Back in 2017, when I was first experimenting with getting a network connection on our friend's rural property, the only available connection was a trickle of 3G cellular "down by the gate."

Near the gate was a convenient artwork based on a windmill in a clearing, which would make an adequate antenna tower.

I started with some temporary tests back in 2017 and then put together a permnanat install in 2020.

I built a solar-powered gateway with a cellular router and a Ubiquity NanoStation loco M2 running via passive POE from the solar/battery. There was also some monitoring built in based on a Particle Argon Micro and an Adafruit INA260 i2c sensor board. I added a single-board computer as well but never really had it doing anything.

The modem used a Telstra M2M SIM from m2mone and the plan only had 2-300 MB per month.

The point-to-point WiFi connection up to the main house was super slow, as it was going through a lot of foliage and the side of a hill, so it wasn't in line of sight at all. The speeds were in the kB per second, but perfect for IoT applications. This was how the main solar and tank monitoring connected to the internet/cloud.

The monitoring also had temperature sensors inside and outside the enclosure using the popular with makers DS18B20 one-wire sensor.

The cable gland wasn't designed for multiple cables and had several smaller diameter cables in it, so there was enough of a gap for tiny ants to get in. They liked the heat and made a home behind the Particle Argon doing the monitoring and inside the cellular modem.

The system ran well for a couple of years until 2022 when the ant ingress finally killed it.