Solar powered antennas on public lands - Utah story

[Jim]

Why are antennas popping up all over the foothills? Salt Lake City seeks to solve mystery

https://ksltv.com/516749/why-are-ant...solve-mystery/


I found the above article mentioned in the Gibson Research forum:
https://forums.grc.com/threads/weird...-in-utah.1137/


Perhaps the HAM folks would know something?

[Tom]

Saw the same article. News to me.

[Bob]

This has been followed in the ham radio forums at QRZ.com. The best and most likely explanation by far is that they are Helium Hotspots for the Helium Network. That is a network of radio repeaters on ISM (industrial, scientific, medical) bands that do not require licensing and which carry low data rate traffic from IOT (internet of things) devices. They are “crowd sourced” and the owners get paid according to how much traffic they carry, hence the “mining” aspect somewhat analogous to crypto currency mining.

Of course one cannot just install a radio repeater (or anything else) on public land without approval from the agency managing the land, so they are being removed as they are discovered and as manpower allows.
.

[Jim]

Interesting - thanks, I've been curious as to why.

EDIT: One should think - if it's an organize group - it should be fairly easy to announce to the members "don't do that" regarding public lands use.