Geosynchronous orbit, 350' mesh dishs, 85+db gain.
www.dailywireless.org/2010/11/19/satellite-with-328-ft-antenna-to-launch
With that sort of gain and only 22,300 miles out..you can pretty much pick up anything on the ground.
Posted on 04/16/2014 5:46:13 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
At The Hobby Center in Danbury, Karl LaLonde, the store's owner, holds the Proto X in the palm of his hand.
It's the size of a fairly healthy tarantula. LaLonde has decorated it with an orange piece of plastic shaped like a bird's beak.
Switched on, its four tiny propellers spin. Under LaLonde's control via a joystick, it lifts off the counter and scoots around the store's airspace. The Proto X costs $50.
"You can get a camera to fit it," LaLonde said.
It's the smallest of the many UAVs -- unmanned aerial vehicles -- LaLonde sells. Business is good. He's selling a lot, in different sizes and shapes.
Except for one thing ...
"Don't call them drones," he said. "People hate that name."
But drone seems to be the word that's sticking, at least in people's minds. The devices are readily available; Amazon sells them. So do hobby shops like LaLonde's. They're being used increasingly for many different things, from agriculture to creating videos of homes for sale.
And potentially for human bloodshed: that was the alleged intent of El Mehdi Semlali Fathi, a Moroccan national arrested in Bridgeport on Monday. The FBI recorded Fathi talking about outfitting a remote-controlled plane laden with explosive to attack a Connecticut federal building and an out-of-state school.
Farfetched?
"No," according to Joseph Acosta, owner of Build Right Fly Right in Wallingford, who has served as a consultant to United Technologies and Yale University.
Possible?
"Yes," according to Michael Balboni, who served as the senior Homeland Security and law enforcement official in former New York Gov. David Paterson's administration.
Of course the United States has used larger, more powerful military drones to attack and kill leaders of al Qaeda. Which is why some people, including hobbyists, don't like the name `drone" -- it has a deadly connotation.
Connecticut currently does not regulate drones or UAVs. There are, however, Federal Aeronautics Administration regulations governing their use near airports, said Kevin Dillon, executive director of the Connecticut Airport Authority.
The FAA is expected to issue broader rules on the use of drones in 2015.
"That's what everyone is waiting for," Dillon said.
Terror toys
There are major obstacles to converting the smaller, hobby-shop domestic versions into flying bombs.
"There are platforms available that can handle payloads of 10-15 pounds," Balboni said. "But there are challenges."
Still Acosta and Balboni said with the proper training, programming and equipment an explosive payload could be detonated from a distance.
The technology has advanced quickly in recent years. The use of a GPS now allows a person to input coordinates which will automatically send the device within seven feet of a building. A "pilot" on the ground wearing special goggles can use a model drone's onboard camera and computer program to control the device from a distance. Many of the models have several propeller-like rotors that allow the device to hover in place, or dart about.
Acosta said training to use the miniature drones is essential. He spends as much as 40 hours training a new hobbyist out in a barren field. An urban setting with high rises and wire-strewn poles presents a whole other set of issues.
So is this a future terrorist modus operandi?
John Pike, Global Security.org's director and terrorism expert, said it is a concern.
"Fly it up to the front of a building at a time when there is a gaggle of people outside, have it detonate -- and you'll get attention," Pike said. "We have amazingly low tolerance for casualties in a terrorist event."
Members of the White Hills Flying Eagles Radio Control Club in Shelton believe such a terrorist act is conceptually possible. The device, however, would require at least an 8-foot wingspan, a gas-controlled engine, a 300-foot runway and a very proficient operator.
"There's a long learning curve," said Carmen Luciano, the president of the club, whose members fly in good weather on a farm in White Hills and on Wednesday nights starting at 8 p.m. in the Shelton Community Center gym.
"You just can't pick up a transmitter and expect to fly," Luciano said. "In a minute you'd be on the ground."
Spies in the skies
Efforts to control drones in the state have stalled out.
State Rep. James Albis, D-East Haven, proposed legislation that would regulate drone use by law enforcement agencies, requiring them to get a warrant to use drones for surveillance. Some fear that airborne robot spies may pose a very real threat to privacy in a not-to-distant Orwellian future -- unless the law intervenes.
Albis' legislation died this year -- but there is a working group in the Legislature's Judiciary Committee that's hoping to write more comprehensive legislation for 2015, he said.
"There are many meritorious uses for drones, but there are opportunities for abuse," Albis said. "We want to see their responsible use."
The American Civil Liberties Union in Connecticut supports the legislation.
ACLU staff attorney David McGuire said in testimony before the General Assembly that given the ability of small, camera-bearing drones to fly from above and hover next to a person's house, it's necessary to regulate them.
This technology is here and now, McGuire said.
"There are manufacturers ready to sell to police departments," he said.
Danbury Police Chief Al Baker said he started seeing companies marketing drones at police trade shows around 2011.
"They used to be really expensive," Baker said. "But now the price has really come down.."
Both Baker and Danbury Fire Chief Geoff Herald said they could foresee many uses for drones in a public safety setting -- searching for missing persons, or getting an aerial view of a fire or a large crime scene.
"It won't happen this year or next year, but it's definitely going to happen," Baker said.
"It would be much less expensive that getting me a helicopter," Herald said
It remains unclear, though, who controls the commercial use of drones.
