I started being involved with the project almost two years ago when I first read about it on social media and on the homepage. Since then I have started an entertaining journey that I am now sharing with my huge community of readers and followers! 😉

At the very beginning my attention was caught by the red logo. It just caught my eye. I started by joining the community on Discord, reading and partecipating to the conversation. It was very nice as the community was still small and everything had the “self made look and feel” which made me feel free to speak and ask even though I did not know much about the project.

By reading the documentation I soon realized that my roof was a very good position to install a GEODNET receiver. I was like:

BAM! Eugeo, take my money! I want my miner up and running now! 🙂

At the time Eugeo was the only distributor for Europe: shipping was quick, without hiccups. Nowadays we cannot say the same, as suppliers are struggling to meet demand: that is the pain of fast growth. In any case I had to wait some days and while being “idle” I was writing to Rouven (former community manager) at all times of the day and night in order to share my thoughts regarding the best possible install and being worried about a few trees being near the house and potentially reducing the performance of the receiver. A few weeks later the electrician installed the receiver on the roof of my house, we even drilled a hole in the wall for the antenna cable to pass through. Once the antenna was up, configuring the miner was very quick. Since the successful install my guest room is blinking with beautiful colors: constant red for power supply, constant green for stable wifi connectivity and most importantly, slow and relaxing orange blinking for the GPS signal. Amazing!

If you think the wife might not appreciate the antenna on the roof, the drilling and the rather psychedelic light set, you might consider doing the whole install without mentioning it to her. Yes, just do it. She will not notice at first, as the receiver is so small. 🙂 And when she will notice, the miner will already be up and running supplying customers with so much needed high quality data which will not be possible to interrupt. 😀

Jokes a side I believe the most important step in the whole setup process is reading the documentation for you to understand the location requirements. Once this is understood you will need to start roof hunting. Your family and friends will soon know it all.

Should you love challenges, once you have covered the first hex, which usually is the one nearest or easiest for you, indeed you may consider disturbing family, friends and unknown people for a new spot. For the last case consider preparing yourself in explaining the project with very simple terms and in your local language. You have to consider that most people are not interested in knowing how tecnological things works, they just want to use them. Even worse, honestly I do not know why, most people do not find antennas sexy. I am telling you: if you decide to jump on the project, roofs will never look the same to you. 😀

The project is not just tech stuff though. You may evoke your commercial spirit by promoting it or by negotiating with the thoughest house owners for that beautiful clear sky view or… you can get involved in the Geodnet Improvement Proposals (GIPs) which have been introduced in the recent months and are the tool for the community to improve the rules of project. If you never had the pleasure, you may try defining and creating new rules: the community will vote. Prepare yourself for a lots of discussions and intellectual challenges!

Slowly but constantly I also noticed the passion growing in me about delivering high precision and high quality data. I think this is the most powerful driver which pushes you to keep your setups running, looking for the best locations and doing that extra effort which brings your antenna very near to 100% performance.

GEODNET offers a beautiful journey: I have learned so much about technology, I have met new people on discord who are living far away and have a different background from me as well as local people which helped me during the installation and were curious to know more about the project.

If you want it, if you embrace it, GEODNET can be a complete life experience. Join the community and let the passion for high quality data pervade you. Enjoy!