How to become a Helium miner

How do you become a miner on the Helium network?

Which hotspot should you choose?

There is a really wide choice of hotspots; a list of certified hotspots can be found at www.helium.com/mine. By far the most popular hotspot manufacturer is Bobcat, and its most popular device is the 300. Devices differ in, among other things, storage capacity, processor and amount of RAM. The frequency at which the hotspot operates is also very important; there are several frequencies: European 868, American 915, and so on. Remember to choose a hotspot that operates on the frequency of the region where you will use it. It is impossible to say definitively which company's hotspot is the best or the most cost-effective. In any case, the most important part of your miner is the antenna, which either comes bundled with the hotspot or can be bought separately.

Which antenna should you choose?

The antenna is one of the most important elements for maximising the earnings from your hotspot. To choose the right antenna for your hotspot, you need to take a few important factors into account:

• Antenna gain (dBi). The higher the antenna gain, the greater the range, but also the narrower the transmission beam.


• Location, or more precisely town or countryside. If you are in a town, surrounded by buildings on all sides, and have no access to a high mounting point such as a rooftop, a lower-gain antenna of up to 5 dBi will be the better choice. In the countryside, on the other hand, a higher-gain antenna of 5.8 to as much as 9 dBi will work better.


• Antenna height. The height of your antenna above ground level is a very important factor; naturally, the higher the better. Make sure the antenna is high enough for the signal to clear the surrounding obstacles.

What earnings can you expect?

For the best-earning hotspots in Gdynia, whose statistics can be checked at explorer.helium.com, current earnings hover around 5 HNT per 30 days, which at the current exchange rate is about 45 dollars, or roughly PLN 200. If this situation and the token value hold, recouping a sample investment of about PLN 2,500 will take exactly twelve and a half months.

It is worth adding that the cryptocurrency market is quite unstable, which makes it difficult to say how much you will be able to earn in the long term.

How do you check whether your location is suitable?

To check whether your location is suitable for connecting with other hotspots, you should use a few websites. One of them is the official helium.com site, where in the explorer.helium.com section you will see a map:

After zooming in on your location, you will see hexagonal cells representing the hotspots located there. Clicking on one of the hexes brings up a list of the hotspots in it, where you can see the name of each miner and its earnings over the last 30 days.

Clicking on the hotspot you are interested in opens a window. It contains several important pieces of information, including the hotspot manufacturer, antenna gain and antenna height above ground. The map on the right-hand side of the screen shows which devices this hotspot connects to.

Another website that will help you is hotspotty.net, where in the app.hotspotty.net/hotspots section you can check the exact location of the hotspot you are interested in. When you click on it, you should see the same name as on the previous site.

The last website you will need is scadacore.com, where in the section with the tool we need two pins will appear. Drag one to the place where your hotspot will stand and the other to the location of the hotspot you checked on the previous sites. Then simply enter the height of both antennas and you can check whether your hotspots are likely to connect. A connection will be possible if the line in the “Elevation Map” window is green; if it is red, the chance of a connection is very low. Even when it is green, a connection is not 100% certain, as buildings and trees, for example, may get in the way.

The best location for a hotspot is high ground in open space, so that nothing interferes with the signal between miners.

Examples:

High chance of connection:

Medium chance of connection:

No chance of connection: