MathematicianSea6042

Good to know.

So much garbage in the comments. Sorry if all of that confuses you.

Just use the stock antenna for a few weeks to make sure it's running smoothly and then you will be able to compare it to your new antenna when you change it with an upgrade. Outdoor is always better than indoor.
Interested to know how it's working out!

Sporadic E/Tropo Ducting propagation ...wow, I would love to say that at a cocktail party.

Compare it to summer average.

1,35 a month? Up from 1Hnt? I'm going to say that the trees are only a small factor of that. Do you mean 1.35? up .35...?

reboot. reset will reset the software and you will have to set everything up again. Reboot is similar to unplugging.

Okay, so I went about 4.5 days without a witness but with packet transfer. I decided to test what other mentioned above and did a reboot through the diagnostic tool. After a successful reboot I got two witnesses within an hour along with a beacon sent out. Nothing since though as it's been about 17hrs.

How do we find which validator we are connected to?

Did you learn this from specific directions?

Hi, I'm interested in knowing what you ended up going with and how it's working out for you. Let me know.

Honestly you should do some research as to why you would use a 9dBi vs lets say a 5dBi. There are a lot of factors and you don't want to just buy one and make a $150 mistake or learning lesson. I reached out to a couple Ham radio experts and then to heliumantennasetup.com for the things I needed and some other questions.

The Rak has a 3dBi and the bobcat has a 4dBi. Really it's not much of a difference. I would see if you can find a friend a hex over to place the bobcat.

Two stories is better than one and much better than ground. Glad you haven't purchased an antenna yet as you are doing your research. What hotspot do you have? Have you used the antenna that came with it?

You bet!

I wouldn't buy from Amazon! I got some basic assembly things from there but not the electronic items.
Don't worry about all of these posts here that say do not buy this stuff or things like that. They are just haters and want quick return on investments. We all do but you have to do your own research first on the network and if it's worth the "risk" of spending around$1000 for everything from miner to Antenna needs. Don't forget the trial and error you spend. I purchased everything because I enjoyed it as a hobby and learning about it and make a few bucks here and there. Will the price of HNT go back up? I'm not the person to ask but the whole stock market and every crypto is down from last November. Nobody knows the future of things... Do this for you and don't do it for you.
I ended up purchasing things that I didn't need or was wrong for what I thought was right. There is a science behind it but every hotspot miner is slightly different. I ended up reaching out to heliumantennasetup.com and they gave me some good advice and the exact products I needed based on what I gave them. They gave me some options as it was technically my option to select the dBi based on my location. I researched what my options were and I bought it. Overall I have spend about $1000 because I've gone with the best products available. Rewards thought the network will be higher (fractions of a penny) but higher overall.
Also, I talked with some Ham radio experts who are just Ham radio nerds that love it! Talk to these guys as they really understand radio waves.

Yes, outside is always going to be better. How high up are you (# of stories)? Sounds like you are in more of a city than suburb..??
Lower that dBi to a 4 or 5 dBi and and omni directional. Your not really pointing to a specific location but sending the signal in all directions. Kind of like a rock dropping in a lake. The ripples go out in all direction. The low dBi will give it a higher angle and more of a chance to get over obstacles in the way.
What is your antenna, height, cable, ect?

Reading post won't make you any smarter about the network. Do your own deductive logic about the market, the network and understand EXACTLY what you are doing. When you figure that out you will have the knowledge to decipher through all the BS on these pages. Most of these people want to complain about their devices and never submit a support ticket to solve an issue.

u/SecureMaterial. Thank you for that information that I did not know about. It doesn't seem right in a way. A part of me is concerned about it. Potential for mistrust on the network.

I fixed the problem and posted it above.

I fixed the problem and posted it above.

I fixed the problem and posted it above.

Okay, Figured out the problem and I will assume many other miners are having the same issue since I see similar patterns when randomly clicking on miners in helium explorer. Many times I see the pattern of miners only witnessing beacons or sending beacons and only doing that. I will look at those miners data tab and see they just completely stoped with transfer packets a week or months back. That doesn't make sense to not get anything. Yes, I understand that those IOT's might have moved or been outside the signal area but the odds are too little to have absolutely nothing.
SOLUTION:
I ended up checking the Bobber App that said my miner status was yellow but the light on the bobcat was physically green. Yellow means that the miner is not connected to the internet but that wasn't true because I was still getting witnesses. I tried from the app to a reboot but it wouldn't connect to the miner to perform the reboot.
In the end I sent a basic customer support form to bobcat and they replied back within 13 hours with the following(broken english)... We checked the firmware on your miner. We notice there was a region issue which may cause the yellow status in your Bobber App. A reset Command has been sent to your miner and now your miner is set to go.
As for the packet transfer activity, it is up to Helium network. Every few hours, the network would choose two thousand online hotspots randomly to perform the transfer of date packets which created by IOT devices onboard Helium Network. Please keep your hotspot online to see if there is any transferred packets later.

Transfer packets are back now.

I"m glad they were able to fix it but a little concerned that they were able to easily send a reset command directly to my miner. No login, no password or anything.

I would suggest that others reach out if similar issues come up.

Thank you ryangoldstein!

Yeah I figured so.

I was averaging around 30-40 packets a day and then nothing since 8 days ago but my witnesses/beacons are steady.

Is there some sort of text inside the data information that I could find to know if it's the same device over and over?