frus­trat­ing to be cheat­ed and not under­stand it. Let’s go through a few of the more com­mon meth­ods.…

  • Does Your Helium Hotspot Need A Security Camera?

    “Do you wor­ry about your off grid hotspot get­ting stolen?”  I get that ques­tion a lot.  My short answer is “No”.  In gen­er­al, I fol­low what I con­sid­er a few secu­ri­ty best practices: Make it hard to find. Make it hard to get to. Don’t leave your valu­ables unprotected. In the world of Heli­um off grids, how­ev­er,…