Why are antennas popping up over the Salt Lake City foothills?

I was confused because I expected everybody past elementary school would know mountains are made of rocks ...

LoRa networks are not IP networks until the LoRa packets reach the internet edge and get backhauled to gateways that then deliver them to the owners of the data collected over LoRa. So anyone trying WiFi packet sniffing is barking up the wrong radio, and wrong layer 2.

Thing is, LoRa is not that big a business for commercial network operators, never mind oddball blockchain-based network operators. A lot of LoRa is deployed for a single purpose or application by the organization building both the sensors and the data collection network.

I am mostly anti-crypto but I always thought the concept of Helium was cool. If the "price" was competitive with LTE-M and NB-IoT (I'm not sure if it was, maybe it is now?) what stopped people from using it?

On the other hand, solar powered mining with just good enough radios to do C2 and send back any hashes found would be an exact match to this scale of equipment.

[0] https://www.deseret.com/2008/1/31/20067144/happy-valley-delv...

[1] https://imdb.com/title/tt1263682/

They should be able to eliminate Helium as the culprit if they're able to inspect what's in the box, as Helium needs a Helium-sanctioned box, from my understanding.

Presumably self-operated infrastructure could expand comms to remote areas that don't normally have cell service. They makes sense in stretches of the southern border. But right outside salt lake city is covered by cell access.

Would think that crypto would have too long a payback esp if the equipment keeps disappearing.

Cartels in CONUS are typically using regular cell and satellite phones. Ostensibly, the NSA and the various military "Activities" aren't paying attention to CONUS communications, unless it's near the border.

There isn't enough information in the article to reasonably tell what they're designed for. If someone wants to post actual photos of the hardware, that would be swell.

Very strange thing to say when the parent explained exactly why this could be crypto and why it's plausible. Do you know how Helium works?

Do a Google Image Search on "helium crypto solar power" and you will see many devices that look like that.

if you still have money tied up in crypto you can still try and sell it

They seem to be in obvious, high traffic areas. The one mentioned in the video is a short hike from the Utah capitol building. If you hike at all and live in salt lake, this is where you go. Especially in the winter. It seems like they were asking to be found.

It’s certainly less in the winter, but in the summer hundreds of people would hike or bike past this everyday.

Helium though got way overpriced and insane with the crypto bubble.

Maybe they can rectify it and turn sane? I'd love a world where all this deployed helium hardware isn't trash.

Didn't take me long to figure out it was Helium.

I also heard a lot of rumors it was a pump/dump or pyramid type scheme, but I haven’t seen proof of that, only if premining (which is awfully scammy to be fair).

Anyone have better details?

Helium hype really makes it difficult for other real IoT networks to operate also, like The Things Network, the operators of which do it for free (including myself). Why does everything have to be a moneymaker?

It's almost comical that, in this context, the term "legacy" is applicable for 1-year old nodes. Things change fast in the crypto world I guess!

A year ago, that may have meant significant earnings.

Some people carry air-band radios, but largely we use the ham frequencies. Air band would be of limited utility for emergencies since we would just be using an aircraft as a relay to ATC to SAR. Satellite trackers have one button that does all of that without having to deal with air-band.

https://gristleking.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/big-anten...

https://gristleking.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Gristle-K...

It’s a cool project and I love the DIY aspect of something so technical, but don’t love the dumping it on public lands aspect.

is it part of it, is it someone taking advantage of it, is it unrelated?

https://advancedwireless.org/new-2-7m-pawr-project-funded-by...

so there isnt any chance, someone was a little presumptuous with placement of equipment, or is the expectation of vetted experimental procedure made certain?

So does this mean the cryptocurrency itself has gone sceptic, or has cryptocurrency made its way into your bloodstream?

The WSPR project uses low-power beacons to study radio propagation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSPR_(amateur_radio_software) You can buy kits that transmit beacons quite a ways for like $50. Or build one from a few parts in the bin and a microcontroller with GPIO pins. Need a licence for any real output power, of course.

