5 ms·

CTO & co-founder of The Things Network here! I've been working with LoRa for over eight years now, and I keep getting surprised by measurements like this. What

CTO & co-founder of The Things Network here! I've been working with LoRa for over eight years now, and I keep getting surprised by measurements like this. What started off as "line of sight works" went to a successful "LoRa moon bounce" [0] and now a sea level reception over 830 miles. So, any physics people here care to comment how this works? Is this pure atmospheric refraction or is there something else? [0] https://www.camras.nl/en/blog/2021/first-lora-message-bounced-off-the-moon/ https://www.camras.nl/en/blog/2021/first-lora-message-bounce...

jacquesm 3y ago
[flagged]
- SahAssar 3y ago
  Posting ones own content is not astroturfing unless they try to hide that it was them.
  - paulsutter 3y ago
    Jacques’ point is spot-on. What word would be more precise? shilling? spam? The word astroturfing seems fine to me
    - SahAssar 3y ago
      If the content is good and nobody is hiding their affiliation with it then the correct word is just "posting". Otherwise it might fit within one of the categories you mentioned. I agree that it would be better if they were up front with their affiliation, but hiding it (astroturfing) is not the same as not divulging.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    The submitter is a low karma anonymous account that just so happens to match the last name of the CEO of the company, so it isn't disclosed. Also this shot up on the 'new' page suggesting more than one company vote, this isn't the first time this happens with that particular domain either. Similar stuff is happening on Wikipedia, read the talk page there (and the LoRa page) to see what I'm getting at.
    - cj 3y ago
      Are comments really the best place to hash this out? Why not just flag and move on. People don't need to disclose who they are when submitting things to HN. Hell, I used to have a pretty comprehensive bio, until I replaced it with an icloud relay email because random internet people would look me up outside HN and try to dig up stuff to use as ammo in response to comments I posted that they disagreed with. HN can be a nasty place. I don't fault anyone for hiding their identity.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        > People don't need to disclose who they are when submitting things to HN. Companies aren't people. That's one of those things I just don't subscribe to. If you are the CEO of a company and you are engaging in what can only be termed as marketing activities, effectively advertising your company I think you should be up front about that. Otherwise you can no longer see the difference between organic interest in a technology and marketing push, which are two entirely different things.
        cj 3y ago
        Maybe I’m not appreciating your viewpoint because the article nor the comments seem overtly self-promoting to me. I would agree with you if it was a garbage press release with low quality fake comments. Maybe there’s some niche politics that I’m unaware of in the LoRa space that is triggering.
        jacquesm 3y ago
        > Maybe I’m not appreciating your viewpoint because the article nor the comments seem overtly self-promoting to me. And maybe I'm over protective of HN. > I would agree with you if it was a garbage press release with low quality fake comments. You mean like the one where the CEO (then still anonymously) tried to devalue a point made by a commenter here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37416457 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37416457 > Maybe there’s some niche politics that I’m unaware of in the LoRa space that is triggering. Not that I'm aware of, but their WP talk page is pretty clear about them abusing WP for marketing purposes and that doesn't give them the benefit of the doubt with me when interacting with HN in this way, besides that the initial votes were so fast that I doubt that it was organic. But when dang wakes up I'm sure he'll be able to rule that out or confirm it. For all I know it is all legit but it certainly looked weird. Also note how the CTO nicely disclosed who he was but the CEO did not well after joining the thread until prompted to do so. Which makes me suspect this is a bit more organized than it may seem at first glance, but then again, that's not my call to make.
  - pgeorgi 3y ago
    It's the combination of company URL, posted by a company person, commented on by another company person pushing questions (i.e. generate engagement) that seemed weird, and feels orchestrated. It's well possible that this was really an innocent accident, but it would have looked better if something like this engagement post was posted by the same account as the original link.
- wienke 3y ago
  Sorry, I am here in all transparency. Not really hard to find out though as my first name and TTN are quite a unique pair.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - wienke 3y ago
      Ah thanks for the education. I updated my profile. Will try to gain more karma to gain more respect.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        That's not what the karma mention was about, it basically means that you are not likely to be known here, that's all. But fair enough, thanks for the profile update.
        wienke 3y ago
        So people that are not known here have nothing interesting to share? Recipe for an echo chamber.
        jacquesm 3y ago
        That's not what I meant and I suspect you are well aware of that.
