I seem to remember another discussion about mystery antennas popping up in other parts of the US, but I couldn't find the thread.

[Note: there is a Twitter post with photos found at the linked website article.]

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

Jan 4, 2023, 6:10 PM | Updated: 6:18 pm

BY MICHAEL LOCKLEAR
KSLTV.com

SALT LAKE CITY — On Wednesday, Salt Lake City public lands officials hiked for hours up a snowy trail to remove a mysterious device – one that’s popping up all over the foothills.

It consists of a locked battery box, a solar panel, and an antenna, according to Tyler Fonarow, the city’s recreational trails manager.

“These towers have been bolted into different peaks and summits and ridges around the foothills,” Fonarow explained, “and it started with one or two, and now it might be as much as a dozen.”

The first ones appeared about a year ago, but Fonarow said many more were found in the past few months. The small towers don’t have permits, and it’s unclear who’s installing them.

“We just don’t leave things on public lands anymore. You have to ask for permission,” he said.

One was removed last week and another on Wednesday, with more will be removed in the coming weeks.

“Once we get up to the Twin Peaks, it gets real steep, so we were up there. There were five of us, and then we took some kids’ sleds to bring the equipment down to make it a little bit easier on us,” Fonarow said.

Additional ones have been found on property managed by the Forest Service and the University of Utah.

In a statement, a university spokesman said: “Since Salt Lake City leaders alerted the University of Utah to the unauthorized solar panel towers in the foothills northeast of the Avenues neighborhood, University of Utah representatives have been actively coordinating with City Public Lands officials to determine whether any member of our campus community is connected to the towers. As far as we know, the tower located on university property is not owned or operated by the university. We appreciate Salt Lake City’s collaboration and dedicated efforts to identify the owners.”

Fonarow hopes to educate people that items cannot simply be left or installed on public lands.

“It might be related to cryptocurrency and relaying networks and being able to make money off that,” he said, “so that’s another reason we want to stop it now before it becomes a dumping ground for dozens and dozens of more antennas.”

Fonarow pointed out that cryptocurrency is just one idea the city has heard. Trail officials may learn more once the locked boxes are opened.

@ 2 minute KSL news report


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=...SGg&feature=emb_logo

Aliens hiding inside the mountains. This is not common knowledge?

Something used to facilitate drug cartel comms?
Maybe?

quote:

Trail officials may learn more once the locked boxes are opened.

It wouldn’t be prudent, not at this juncture, to post what came to mind reading about mysterious lockboxes.

Other articles have said this has been going on for a year now. You’d think officials would have figured out what’s in the boxes by now.

If it weren't readily obvious what these antennas were being used for, within the first 24 hours of examining the first one recovered, and if I were in charge, I would've notified the Department of Homeland Security... but I suppose they are too busy chasing down "Right Wing domestic terrorists", to be interested in investigating these antennas.

I'd be interested to know if these antennas can only receive, transmit, or both, and also whether they are networked together, or standalone devices. The article's description of these make them sound like fairly simple equipment.

I would think the antenna could tell you a lot. Most antennas operate on a specified frequency range and distance. Sourcing the manufacturer shouldn't be to difficult and they should be able to tell you what they are mainly used for. From there finding out who is buying them would be the next step.

Someone has a bit of money invested in each one given the size of the panel, batteries and the rest of the hardware.

A common frequency “counter” placed nearby would show if it’s transmitting and on what frequency. I believe. Plus, it’s hard to imagine what purpose they could serve if they were receiving only. Based on my somewhat stale knowledge of being linked together (i.e., repeaters), it’s also hard to imagine how that could be accomplished with such a small installation, but I admit to being ignorant of what could be possible.

Someone should be talking to the FCC about this, and not (only) the DHS. If it’s a licensed transmitter, they would have the information about the owner, etc. (Unlikely, I’m guessing, but possible.)

Those damn ChiComs are already here! I'm heading for the bunker!

Ok, lets be honest, the only way to get Homeland Security to investigate these is throw a Trump stick on it and hang a MAGA hat on it.

The cryptocurrency theory may not be as improbable as I first thought:

One of the leading theories is that the antennas are part of a cryptocurrency mining scheme.

Rather than relying on computational power, the Helium network mines crypto via a decentralized wireless network.

Proof-of-coverage (PoC) gives a high value to elevation and distance covered, so setting up on a mountain would make sense. They also get paid more if they have neighboring systems they can communicate with, which would explain the number of systems deployed.

However, the price of the Helium currency has fallen by more than 20 times since its late 2021 highs. At the same time, an increase in the number of miners has reduced the payout per system.

It is unlikely that the Utah deployments, should they be for Helium, were able to make a profit.

With the deployments not having caused any damage, formal charges are equally unlikely. “As long as it’s not dangerous, we really don’t care,” Fonarow told Motherboard. “We just want people to stop doing it so we can get back to taking care of our lands… if someone wanted to put an antenna in the exact same location for scientific purposes, we’d probably allow it.”

Link
The article also mentions the antenna are LoRa, which is Greek to me, but seems to be 915MHz. Another article mentions a nearby University. I’m guessing college students trying to make a quick buck.

Any radio equipment with these towers? They need to figure out the Frequency the antennas are used for, from there they might get a clue on who might be putting them there.

To me a tower, antenna, solar panel a batteries with no radio equipment is just taking up space until someone attaches a radio of some type to it.

A couple years ago it was swarms of drones, now it is mysterious antenna's in the wilderness.

I never did hear anything conclusive on the drone swarms and it will probably be the same with these antenna's.

It seems like they are purposely not telling you what's in the box. As others have said, ain't of much use without a transceiver or other equipment.

The nerve of those guys, putting something on "Public lands" without permission. They act like they have a right to "Public lands" So someone in government feels they have a right to remove the stuff. After all, its their "Public land", not ours!

Chargers for anal alien probes.

Boring. Wake me up when they open them up or attempt to figure out their function.

When we lived in NW Montana, we had a building just outside of Columbia Falls that was reportedly used for cryptocurrency mining. The building was unusual in that it was the size of a 6-8 car garage but had a number of large exhaust fans on the roof. It was the largest user of electricity in the county and the fire department - just a block away - was told to stay away if it ever caught fire.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
Boring. Wake me up when they open them up or attempt to figure out their function.

My thoughts exactly. I think they know, but chose to not share that info.

Further, removing them and taking them out of service before understanding what they are would be very unwise.

I assume they'll give them back to the rightful owners.

The should not have gone public, just broken a few of them (but left them there), and put in hidden trail cams, maybe with their own transmitter to alert the authorities when someone approaches the device to fix it. Then chopper in a few sheriff's deputies to talk the the person doing the fixing.

Drop zone markers for the Soviet paratroopers.


"Wolverines!"