The FAA had asserted its right to do so, banning the commercial use of drones in 2007.
But in March, an administrative judge with the National Transportation Safety Board ruled the FAA did not have any right to institute the ban, because it never followed the proper rule-making procedures in creating it.
The FAA is now appealing this decision.
But Peter Sachs, of Branford, called the decision a "scathing" rebuke of the FAA.
"They never had the right to regulate drones," Sachs said.
Good drones
Sachs is a public advocacy attorney. He's also a pilot, a drone enthusiast and a member of the Branford Volunteers Fire Department.
In January, when a fire broke out in a quarry in Branford near a shed storing explosives, Sachs used one of his drones to fly over the fire to get a better idea of what the blaze was doing.
"It was the first time a drone was used at a fire in Connecticut to give the department information," Sachs said.
Craig Woolsey, professor or aerospace and oceanic engineering at Virginia Tech -- who is involved in drone research -- said he works near the Appalachian Trail. People regularly wander off the trail and get lost every summer,
"It would make a whole lot more sense to send a drone to look for them, rather than hundreds of people," he said.
Drones in agriculture would allow farmers to send a UAV out in the field; scout the field with a camera for plant disease; then apply herbicides or fungicides selectively, rather than treating an entire field, Woolsey said.
"They may even be used in vineyards to scare away birds," he said. "In France, they're using them to map strip mines."
"They've been used in Japan for spraying crops for the last 20 years," said Missy Cummings, an associate professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Duke University, who also heads the Humans and Automation Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Sachs, of the ACLU, finds himself opposed to the regulatory approach his agency supports with Albis' legislation..
"The sky is a public place," he said -- just as a sidewalk or roadway is.
He does foresee the need to have drone operators learn some aeronautical knowledge, as well as have liability insurance.
Sachs said incidents like the alleged Bridgeport flying bomb plot fan the flames of fear and calls for bans on the use of drones.
He noted that the attack on the Boston Marathon in 2013 involved a common kitchen pressure cooker.
"There hasn't been any call to take pressure cookers off the shelves of stores," he said. "People fear what they don't understand."
Other threats
Cummings, of MIT, also said what surprises her is that people are so concerned about privacy issues with drones, while ignoring those same risks when they use cell phones or go on Facebook.
"The government can find out much more about you through your cell phone," she said. "Rather than banning drones, we should be looking at the entire range of electronic surveillance. Drones are such a tiny part of that."
But Cummings said she has an entirely unscientific observation proving people are getting more educated about drones and the possibilities they offer.
"I was on the Stephen Colbert show two years ago, speaking in favor of drones," she said. "I got a lot of hate mail. One called me evil. '
"A year later I was on the Jon Stewart show," she said. "I got some hate mail, but no one called me evil.
"Then, I was on `"60 Minutes" a few weeks ago," Cummings said. "I only got one piece of hate mail. It's becoming clear there are a lot of good applications for these things."
There are small drones that place little transmitters on windows...and also models that drop small transmitters.
The transmitters are sticky and simply adhere to the surfaces...they don’t look like tiny electronic devices.
Power output is extremely weak and is usually monitored by satellite. They can be stuck onto cars, homes, walls...just about anything. It’s not only audio that is being relayed.
Drones are just vehicles.
Whether they bring good or evil depends entirely upon what is placed in them.
Explain these two contradictory statements, please.
Whether they bring good or evil depends entirely upon what is placed in them.
But if they are black and have pistol grips and look like "a fairly healthy tarantula", they must be EEEEVIL!
/s
(BTW, excellent comment you made.)
www.dailywireless.org/2010/11/19/satellite-with-328-ft-antenna-to-launch
With that sort of gain and only 22,300 miles out..you can pretty much pick up anything on the ground.
Firearms are just weapons.
Whether they bring good or evil depends entirely upon the person using them.
Same for drones.
Who is in charge of the fedgov’s drones?
Yep. If you put firearms on drones then Whether they bring good or evil depends entirely upon the persons using them.
The constitutionally appointed head of whatever Department were using it would be in charge of a drone.
Then it becomes drone season.
Imagine the Bundy defenders with a dozen surveillance drones to fly over the BLM personnel’s positions,
A pot growing hillbilly using a surveilance drone to check that his crop can’t be seen by the police copter...
The government has more reason to fear drones than we do.
Thanks for posting this, as I have done research in this area.
begin quote
So is this a future terrorist modus operandi?
John Pike, Global Security.org’s director and terrorism expert, said it is a concern.
“Fly it up to the front of a building at a time when there is a gaggle of people outside, have it detonate — and you’ll get attention,” Pike said. “We have amazingly low tolerance for casualties in a terrorist event.”
Members of the White Hills Flying Eagles Radio Control Club in Shelton believe such a terrorist act is conceptually possible. The device, however, would require at least an 8-foot wingspan, a gas-controlled engine, a 300-foot runway and a very proficient operator.
end quote
No onboard explosives are needed to turn a mini-drone into a deadly weapon. The kinetic power of a well-placed drone is sufficient to achieve terrorist goals, IMO.
Therefore the claim that a terrorist attack drone would need to be large enough to carry an explosive payload big enough to make a lethal explosion is false.
See my tag line and website regarding potential use of mini-drones against aviation:
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