        circuit10 3y ago
        I guess what they’re trying to say is that if you were well known you might not need to disclose it because people would already know?
        throwbadubadu 3y ago
        I think I don't know 99% of the CEOs posting here, and I also don't need to? In the end similarly as any other employee posting for his company, and disclosure in the post is just fine? Don't get it.
- pmuk 3y ago
  I read astroturfing as astrosurfing and thought this was the name for bouncing the signal off the moon.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Now that's neat, you get to claim to have invented a new word! But the original name for that is EME for Earth-Moon-Earth. Radio amateurs have been doing this for decades, it's a fun thing to try.
- pimterry 3y ago
  This seems bizarre to me, as this isn't astroturfing at all - it's a marketing post on the official company blog! There's no suggestion whatsoever that this is coming from raw grassroots enthusiasm. This is clearly marketing content directly from the business itself. To be clear, that's fine! This is definitely interesting content, and companies with genuinely interesting things to share should share them directly, that's great. I can't speak for the wikipedia behaviour, but I think complaining about this post is unreasonable.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Posted to HN, by an account that isn't clearly affiliated with the content, most likely upvotes by a bunch of company people, and from a company that has a history of using public resources like marketing channels. As for whether or not this is fine: yes, it's fine. "Show HN: We reached a new RF distance record with LoRa" from an account associated with the company.
- fiddlerwoaroof 3y ago
  > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Yes, I'm aware of that but: in this case it's plain obvious.
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      "Plain obvious" is an argument that it's not astroturfing. It's a link to a blog on the company site, linked by someone whose profile clearly discloses they're CEO of the company. (though based on comments below, the disclosure in profile might be an hour more recent than the post itself). Personally, I find this interesting, on-topic, and (after the profile edit, if any) totally fine.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        So, in your opinion plain obvious astroturfing can never be astroturfing? It's obvious to me because (1) I'm aware of the company, (2) know that there have been issues with their WP entries in the past (and still are, they are essentially marketing copy), and finally (3) because it just so happens that the company is Dutch and I keep an eye on the local eco-system. But it probably wasn't that obvious to you. These guys have nice tech, but they are working the web in a way that doesn't sit right with me. If you're ok with this then no problem, let's see how you feel when HN and WP are overrun by advertising that masquerades as organic postings.
        sokoloff 3y ago
        Correct. I don't think the CEO of Y can ever say "I'm the CEO of Y and here's a link to a blog on Y company website about something related to Y company that I think is worth sharing here" and have it be astro-turfing for Y. It might be advertising or even spamming. It might become too frequent or annoying or otherwise negative. I follow TTN (and Helium), have a TTN gateway plugged in, and a dozen or so LoRa dev boards sitting around (two are within reach, albeit buried under some dust of recent disuse). I find the LoRa tech interesting in general and a new RF distance record specifically interesting, whether it's on the TTN blog, the Helium site, on an Andreas Spiess video, or elsewhere. It sounds like you have some relevant history with the company's behavior that is shaping your opinion of their action here. We perceive their action here differently as a result.
pmuk 3y ago
I've just disconnected a BobCat miner so I have a spare 1.1m 8.5dBi 868MHz antenna on my roof. Can you recommend a good gateway to get started on TTN?
- wienke 3y ago
  Recently somebody created this guide to turn your Helium gateway (running on a RPi) to a TTN gateway: https://medium.com/@friedkiwi/repurposing-helium-iot-hotspots-for-the-things-network-4b6cb655c76e https://medium.com/@friedkiwi/repurposing-helium-iot-hotspot...
zikduruqe 3y ago
A CTO that doesn't understand RF and has been working with it for 8 years? <surprised Pikachu face>
femto 3y ago
To some extent it's statistics. Send enough messages and the odds are one will eventually get though. > providing a standardized and objective measure of the technology's capabilities Not really. The environment is still variable. A short message could have bounced off some random short duration reflector somewhere (aeroplane, meteor, lightning, ...) or have been refracted by some short term effect. Standardised and objective is an anechoic chamber or a cabled in attenuators/channel simulator.
- wienke 3y ago
  Yes, this is an outlier and it took around 8 years for this to be emerge and be detected by the community run TTN mapper initiative. The main fun thing about this is more that it shows how cool it is to have a global community network where we enjoy sending messages for the sake of it just to learn technology. Like kids with 2 cans and a string between them.
knorker 3y ago
Hi. Cool work. For this particular record, could you confirm that this was on 868MHz?
- wienke 3y ago
  Yes, this was 868MHz

jacquesm 3y ago

[flagged]

