Spy Truck Not As Inconspicuous As You Think
Submitted By: Mark S
Favorite Comment: Fixer Joe says, “And it STILL can’t pick up Cool 101.9.”
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There’s some serious yagi’s there!
I can practically hear the Get Smart playing in the background.
So much for the days of the Bill’s Dry Cleaning truck with the pants-zipper peephole in the side!
Having worked in the telecom industry for a few years I can say that this appears to be one of those vans that runs around checking signal strengths for different frequencies when businesses are looking to set up radio transmission towers. Notice that the mast is designed to be raised and the cables running inside the window to signal strength equipment. But this does look amazing going down the road.
Nope, my truck looks like that sometimes too. He’s a Ham Radio guy going off for a VHF/UHF contact contest
I Think That Too…
i have a alu-foil-cap! haha
The camo paint job tops this off nicely, no one can see it now
With that fine level of engineering with an obviously relatively high budget, I sense graduate students at work.
They mounted a custom roof rack, but they didn’t get around to making a port for all of their cables.
What, aside from a complete radio repeater, could possibly require such a huge array of antennae?
Unless that’s one of those poles that opens itself up real tall like those TV vans have, thus spreading them apart, those antennae as shown are too close together and will destroy each others’ radiation patterns.
For future reference, those news vans are ENG vans.
They must be out tracking North Korean missles. Very hush hush don’t you know.
Remote control cars have come a long way since I was a kid…
I hope the Van People put as much effort into crafting the message as they put into constructing a way to broadcast it.
I don’t wanna even think about what would happen if they go up in a hill…
And it STILL can’t pick up Cool 101.9.
Hey Joe, COOL 101.9 AKA COOL 102? Yeah, you’re not from the Cape or nothing.
Before you all cast disparaging remarks about this picture and judge the owner(s) to be kooks, take a look at what they have here because it is brilliant.
The loop elements on one set of antennas are for 1296mhz and the yagis are for 70cm (450mhz). What this van is capable of doing is split frequency communications between LEO amateur radio satellites. Each of these antennas is capable in their stacked configurations of 12 – 20db of gain (what that means is that if you were to put 1000 watts into each one you’d have between 12,000 and 20,000 watts being radiated). If you look closely you’ll see azimuth/elevation rotators on the pneumatic mast. With a laptop the whole system can lock onto and track several amateur radio satellites and communicate across the world using several modes of communication. If there is enough power in the van, they can do moonbounce communications as well or work off the aurora.
If you spend some time investigating you’d see tons of electroncis and mathematics at work here.
Seems like a lot of trouble to go through just to make a phone call.
*calls THE agency* hey we have a problem it seems u were wrong… they did notice
*mumbles* knew i should have put camo on it…
The transformer forgot to throw the rake away
I’m not 100% but this looks to me like a rover station for an amateur radio VHF contest. These guys go around trying to get the most and most distant stations that they can during a set period. Rover stations go between geographically calculated grid squares in order to acchieve more points for them and for other stations in the area
It’s a Ham Radio “Rover” station with multiple VHF/UHF high gain beam antennas. Typically used from mountain tops and other elevated locations in contests.
ghost-hunters are receiving signals from ghosts.
Welcome to the digital dark-age!
Looks like the SETI budget cutbacks may have gone a little too far.
What would happen if “Q” was a Clemson grad…
Note bumper hitch base bracket holding up extending antenna pole with folding yagi array.
Not a kludge, an example of rapid redeployable engineering.
The good thing is that if they fall nose first into a well, they can easily climb out.
Ham Radio UHF Contest vehicle, and one of the repeat winners. To talk to as many other stations as possible, from as many locations as possible, in a limited time this is how it’s done.
@Amandarandom
Judging by the antennas, it looks like there is a 2 meter (144-148mhz) beam on the bottom and a circularly polarized 440mhz beam in the middle, I can’t tell what the top one is.
I’m guessing that this was taken during a State QSO party, which is when many ham radio operators do crazy things, such as this, to their vehicles. Chances are they are only transmitting one one antenna at a time and it looks like the mast is pneumatic so that it can be raised and lowered.
Mast Transit.
300 channels at 65 MPH, and there’s STILL nothing on!
@Amandarandom TV Stations would use a setup like that to do field strength measurements of their coverage patterns.
Only moderately hamsexy.
http://www.hamsexy.com/ has some better examples.
Looks like VHF antennas, likely an array that is stowed for travel.
Actually it’s a quite normal, ham radio vhf/uhf rover contest station. They go to rare counties and grid squares ( http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/grid.html ) to make contact with as many other hams as possible in usually a 48 hour period. It’s actually quite fun.
Looks like an FCC van
WIN!
Digital TV transition gone horribly wrong. Bring back ANALOG TV!!
This is a “rover”. A mobile ham-radio station which goes around making
contacts with other ham operators during contests.
This particular species of rover operates at VHF (very high frequencies)
and higher. I count at least 5 directional yagi antennas. The smaller
the little elements are on each antenna, the higher the frequency. Some
of the small antennas operate in the microwave ham bands, but its hard
to see exactly what they are in this photo.
Hams have bands they can use going from way down around the AM broadcast
band, 1.8MHz, all the way to hundreds of GHz, way past TVs and microwave
ovens. This is a peculiar sport, roving, but its a LOT of fun.
