New Drone

My old drone took a nose dive a while back. It was a fun toy even if its camera would not take pics or video...it looked forward with a slight down angle and was all RC controlled but it did have a flame thrower with 40 seconds of burn time Anyway one day one sides props stopped working and it managed to land on a concrete pad from 400 feet up...... upside down and broke beyond repair.

So fast forward a couple of years to last Thursday when I saw these DJI Mini 2 SE drones for $300 at SAMS and thought why not. Drone tech is not something I have even began to keep up with. So I first learned that you have to have a smart phone to fly almost all of the drones now days. As the smart phone is your console screen and has the app on it that connects console to drone with wireless.

So I head to the closest Verizon store to get my first smart phone ever and was probably pushing the line between getting one and going to jail. After dealing with a a young man that was well rude and obviously has a strong dislike of anyone over 50...... I Finally said dude can you at least show a basic level of respect to me instead the constant "You older people Don't and Can't" Comments and maybe stop acting like you would rather be burning in hell than dealing with a customer over 50? If you can't maybe you could just pass me off to a sales person that can do those things and before I rip your scrawny head off your pencil neck and shit down the resulting single orifice? He walked away without a word and a much more friendly and helpful sales person materialized.

LOL and the friendlier sales person started out with "Older people that have never owned a smart phone need to start out with the most basic models." And I said OK lets stop the old people shit right there. Just because I Loathe Smart Phones and how they have turned two generations into Asexual, mindless zombies that are totally incapable and can only function at a basic level only when their smart phone is stuck to their ass or in their hand....... Does not mean that I am not highly intelligent and won't be able to educate myself on how to operate the most advanced smart phone as a tool in the applications I need it to serve me in. This one though was more fixated on "we need to find a model that you can afford." At this point I am about to lose my shit on this one as well and whipped out my little tablet and pulled up my online banking and turned it around and said "Look Fucker I can afford to buy this entire Franchise store and everything and everyone in it, so sell me the best phone to meet my needs!" And about 20 minutes later I walked out with a Galaxy A23 5G a lower end phone that only cost a total of $550 + a 6 Month block of Prepay plan that auto pays every 6 months. I am finding myself having almost zero tolerance now days for the vast majority of young peoples lack of just basic respect and and borderline hatred of Gen X and Boomers.

So I spent half of Saturday figuring the Smart Phone out and getting the apps I needed in order to not only make the drone work but to set my new Printer/Scanner/FAX up that requires a smart phone and app to set up......... And my expanded sec cam and sensor system up that also requires a smart phone and app to set up and make fully functional.

So today the Drone was fully charged up and it got a respectable 27 minutes of flight time, My old RC drone had a 6-7 minute flight time. Get up, get hornets paper nest in the cross hairs, ignite flame thrower and incinerate hornets or big wasp nest and fly back and land with a near dead battery with the old one

I have been digging all of my old retired computers out and putting the pics and videos and other relevant files on their hard drives over to 256Gig -1TB SD Cards and have managed to use all of my SD and Micro SD Cards. SO my pic and video taking with the drone was very limited and not great quality since it was storing on the phone.


First pic I took I sent the drone straight up above me to the 300' flight ceiling I set. If Read the rules correctly 400' is highest you can legally fly a drone. LOL I look like a little ant way down there.


I played around flying and controlling it for its entire flight time today. And taking a few pics and very short videos. This pic was from 150' up and the camera angled. I am operating it from on top of the Maple Hill site. I may or may not build another big pond in the pasture on the other side of the fence. If I do it will be around 6.5 acres and my land bridge at the end of the South Arm Tail will be the dam. I already dug out and clay packed a future dam Key there


Can't remember the exact altitude on this pic but was a bit over 200' and farther back than the previous pic. Maple Hill formerly known as Mount Krap Minor LOL. is 16' above lake level and I made it in 2022 with the 57hp Kubota and a 6' box blade....... Not a small task but fun watching it grow one box of clay at a time.


It is a whole different perspective of the farm from up there.


I am hoping the Lake being full again resolves most of the moss/algae problem that began after it lost 4' of depth over the no rain year that 2023 was. Actually a trickle of water going over the spillway now! I do love my life out here and everything it offers!