SahAssar 3y ago
Posting ones own content is not astroturfing unless they try to hide that it was them.
- paulsutter 3y ago
  Jacques’ point is spot-on. What word would be more precise? shilling? spam? The word astroturfing seems fine to me
  - SahAssar 3y ago
    If the content is good and nobody is hiding their affiliation with it then the correct word is just "posting". Otherwise it might fit within one of the categories you mentioned. I agree that it would be better if they were up front with their affiliation, but hiding it (astroturfing) is not the same as not divulging.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  The submitter is a low karma anonymous account that just so happens to match the last name of the CEO of the company, so it isn't disclosed. Also this shot up on the 'new' page suggesting more than one company vote, this isn't the first time this happens with that particular domain either. Similar stuff is happening on Wikipedia, read the talk page there (and the LoRa page) to see what I'm getting at.
  - cj 3y ago
    Are comments really the best place to hash this out? Why not just flag and move on. People don't need to disclose who they are when submitting things to HN. Hell, I used to have a pretty comprehensive bio, until I replaced it with an icloud relay email because random internet people would look me up outside HN and try to dig up stuff to use as ammo in response to comments I posted that they disagreed with. HN can be a nasty place. I don't fault anyone for hiding their identity.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      > People don't need to disclose who they are when submitting things to HN. Companies aren't people. That's one of those things I just don't subscribe to. If you are the CEO of a company and you are engaging in what can only be termed as marketing activities, effectively advertising your company I think you should be up front about that. Otherwise you can no longer see the difference between organic interest in a technology and marketing push, which are two entirely different things.
      - cj 3y ago
        Maybe I’m not appreciating your viewpoint because the article nor the comments seem overtly self-promoting to me. I would agree with you if it was a garbage press release with low quality fake comments. Maybe there’s some niche politics that I’m unaware of in the LoRa space that is triggering.
        jacquesm 3y ago
        > Maybe I’m not appreciating your viewpoint because the article nor the comments seem overtly self-promoting to me. And maybe I'm over protective of HN. > I would agree with you if it was a garbage press release with low quality fake comments. You mean like the one where the CEO (then still anonymously) tried to devalue a point made by a commenter here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37416457 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37416457 > Maybe there’s some niche politics that I’m unaware of in the LoRa space that is triggering. Not that I'm aware of, but their WP talk page is pretty clear about them abusing WP for marketing purposes and that doesn't give them the benefit of the doubt with me when interacting with HN in this way, besides that the initial votes were so fast that I doubt that it was organic. But when dang wakes up I'm sure he'll be able to rule that out or confirm it. For all I know it is all legit but it certainly looked weird. Also note how the CTO nicely disclosed who he was but the CEO did not well after joining the thread until prompted to do so. Which makes me suspect this is a bit more organized than it may seem at first glance, but then again, that's not my call to make.
- pgeorgi 3y ago
  It's the combination of company URL, posted by a company person, commented on by another company person pushing questions (i.e. generate engagement) that seemed weird, and feels orchestrated. It's well possible that this was really an innocent accident, but it would have looked better if something like this engagement post was posted by the same account as the original link.
wienke 3y ago
Sorry, I am here in all transparency. Not really hard to find out though as my first name and TTN are quite a unique pair.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - wienke 3y ago
    Ah thanks for the education. I updated my profile. Will try to gain more karma to gain more respect.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      That's not what the karma mention was about, it basically means that you are not likely to be known here, that's all. But fair enough, thanks for the profile update.
      - wienke 3y ago
        So people that are not known here have nothing interesting to share? Recipe for an echo chamber.
        jacquesm 3y ago
        That's not what I meant and I suspect you are well aware of that.
        circuit10 3y ago
        I guess what they’re trying to say is that if you were well known you might not need to disclose it because people would already know?
      - throwbadubadu 3y ago
        I think I don't know 99% of the CEOs posting here, and I also don't need to? In the end similarly as any other employee posting for his company, and disclosure in the post is just fine? Don't get it.
pmuk 3y ago
I read astroturfing as astrosurfing and thought this was the name for bouncing the signal off the moon.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Now that's neat, you get to claim to have invented a new word! But the original name for that is EME for Earth-Moon-Earth. Radio amateurs have been doing this for decades, it's a fun thing to try.
pimterry 3y ago
This seems bizarre to me, as this isn't astroturfing at all - it's a marketing post on the official company blog! There's no suggestion whatsoever that this is coming from raw grassroots enthusiasm. This is clearly marketing content directly from the business itself. To be clear, that's fine! This is definitely interesting content, and companies with genuinely interesting things to share should share them directly, that's great. I can't speak for the wikipedia behaviour, but I think complaining about this post is unreasonable.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Posted to HN, by an account that isn't clearly affiliated with the content, most likely upvotes by a bunch of company people, and from a company that has a history of using public resources like marketing channels. As for whether or not this is fine: yes, it's fine. "Show HN: We reached a new RF distance record with LoRa" from an account associated with the company.
fiddlerwoaroof 3y ago
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Yes, I'm aware of that but: in this case it's plain obvious.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    "Plain obvious" is an argument that it's not astroturfing. It's a link to a blog on the company site, linked by someone whose profile clearly discloses they're CEO of the company. (though based on comments below, the disclosure in profile might be an hour more recent than the post itself). Personally, I find this interesting, on-topic, and (after the profile edit, if any) totally fine.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      So, in your opinion plain obvious astroturfing can never be astroturfing? It's obvious to me because (1) I'm aware of the company, (2) know that there have been issues with their WP entries in the past (and still are, they are essentially marketing copy), and finally (3) because it just so happens that the company is Dutch and I keep an eye on the local eco-system. But it probably wasn't that obvious to you. These guys have nice tech, but they are working the web in a way that doesn't sit right with me. If you're ok with this then no problem, let's see how you feel when HN and WP are overrun by advertising that masquerades as organic postings.
      - sokoloff 3y ago
        Correct. I don't think the CEO of Y can ever say "I'm the CEO of Y and here's a link to a blog on Y company website about something related to Y company that I think is worth sharing here" and have it be astro-turfing for Y. It might be advertising or even spamming. It might become too frequent or annoying or otherwise negative. I follow TTN (and Helium), have a TTN gateway plugged in, and a dozen or so LoRa dev boards sitting around (two are within reach, albeit buried under some dust of recent disuse). I find the LoRa tech interesting in general and a new RF distance record specifically interesting, whether it's on the TTN blog, the Helium site, on an Andreas Spiess video, or elsewhere. It sounds like you have some relevant history with the company's behavior that is shaping your opinion of their action here. We perceive their action here differently as a result.

