Drone Harassment

Has anyone here been bothered by drones? I thought this was a big city problem but we are seeing them in our rural area. Looked up a while back and there was one scoping out the inside of my shop from less then 20' away.
A neighbor told me they had one inthier yard flying amongst their vehicles at 4:30 am ,they caught it on their security camera. Any ideas how to combat this insidious invasion of privacy besides a 12 guage?

A fella I know lives right near the air port was out flying his the day Trump was stopping by. A black suv showed up and told him he better stop flying till the next day or they'd be back. Not thats it a help to your problem but we laugh at him for it.

I have never even seen any drones that I did not know who was operating them.

I’m a fan of the 12g solution. They have a place but common sense would not having it peeking into your shop during the day. Looking over a business in the very early morning would be thieves scoping the area. Most people use them responsibly. We never hear about them. Cam

Tugger2 said:

Has anyone here been bothered by drones? I thought this was a big city problem but we are seeing them in our rural area. Looked up a while back and there was one scoping out the inside of my shop from less then 20' away.
A neighbor told me they had one inthier yard flying amongst their vehicles at 4:30 am ,they caught it on their security camera. Any ideas how to combat this insidious invasion of privacy besides a 12 guage?

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A break barrel pellet gun or .22 short with an oil filter on the end of the barrel would do the trick and draw far less attention to you.

Or, buy a cheap drone and have a mid air collision.

Was working in my driveway one day and heard a drone come down... was hovering 20’ up and as it slowly spun in a circle checking things out the guy must have seen me walking closer to it. .. it took off in a flash and I watched it until it became a spec and disappeared. must have flown a good mile away, at a fast pace.
Nothing ever came of it but still, I didn’t like the invasion of privacy.

Since this seems to be a growing problem, legislation is being put forward to address privacy issues as well as countermeasures. It appears that the FAA is involved and is classifying these as "aircraft" and shooting one down, even if it's peering in your bedroom window can get you in hot water. That is presuming the owner fesses up to that, but simply flying over your privacy fence while your old lady (or daughters) is sunbathing certainly is offensive, that, in the eyes of the law at this point does not justify downing it, and again, hot water.

I think a trained Peregrine would be more entertaining anyway and a plausible solution. Might get by with that, too. It will get sorted out, because (it's already been done) they can be weaponized. Saw a vid of a 9mm mounted on one. Shooting that one I'd not hesitate and call a good lawyer. Should be able to get away with that.

To me, it's virtual trespassing and should be treated the same. The things have cameras (eyes) so the operator can read signs just the same as if they were on foot right at your fence. Many have been shot down, and many people are fighting their right to do so. In fact, if I remember correctly I read that it has become somewhat a sport in CO to go drone hunting. Bad publicity, but it may provide the needed push to get it under some kind of control.

There is also the problem of LEO use of drones. How would that play out in court I wonder. You might someday get the law to let you shoot them down in general, but when the law is using them so sniff out a meth lab, how are you supposed to differentiate that from a nosy, or malicious operator invading your privacy?

I think it is legal to net them, and hold them until the owner contacts the law and you get a visit and a chance to explain. Just not legal to destroy someone else's drone, even in your own airspace, which is part of why the FAA is getting involved.

If it's on my property i'll gladly do anything I can to down it. It's an invasion of privacy and trespassing.

we had a really dumb neighbor who did some of that. I am in ~100' tall trees, so you have to settle down into the property deliberately. He only did it once. My alternative is not a gun but a garden hose. They won't tolerate a blast from the hose. If it becomes a pattern you can set up one of those motion detector sprinklers to watch over your place.
My other neighbor's place was more open and he did indeed offer the shotgun.
Stupid neighbor said it was his right to fly anywhere.
Karma visited him in a most direct way. He burned his house pretty bad when one of those high powered batteries burned up on the charger

Funny enough, lots of jobs get filmed now. For the love of god let the guys know before you get within range haha labourers will start throwing anything the have and the shovel guys love to smash stuff. last job I can think of they never let us know and there were rakes flying up 30 ft and 100000 pound excavators giving it a swing too. Was our own guy filming haha

Eek! This is a crazy thread. My neighbor has a pretty fancy drone that he was flying a fair amount and he's let me mess with it some. I think he's pretty respectful but the quality that comes out of the camera on that thing, plus the range of like 5 miles and around 50mph (I think) is pretty insane. It's also capable to set on a path so it can be programmed to go check out whatever.

My first instinct was shotgun, but I love the idea of netting it or hitting it with a hose. I think, if it's close enough, a few sheets of paper would knock it down as well, I'd think a stack of 10 sheets or so, tossed like a frisbee, would do it.

I really do not like the idea of having one fly around checking out the inside of my barn or my house. We don't really have curtains in most of the house because the trees and distance block the view of pretty much everyone but it creeps me out to think of someone looking in the bathroom window.

I thought that anything using image recording had to be held to same visual point as what you would see from the street. I set up security cameras around my property. Neighbors got upset and called the police. I showed them my setup and images and they were ok with it. They explained to the neighbor, "you have no expectation of privacy from what can be viewed from the street " They actually asked a year later to review footage when a bicycle disappeared.
That said, if the drone is NOT lit up, and filming from a vantage point that someone would not reasonably have from the street or driveway, i see free trap practice.

use a paintball gun....When these first came out, I suggested to a reloading friend that he should develop a 12 g shell with a fishnet (of stainless fishing leader) in it. "Drone Grabber" shells could probably fetch $20 a piece.

I havent seen any over my property yet, but I have a 10-gauge goose gun that will reach it at some point.

That is an outstanding idea. Reach out and touch someone.

funwithfuel said:

That is an outstanding idea. Reach out and touch someone.

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LMAO.......you got it brother!

Maybe a detection radar on the house. Then miniature drone seeking missiles equipped with nets. That should do the trick.
Ironically a month ago i sold an old truck to a friend and he had a TV film crew taking footage of the recovery. They had a drone doing some of the filming.It was amazing the capabilities of the thing. Good and bad to all these devices.

Have to plant a knife on it after you shoot it down

Really though it would be a real bad idea to be on camera shooting down aircraft or netting ect

We use a very nice drone ($4,000 or so) to inventory a 35 acre mulch operation. It has mapping and measuring capability to and is a timesaver. They used to pay a guy pretty good money to fly over it looking for hotspots on Sunday, the only day no one is on-site. This ground and composting material will self ignite. There have been a few calls made to the local fire dept.

We also use it to watch machines as they grind from directly overhead, where no man could or should be, safely. Get some interesting footage form it. I wanted them to get one with an IR capable camera to do our own hotspot checking and get rid of that guy, but this one doesn't do it. Most people don't know it but the CCD camera element itself is IR sensitive, and within the lense structure there is an IR filter. It can be removed, but it's very delicate to get to. My brother used to do warranty service for all the major camcorder makers, and could do it, but I asked him the other day in fact, if he still could and he said only if he had to. Didn't like that delicate work any more. A few years have gone by.

fwf, you are correct about the selected views on security cameras. The aforementioned brother is a licensed security guy and there are lots of rules to follow on security camera setups and most are in line with a reasonable expectation of privacy. That's where the laws are fuzzy. Drones don't yet fall under security camera laws. There is a battle going on just to establish who has rulemaking authority on them and whether it will be Federal or State. Right now, security cameras are state regulated, and here that falls under the TDPS, just like private detectives, etc. But since they are airborne, thus the FAA interest. Then now that they have been used as weapons, the Feds want in on it too via the ATF.