Mining Helium might be simple. However, when it comes to raising your mining reward, there are a lot of factors to consider. One factor is the choice of your antenna and its antenna gain. Finding out the best antenna can be stressful, yes, but here comes HNTenna.
Buyers of HNTenna swear on the best performance. Furthermore, HNTenna promises to have an antenna that combines multiple techniques in one.
Details
- Website: https://hntenna.com/
- Delivery time: 1 week
- Price: $150 for the outdoor antenna + shipping cost
- Frequencies: US915, EU868
- Antenna Gain: 3 dBi
- Connector at HNTenna: N-Type Female (requires a cable with N-Type Male)
What is HNTenna?
HNTenna is a special antenna that was built for the Helium network. For those who don’t know Helium: It’s a decentralized network for IoT devices that anyone can link into. By special, I mean among other things like the multi-polarization of its antenna. I’ll explain later what this is.
The antenna comes with a nut, washer and mounting bracket as you can see below. Furthermore, the connector at the antenna is an N-Type Female
3 Special Features of the HNTenna
You may have wondered why this antenna is so expensive and why you can’t simply take another antenna. Well, by taking a look at antenna spec you will find out some incredible features you won’t find elsewhere. And, I believe this makes this antenna outstanding over others.
Full Radiation Pattern
As you can see, the antenna radiates 360 degrees like a disco ball. The low antenna gain of 3 dBi and the multi-polarization allows this full radiation. Therefore, you can reach any hotspot as long the sight is free.
Multi Polarization
The multi-polarization is one special feature of this antenna that I haven’t seen before. But first I want to clarify what polarization is. Polarization is defined as the direction in which radio waves oscillates when propagating. It may be hard to understand, but let’s take a look at this picture.
An antenna can either have vertical or horizontal polarization. I saw multiple antennas before that have only one of them. But there is a catch that negatively impacts your earnings.
According to Gristleking, a vertical-polarized antenna cannot listen to a horizontal-polarized antenna and vice versa. Even though a lot of antennas are vertical doesn’t mean they can listen to each other perfectly. Once radio waves hit an obstacle, they can simply turn from vertical-polarized waves to horizontal-polarized waves.
Therefore, there is a need for a multi-polarized antenna that not only can receive vertical-polarized radio waves but also horizontal-polarized radio waves.
So now you understand the importance of multi-polarization and why the antenna radiates fully like a disco ball.
Spatial Diversity
Spatial diversity is also an important feature. As the Helium network is specialized for IoT devices, spatial diversity enables to receive any signal that comes in the direction of the antenna. This way, no radio waves cannot be dismissed near the antenna.
How does the antenna performs in real-life?
After presenting the three key features of the HNTenna, it’s now time to present the performance of the antenna.
My Personal Experience With HNTenna
After using the HNTenna for a few weeks, I’m satisfied with the previous witnesses and beacons so far. I live in an urban city with many tall buildings around me and many obstacles, such as trees, buildings. The HNTenna is suited for such places as here.
I used a LongAP 3 dBi before and the result was similar to the HNTenna. But there is a slight difference that resulted from the spatial diversity feature.
With the LongAP, I witnessed hotspots in the southeast, south and west. Now with the HNTenna, I can witness hotspots from the east, south, west plus getting witnessed from the north thanks to the spatial diversity (and probably other features).
Experience from other users
There are plenty of other users who also have been using the HNTenna. One Twitter user placed the antenna on top of a building and reported over 200 witnesses.
Also, on Discord, some users report having the highest earning with this antenna and they can receive signals from 200 km away.
Final Conclusion
The HNTenna is a special antenna that combines various features in one to serve the best performance for the Helium network. As you can see above, users are getting a lot of witnesses and they will never go back to the stock antenna after using the HNTenna. It’s worth noting that the spatial diversity and full radiation enables the true use-case of Helium: Providing coverage for IoT devices. A disadvantage may be the high price, especially for non-US shoppers, but with the results of the antenna, you can easily pay it off within months, weeks or even days.
If you’re looking for a Helium hotspot device, take a look at the available Helium miners.
Images were taken from the HNTenna site, their manufacturer MP Antenna and Discord.