pmuk 3y ago

I've just disconnected a BobCat miner so I have a spare 1.1m 8.5dBi 868MHz antenna on my roof. Can you recommend a good gateway to get started on TTN?

wienke 3y ago
Recently somebody created this guide to turn your Helium gateway (running on a RPi) to a TTN gateway: https://medium.com/@friedkiwi/repurposing-helium-iot-hotspots-for-the-things-network-4b6cb655c76e https://medium.com/@friedkiwi/repurposing-helium-iot-hotspot...

zikduruqe 3y ago

A CTO that doesn't understand RF and has been working with it for 8 years? <surprised Pikachu face>

femto 3y ago

To some extent it's statistics. Send enough messages and the odds are one will eventually get though. > providing a standardized and objective measure of the technology's capabilities Not really. The environment is still variable. A short message could have bounced off some random short duration reflector somewhere (aeroplane, meteor, lightning, ...) or have been refracted by some short term effect. Standardised and objective is an anechoic chamber or a cabled in attenuators/channel simulator.

wienke 3y ago
Yes, this is an outlier and it took around 8 years for this to be emerge and be detected by the community run TTN mapper initiative. The main fun thing about this is more that it shows how cool it is to have a global community network where we enjoy sending messages for the sake of it just to learn technology. Like kids with 2 cans and a string between them.

knorker 3y ago

Hi. Cool work. For this particular record, could you confirm that this was on 868MHz?

wienke 3y ago
Yes, this was 868MHz