Looking across the South arm to the South dirt road. That bare strip on the left side is a big drainage ditch I cut out last summer. About where it ends by the road is a fairly fast flowing wet weather spring that turned that whole area including the road right there into a bottomless mud pit. The ditch fixed that malfunction and drains it off into the lake as fast as the water comes out of the ground there. I can't do much about the other two wet weather spring in the field on the other side of the road. I put field tile in both of them and instead of lakes in that part of the field it is just swamps now LOL. Can see where I pulled mud and built the point up and added some depth to the South Arm in that area. Probably going to hit the moss with a dose of copper sulfate to kill it back, go through the hassle of getting 15-20 grass carp and building the waterfall on the ends of both points to oxygenate the whole lake more than it is. The Carp and higher Oxygen content should be the long term solution to future low water moss outbreaks. It is still a very young lake and a long way from being balanced out in everything. Depth where the sun glare is in the center is 8' and tapers up that moss free channel the length of the South Arm to 3' Deep at the end. The sides slope in to it from 6"-2-3 feet before dropping off to the deeper water.

 

I've been wanting to get a drone myself,, I'm not all that tech savvy,, and really actually despise it . But I'm finding it's getting to the point that if I don't learn some of the basics,, I won't be able to do sh#t anymore.
I've had to start pulling a permit for a job back here at home ,, and it's 100% online stuff ,, and it's aggravating as hell ,, I don't mind looking up stuff on a computer,, but for some reason,, I despise doing work on one .
I may pull the trigger on one of the drones ,, I can see a few benefits in having one .does that drone zoom in from them heights ??

 

This is incredible! I'm always so amazed by your posts and pictures.

 

Years ago, on another survival/prepper forum, I toted the advantages of having a drone in a SHTF situation. This was 15 years ago, when drones were still relatively new, expensive and lacked many modern features. I thought it would be nice to be able to monitor the surrounding countryside for any problems or threats. The drone that I have currently is an older model, that has a controller with a built-in viewscreen rather than using a smartphone. Prior to that I had a drone that recorded still pictures and video to an SD Card, which could only be viewed on a lap-top on the ground. I have to wonder though, in a SHTF situation, would the smartphone and app continue to work as a viewscreen? I'm thinking not, but...

 

The phones do not require service to work with the drones, you can even just use WiFi to download the apps. My old drone (DJI Phantom 3) used an old IPhone 6s with no service. I am about ready to purchase a new one but trying to decide which one. They are a great tool and a lot of fun and I even used the old Phantom to assist in the search and rescue of an Alzheimers patient that had walked away from the facility nearby (I didn't find him, another group did).
One of the most useful features is having the unit fly a pre-determined path while taking video, such as property lines or maybe your area of defense. We used the Phantom to fly a buddy's property one summer as he did work there on weekends, then watched the progress unfold. Now I think about how Kamp is going to get us some amazing footage!
Of course we have all seen what the Ukranians are doing with them......

 

I got a buddy that flies a bunch of different DJI drones, and I vaguely remember him saying that his phone/the app has to go online and make sure that he is allowed to fly in that area (so needs his GPS on too) I think he called it Geo Fence or something. I'd want to fly where I want/when I want and with no one knowing.

-JW

 

Got the name of an American drone company that makes something affordable?

 

Let's try to keep it under 1K!

 

Ya got any ball park pricing on a super secret stealthy type drones ??

 

Why not?

 

Autel drones are China made (Hubsan) but don't require the Geofencing that DJI does. SEC is right. I am shopping for another but it will not be DJI thanks to all of their limits like height and airspace.

 

LOL most of the RC units are priced well above $1500 I just am not going to spend more a few hundred bucks on what amounts to a toy. The smart phone will never make a call and has very little info that anyone would learn much from. I can picture the Chinese pouring over my video and picks "Rook Rook he have Gwass and Twees!!! LOL. It actually does work without a wifi connection just with limited function in the flight data. Like no pre plotted courses, or map of the area to show where the drone is etc. But not everything in my world is doomsday security Krap........ A lot of stuff is just for Gasp FUN

Like my Dinner I am about to dig in to

 

This thought just occurred to me. Does the US govt having an eye in your drone activity creep you out more or less than CCP having access to it?

 

Yeah, MQ9 Reapers go for something like $32 million, LOL
Only the federal government or possibly @Kamp Krap could afford one of those.