Drone for HD recon?

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NIGHTLORD40K

NIGHTLORD40K

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So, Im thinking about buying a drone for reponding to bumps-in-the-night. The advantages of this are several, I think, over the traditional perimeter check:

1) No need to leave the house, especially if the drone is housed in an outdoors charging station/hangar.

2) Ability to see over and past obstacles which could conceal an intruder.

3) The noise may serve as a deterrant.

4) The footage may be useful to law enforcement in identifying an intruder.

I do have good floodlights which illuminate most of my property within an acre or so. So, Im interested in the gestalt opinion of using this technology for home defense. Would I need some sort of external antenna for the controller? Does anyone have a recomendation for a model which would be suitable for this?

Im thinking the best protocol would be arming myself, then securing the home interior, which is very quick given my layout, then firing up the drone to do an external sweep. Thoughts?
 
This would be a good application for a drone.

We use one to check fence lines and to keep an eye on cattle.

You can program in pre-determined routes and such.

If you fly in a circle around, say, a house, you would be able to see even whats under the porch.

ETA:
You need a compatible smart phone/tablet and I recommend a DJI, like a Phantom 4 or some such.

We are getting flight times of about 30 minutes per charge. The range is impressive and it comes back and lands when it starts getting tired.
 
Better yet, arm the drone! Nothing fancy, a flamethrower or automatic shotgun will do.

There are several issues that come to mind (if we assume the drone will NOT be armed). You would have to leave it exposed to the elements and/or theft in most cases unless you build some sort of camouflaged mini-bunker for it. Unless the drone was on a pre-programmed flight path, you would ve preoccupied looking at the screen instead of keeping your head up. This has a further problem in that your night vision would be destroyed by looking at the screen (if applicable). There are some that fly autonomously, but you still need to launch it and then monitor what it is showing you since it's moving around. And being that it is a moving platform, there is a possibility that you won't have visibility where/when you need it.

A better solution would be to have security cameras covering blind spots and trouble areas (ie, a shed or outbuilding). With camera tech being what it is, you can get a different alert from a given camera/area all while continuing to cover multiple areas with cameras.

Don't get me wrong, the innovation and creativity to come up with the idea is great. It may even work at your home. Unless you live in an insanely busy area (I certainly do and rarely hear things go bump) you will have an expensive pice of equipment just sitting waiting for a day that isn't likely to come.
 
Unless you are doing surveillance on a large piece of property, I wouldn't bother with it. I would much sooner employ cameras around the house that could be monitored in real-time, whether from your phone, a tablet, or other device.
 
Corpral_Agarn said:
I agree, but as an aside, drones transmit in real time
Click to expand...
Believe me, I know- but IMO in a tactical situation where you are electronically screening an area very close to the house, there are higher priorities to attend to, such as arming, accounting for, securing and marshalling friendlies, and establishing comms with the authorities. For me, to add deploying, controlling, and monitoring a drone feed would be a tall order and a gross overtask.
 
FL-NC said:
Believe me, I know- but IMO in a tactical situation where you are electronically screening an area very close to the house, there are higher priorities to attend to, such as arming, accounting for, securing and marshalling friendlies, and establishing comms with the authorities. For me, to add deploying, controlling, and monitoring a drone feed would be a tall order and a gross overtask.
Click to expand...
And I think you have a solid point.

I may have misread your post, but I wanted to clarify for folks who don't know.

A dedicated tablet to initiate the flight with predetermined route may be pretty cool.

I have to admit that most of the things you listed would come first, though.
 
FL-NC said:
Believe me, I know- but IMO in a tactical situation where you are electronically screening an area very close to the house, there are higher priorities to attend to, such as arming, accounting for, securing and marshalling friendlies, and establishing comms with the authorities. For me, to add deploying, controlling, and monitoring a drone feed would be a tall order and a gross overtask.
Click to expand...
Im thinking the drone would come into play after securing the interior, but before waking and marshalling the noncombatants or calling for reinforcements since Id first have to confirm that its not just a possum.....

Assuming that Charley IS in the wire, the drone would be put aside at that point to collect the kids and have wife call the cops.

Granted, concentrating on the control screen does lower local tactical awareness a bit, but Im considering that the advantages of not breaking cover to go investigate the disturbance may outweigh this. Im in a failrly rural area where the late-night anomalies are usually critters or my neighbors' horses in my yard. Civilization is encroaching closer every year, though.

There have been times, though....... Twice in ten years Ive had to warn two-legged varmits to move along during a perimeter check. As it happened, they skedaddled pretty quick when staring down the barrel of an AK, but I still hate to be exposed if I dont have to be.

A drone pretty well gets the "I see you sucker." message across without being overtly hostile.
 
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We recently had a member asking about random shooting going on 200yds from their house.

For RURAL applications I could see it. If one has a lot of land it could make some sense.

For the average Joe, even rural, probably not all that essential. Better options would be cameras posted in various places.


One thing to remember regardless is you dont want to ignore your immediate surroundings.
 
It could be meaningful if the flight pattern was pre-programmed and totally automated so your attention wasn't necessary or you had dedicated staff to operate it. It should be considered if you already have extensive coverage from fixed-position cameras or the property is so large that is not practical -- but then you'd need remote sensing of the intrusion because you're not just going to hear it.

The big advantage of fixed-position cameras is they are already in more than one place at the same time. No need to fly there, they're in position already. They can also be heavier and probably less costly for a given image quality.