–STeve andre’
ham station wb8wsf
ann arbor michigan
Aww – who needs a fancy-schmancy RV with a satellite dish? We’ll just sleep in the van and get local TV just fine.
that is just made of awesome. I think the qualifications for a mobile ham rig is it dont hit the car next to you or get lopped off by an overpass. I would like to see the equipment IN the van
I sure would like to be able to see what it says on the side of that van…
This is a Ham Radio contesting rig. I know somebody that operated in it during a VHF contest up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Tennessee. It is very well equipped to handle contesting and emergency communications.
Check the link below for a few better pictures of it.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jeremylobaugh/Desktop?authkey=Gv1sRgCMbitN6t2frwggE&feat=directlink
The scrap price of aluminum is topping out. Time to sell my anti-alien transponder hats.
It’s the Cat Detector Van!!
Red Rover, Red Rover, Highway Patrol says “Pull over!”
do you get HBO ??
@T8R
That’s not how deciBels work – 12dB gain isn’t 12 times the power, it’s 2^4 or 16 times – and 20dB is 100 times gain. You probably wouldn’t feed that with 1kW, more like 50W and even at that you’d have enough power to basically etch your name on the side of the International Space Station.
“basically etch your name on the side of the International Space Station.”
How cool – cosmic graffiti !
Someone needs to write “ALIEN PATROL” on the side.
And when they stay for 2-3 days at a campsite, they just do their laundry and hang it all over the antennas to dry! No looking for trees or ropes required.
Just an observation here. Of course it’s a high-tech kludge put together for a specific – and pretty cool in a geeky sort of way – purpose by people who don’t otherwise have much of a social life. It’s just an uncommon sight that’s been co-opted for the purposes of making humor for those of us who don’t have enough of a social life for getting our jollies otherwise but need to do so on the internet. If you have to point the technical aspects of it here, then try to be humorous about it for the benefit of the rest of us.
Oh – and it is a kludge. I’m not convinced that the original designers of this *passenger* van or the twice-as-long antennae (or the DOT for that matter) anticipated quite this combination.
Hope their A\C works, cause that damn thing must get hot!
This is the finest, most intelligent blog series I have ever read. I learned some about antenni and a weird sport involving sophisticated communication equipment that requires knowledge of mathmatics, physics, and engineering. And here I thought all humans did anymore was watch reality TV. Thank y’all for making my day.
I’m pleasantly surprised to find the large number of hams here. And here I was figuring I’d be posting the only probable correct ID of the use of the vehicle…
KC2BNE
It surprised me too at first, though on the other hand, I guess it might not really be all that surprising after all to find a lot of hams on a kludge gallery like this.
Non-hams wouldn’t understand.
I had assumed the van was that of a really hard-core T-hunter, not a mobile contester. Someone else here posted a link for more pics — I MUST go have a look. I’ll bet the station inside is equally impressive.
73 to every one of us hams from KG6YTZ
“Yapping, Tapping, and Zapping”
@Outback Jon
I’m surprised as well, but then again there are quite a few licensed hams out there.
KC9FSH
Hamsexy to the nth degree…but not as astounding as the red Geo Metro with the 50 VHF/UHF/HF/CB antennas on the roof and hood. Where did you go, porcupine?
stay away…that’s a radio active van.
This is why Transformers should not do crossdressing
That van is amazing. Wonder what they could do for HF.
After his neighbors threatened to pull down the antenna he decided to take his hobby on the road and annoy and interfere with way more people. Let’s hope he takes it to deserted places. Very impressive anyway.
Reminds me of when Eric Cartmen had a 60 ft satellite dish sticking out of his butt. Season 1.
Perfect for a radio wasteland like here on the Cape. Cool 102 is about the only good thing to get. Ultimate DX van.
@prsfan2008
“Cartman, you have a satellite dish sticking out of your ass!
Oh sure, guys, very funny!”
“why.. do.. wireless networks.. suddenly appear
every time.. you are near?
@Fred
Yup. My OM is covetous. 73!
I have a friend of mine who is a fellow HAM Op and his Ford Fusion is setup similar to that van. He has at last count 12 antennas on his car. His main business is he measures and certifies radio transmission towers emissions for a private company and reports to the FCC his findings. Only 3 of the antennas on his Fusion are for HAM radio, the rest are measuring the towers signal. He has a Screwdriver antenna, for HF, a Centerfire Dual Band VHF/UHF Mobile with an N connector, and he has a really weird eggbeater looking thing he says os for 900 mhz and up
Mark
KCØRJV
It a guy participating in a ham radio contest. That is what is called a “Rover” in a VHF/UHF contest. The guy has a well designed rover set-up and he’s likely one of the top participants. If I knew where that picture was taken, I could probably figure out exactly who it is. Go to arrl.com and look under “contests” and you’ll find more pics like this.
Do the kids in the backseat HAVE to have network TV? Can’t they just watch DVDs or something? Why, back in my day…
Good day Agent 007. This is the new spy-car. It has the latest in spy technology, and is COMPLETELY inconspicuous.
now that tv is digital it is probaly used for radio
looks a little to home made tho
Those are some seriously awesome antennas. Anyone know how high the mast goes?
I wonder, if they knew some people with another setup like it, could they phase them together?
Reminds me of when my family with participate in ham radio fox-hunting exercises in Lancaster PA. We had a nice rotating Yagi on top of our van. We got a lot of strange looks; especially when we were going the wrong way on one way streets.
tehe
George.
Amateur radio emergency communications unit. http://picasaweb.google.com/jeremylobaugh/Desktop?authkey=Gv1sRgCMbitN6t2frwggE&feat=directlink#