[TowerTalk] Just for fun reading: Mysterious antennas near Salt Lake City

[Lux, Jim]

On 1/11/23 4:13 PM, Lux, Jim wrote:
> On 1/11/23 3:43 PM, n0tt1 at juno.com wrote:
>> https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/video-series-of-mysterious-antenna 
>>
>> s-found-throughout-foothills-of-salt-lake-city/
>>
>> 73,
>> Charlie, N0TT
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>
> https://youtu.be/lARsgBr3SGg
>
> is the KSL-TV story..
>
> I'm surprised they didn't just take a spectrum analyzer and watch them 
> (in situ).  Or once they had one, open it up and see what's inside.
>
> Probably some sort of mesh network experiment. Good luck with that 
> antenna and feed line lasting the weekend.
>
> _


s/weekend/winter/


I've put payloads like this up on hills (with permission) - but the 
person who gave permission might not be the person who answers the phone 
for a question like "what is that"?  Many range land, public lands 
management orgs have limited staff and it's not like they have some 
master database of everything.  For instance, you might want to put 
something on US Forest Service land, and you talk to the ranger, they 
give you a paper form to fill out, you provide your "certificate of 
insurance", and that gets filed somewhere. It's not in some database or 
indexed, etc.  If someone came by 6 months later and said "I found this 
on peak 6312, what is it?" they'd have no way to figure it out.

They generally do ask you to put a placard of some sort on it, but 
that's more for you, so that you can answer questions, and perhaps to 
discourage people from using it as an improvised target. Or, to take it 
as a souvenir.

This is something that I've given a lot of thought to in schemes for 
diversity or phased arrays or for antenna measurement, particularly on 
receive. These days, with cheap high performance GPS it's pretty 
attractive- Have a GPS, a processor, something like a RTL-SDR and a 
battery and solar panel, with a mesh transceiver (or some convenient 
radio link to bring the data back)

The other way people put stuff out in the wilderness on public lands is 
by filing a mining claim(s). That claim can be pretty sketchy (after all 
you don't give away the true nature of your bonanza - so you say you're 
going to mine gravel). And sure, you're required to do some development 
work on the claim - "Why I installed a remote monitoring system to 
collect geophysical and environmental data to facilitate the future mine 
development." The law requires $100 worth of work or improvements per 
year. (your time lugging that box counts)  iF you're claiming a "mill 
site" it has to be associated with a mineral site, but doesn't have 
extraction - but one thing it could be is "other uses in support of a 
mining operation".