Product Description
Please refer to the product photos for ideas on how this device can be used.
Connectors
All RF Connectors in this amplifier module are RP-SMA-F
What's included?
- One EU868 Helium Amplifier module
- One USB power cable
What this Amplifier does
On average this amplifier will increase both Received Signal Strength (RSSI) and SNR (Signal-to-Noise).
The amplifier will increase the probability of witnessing other miners that you are currently not witnessing due to marginal SNR and RSSI.
What this Amplifier does not do
There is currently a limit of 14 miners that any miner can witness. If a miner is surrounded by 20 miners for instance, an amplifier will not increase the probability that your miner is in the group of 14 that gets awarded HNT.
If there is zero beacon signal, there's nothing to amplify and your miner will not see this beacon. An amplifier cannot create a signal where there is none.
The amplifier is not waterproof and so if you want to install it outdoors, please put it in a weatherproof enclosure.
The amplifier does not amplify the transmit signal. It bypasses it with an insertion loss of around 3.5 dB.
Network Instability
Of late, the Helium network has been very unstable. Your HNT earnings can be down for many different reasons at any given time. We recommend leaving an amplifier in your network for at least 10 days to compare performance before and after.
In general we expect more consistent performance after the move to Light Hotspots is complete.
Usage Guidelines
- Power down your Helium miner before connecting the amplifier
- Connect the RF IN/OUT port to your Helium miner
- TX OUT Port - connect to a high gain antenna - although a low gain antenna should work as well
- RX IN Port - connect to a 2 dBi antenna
- Do not connect RX IN to TX OUT
- Power your miner back on
- If you don't notice any activity for a 24 hour period, turn the miner off, wait for a minute and turn it back on again
- If the miner is operating in a city, the amplifier should be mounted as high as possible to reach miners in Hexes with high transmit scale (ideally 1). The amplifier will help with that.
- Start with the Helium miner's stock 2 dBi gain antenna on the receive port and after a week increase the gain to 5.8 dBi if required. We've had the best results with the Hotspot's stock 2 dBi antenna
- Use a high gain antenna on the transmit port (we use an 8 dBi)
- Set the antenna gain to 10.5 dBi in the Helium application
- A Helium setup works best when the antenna is as high above the ground as possible.
- To keep system noise figure to a minimum, the amplifier should be installed as close to the antenna as possible.
- If your antenna is mounted outdoors, we recommend grounding it
Characterization in a Helium Network
We continue to characterize the performance of this amplifier in a Helium network. The page is updated on a regular basis.
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