On LoRa networks: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7435450/ And an open-source implementation of one: https://meshtastic.org/

LoRa gives several kilometres, practically, in an urban area, with a little coil of wire as an antenna. It uses unlicensed spectrum at legal power limits. It will go much further if given decent antennas and if raised up in a good location. LoRa modules are $10 - $20. A brick-sized box, on top of a tall building, or a pole on a hill. It's standard mesh networking, just quite slow, low power, and long-range.

As for SDR: https://wiki.gnuradio.org/index.php/SuggestedReading

HF also has variable propagation. It doesn't always take the same path. So timing can be all over the place. Much lower frequencies (around 100 kHz instead of 10000 kHz) hug the ground, and their timing can be very precise. Low frequency was once used by navigation systems with ground-based transmitters. Takes huge antennas and transmitters to broadcast a strong enough signal for that. They were some of the biggest ever constructed.

High-power HF (in the kilowatt range) has been suggested before for high speed trading: https://spectrum.ieee.org/wall-street-tries-shortwave-radio-...

Find someone with a big hammer or drill?

I understand that there may be some scientific value to these antennas and potentially a public benefit. That makes it even more ridiculous to me that those responsible chose not follow the rules around installing things like this on public lands since it is likely dead simple to gain support for something that will provide a clear public benefit, maybe even enough support that it effectively is paid for by the use of public monies. Clearly these people intended no public benefit or they would've lobbied locally for support.

There is a significant difference between these installations, which over time turns into several pounds of electronic waste at each spot, vs a few fluid ounces of spray paint used for tagging or grafiti.

It's in the interest for the public and for nature that these illegal installations be stopped.

There are people who visit public lands and parks and paint graffiti on archaeological sites. I don't need to mention how destructive this can be and hope we can agree that destroying sites like this should be punished harshly.

Installing antennas without permission on public lands may not seem like a big deal but if everyone were allowed to go out and do whatever they wanted to do on public land then most of our public land would've been stripped bare decades ago.

There are rules in place that help us all find a common ground and baseline from which we can all operate without interfering with other's rights. Fees are designed so that operators on public lands pay royalties to the treasury for the right of access and production of public resources from public lands - mining, logging, oil and gas exploration, etc.

Someone has decided to ignore the process, avoid any fees, and to avoid asking permission. Perhaps they operate under the bullshit maxim that it's easier to ask forgiveness than to do the paperwork required to obtain permission especially if obtaining permission would expose themselves and their operations to too much scrutiny. Since an installation like this probably requires permits where the operator has to define their specific use case, potentially do some environmental impact and archaeological site study assessments, obtain radio spectrum broadcast licenses, etc then they would rather try to avoid paying for any of that while they reap the benefit of the network they are building and operating.

I see no reason not to throw the book at everyone involved including anyone who assisted in the installations by providing labor.

If this later turns out to be something with a clear public benefit then make them pay all costs of legalizing their operations and tack on all the costs associated with investigating these antennas, identifying them and removing any equipment before they became a legal operator. Use appropriate media to inform the general public about the process and the findings and the reasons for any penalties assessed. Appropriate media, not social media.

I personally don't have a problem with making them regret ever trying to become an exception to the rules they have decided to ignore.

When you consider that most access to public land for private uses comes with ridiculously low fees and relaxed rules there really is no excuse for non-compliance. Many of the fees for use have not been increased in decades and some may still date to the last part of the 19th century. With that in mind it makes no sense for anyone with a legitimate use case to avoid paying the fees and making it all above board unless they know in advance that gaining approval for their installations would not happen once those in charge of managing public lands understand what they intend to do.

Frankly, I'm tired of people and/or companies just going out and doing whatever they want to do ignoring all the rules and regulations that are in place and then escaping consequences when they are found to be operating outside the laws.

Humiliate them. Fine them. If existing penalties specify jail time then jail them. How many times would one need to do this before others decided to just follow the existing rules and carry on?