Law enforcement in my area is using drones extensively to surveil (outdoor) crime scenes and to conduct searches for suspects. But bear in mind they have dedicated staff to operate the drone, while other people are performing traditional tasks. Even so, I think it's a bit gimmicky at this stage. While they're not exactly early-adopters in this day and age, I understand that they're not willing to fall behind the curve. In my area, the Sheriff does not have air assets other than the drone -- no chopper, though one is available from a cooperating agency. The metro county about 50 miles away has some choppers (Huey and Kiowa). National Guard also has a Blackhawk that's been used mostly in SAR. Point being that drones are proving useful for operations where manned aviation assets can't be afforded, and to some degree that can apply to your residential property.

Besides UAV drones, you can also consider live POV feeds from ground-based drones suitable for your terrain, or dog-mounted cameras. Now my own dog doesn't sleep with a camera, but if I had dog handlers on staff, they could deploy dogs with cameras as needed. Fortunately, my abode is simpler and I have no staff, not even snipers on the roof.
 
I think it's a decent rationale if you really want to justify buying a drone for a fun toy.

I also purchased my jetski for "water mobility and transportation" and my Jeep for "emergency responding to natural disasters" and my motorcycle for "gas saving".

Just happens to be fun as heck.... For those "tools"
 
NIGHTLORD40K said:
So, Im thinking about buying a drone for reponding to bumps-in-the-night. The advantages of this are several, I think, over the traditional perimeter check:

1) No need to leave the house, especially if the drone is housed in an outdoors charging station/hangar.

2) Ability to see over and past obstacles which could conceal an intruder.

3) The noise may serve as a deterrant.

4) The footage may be useful to law enforcement in identifying an intruder.

I do have good floodlights which illuminate most of my property within an acre or so. So, Im interested in the gestalt opinion of using this technology for home defense. Would I need some sort of external antenna for the controller? Does anyone have a recomendation for a model which would be suitable for this?

Im thinking the best protocol would be arming myself, then securing the home interior, which is very quick given my layout, then firing up the drone to do an external sweep. Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Only problem I see is, no way to detect the “bumps in the night”, unless you fly the thing 24-7.

I just use motion sensors and radios that play back with digital recorders, as to the location.

Also have some cellular game cameras that capture photos and send/notify to other devices. Not as flexible but passive.
 
jmorris said:
Only problem I see is, no way to detect the “bumps in the night”, unless you fly the thing 24-7.

I just use motion sensors and radios that play back with digital recorders, as to the location.

Also have some cellular game cameras that capture photos and send/notify to other devices. Not as flexible but passive.
Click to expand...
Hmm, motion activated game cameras. Good idea.
 
If the cameras do not transmit they will be useless at alerting you.

The radios I use, I built from old prison radios I was given. The motion sensor activates a delay off timer, I built that turns on a double pole double throw relay, powering up the keyed radio at the same time it plays back the message last recorded on the digital recorder. Works out to about 2 miles.

DAA35BDD-E755-4594-9651-2D05FBC055FC.jpeg


AD23DF31-F1CF-461C-B8BF-880A5CD92B7F.jpeg



The cellular cameras out today have a bit more delay (depending on signal) and are going to cost more over time but, if you have signal they can work a lot further.

Like when I was at home a couple weeks ago and was alerted these guys had come into the trap. Worth noting, 2 bars out of five signal where it’s located.

501E0E23-5E85-49C1-9A3D-AB1C36EFD0B1.jpeg


So I called my trigger and dropped the gates on them.

6514D87D-200F-4E34-A7DE-02201225EFD6.jpeg


And at first thought they might have busted out but was reassured a few minutes later when they went back to eating.

46C31ADA-9A60-4FA4-BF3C-2B3B58B5AD4F.jpeg


They even got lazy hours before we finally got there.

A4F91364-90C8-498E-9770-A86A1A4166DC.jpeg


I learned the “motion camera” part years ago when they were 35mm film. So you got to know in a few days, what was there, last week.

I instantly knew that was less than ideal and created the first digital game camera, I had hear of. Using motion sensor, digital camera, servo, limit switches and a homemade timer circuit.

A2402DEE-A90F-4F5D-8BA4-83F61F6A0444.jpeg

C0046034-0E1A-4717-81F9-E29B43E59519.jpeg

88730E89-BBD9-4390-AEB1-1607D7458D0E.jpeg


It worked but almost instantly I realized that again, seeing what WAS there is less than useful. Yeah, it didn’t take a week but you still only get to see what you can’t get right now, thus the switch to the radio.

I still use the cameras as “scouts” but the radios are “monitors”.
 
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NIGHTLORD40K said:
Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Fixed cameras feeding a computer seems quicker and more effective since you could monitor several windows at once instead of trying to control a drone. Resolutions and IR would be better as well. With a drone you'd be focused on the are the drone was covering while someone could be moving on the opposite side of the house.
 
I don’t think of it as a replacement to stationary cameras but as an adjunct. Stationary cameras are just that, stationary. A drone would provide dynamic camera positioning and thus a greater flexibility.

I drug mine out and it’s doable.
 
FL-NC said:
Unless you are doing surveillance on a large piece of property, I wouldn't bother with it. I would much sooner employ cameras around the house that could be monitored in real-time, whether from your phone, a tablet, or other device.
Click to expand...

I think this is more practical for home defense scenarios. For monitoring a large piece of property for trespassers a drone could be useful for sure.
 
I don't see much use for a drone in this setting. It takes too much of your attention to operate one. I think you would be better off with motion sensors and cameras. If you spot a threat you need to be preparing for it, not trying to fly your drone back to your house.

Another thing to remember is that the FAA requires amateur drone operators to maintain a line of sight with their drone. If you are flying a drone you can't see, you are breaking federal law.
 
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