[aprssig] Drones and Camera, etc

[kliegle at myfairpoint.net]

Game cameras are relatively cheap now days, just about all have IR 
sensors and IR flashes for night pictures or video. Only limitation is 
battery consumption. Either get one that has an external power 
connection, or hack the battery contacts and solder leads for a wall 
wart or a hell cell battery. Hide the works well and you can catch 
video or pictures of the perp(s). 

If you want APRS notification, an HT with a 'real' on/off switch left 
on and a spring loaded slide switch with a minor modification. Slide 
switch to the spring loaded position and drill a tiny hole through it 
to hold a pin (think a grenade pin). I used .050" aviation safety wire 
for its stiffness and slide ability in the hard plastic of the switch. 
6lb fishing line is tied to the pin and other end of line is attached 
to anything that may get moved. 

I used the above to alert me as to when the crack addicts were breaking 
into my camper. I used a discrete freq with PL encoding, and left a 
radio at home with PL decode on. When I heard the packets breaking the 
squelch at the higher than normal rate (BEACON EVERY 15) then it was 
time to investigate. 

As for drones, I fly fixed wing motor gliders with GoPro or a GoPro 
knock off from MCM Electronics. Video down links are handy, but a 
complete ground station has to be set up for every flight. Mine is 910 
Mhz video downlink, RC link is 2.4 Ghz. 

The multi rotor copters are great for remaining on station or going to 
a known point in space and staying there. Obviously weight becomes an 
issue when loaded down with batteries, cameras, RF TXR's, etc. 

Cameras such as 'board cameras' (circuit board and a lense) can be had 
for small money and numerous resolution choices from EBay stores 
located in China. These make for a light weight, gimbled video setup. 

In the RC world, they call this FPV (First Person View) flying. The web 
is full of videos posted online of folks flying around as if they were 
onboard. 

73 Kris's KA1GJU