Drones drones drones, it's hot stuff at the moment.
PrepHole likes kit, tech, force-multipliers, looking cool.
So, what are we using for drones? Nowadays you get 30+min battery life in a small, HD, 'smart' (automated flying paths and whatever) package. A DJI is like $400.
But - I hardly ever see personal drones shown in peoples kit breakdown pics here on PrepHole. Why is that? it seems extremely useful for planning, reconnaissance, perimeter defense, and offensive actions in a pinch (dropping/smashing into something with an energetic payload). Plus, a roll-up solar panel kit should be able to fully charge one in some reasonable period of time?
Anyways, practical PrepHole drone usage thread
>wtf should I buy
If you are wondering why other people haven't thought of this it's because we are living in the future and people are still figuring out the role of drones in war.
Personally, I would use them for recon, artillery, and as improvised drone missiles. A swarm of these could destroy an entire squad of mechanized infantry and their armored vehicle. Without a single friendly casualty.
Artillery is still the king of the battlefield. Infantry is the queen.
sure, but I'm thinking of the larperator perspective on PrepHole. Like the guy expecting his buddy group to take over the local post office when the day comes with their ranger green chest rigs, meticulously selected buffer spring weights, and baofengs. In that circumstance — e.g. seemingly all of the various generals here on PrepHole — drones seem quite the useful bit o' technology to throw in one's ruck.
Now, I've for sure seen some DJIs and whatnot on /arg/ from time to time, but I'm surprised more people don't seem to have one. It's an incredible capability that you can scout out a building from a few km away in relatively good resolution. & you consider connecting its capacities to ATAK or something, dropping markers on your map
perhaps I'm thinking a bit too hard. I do want to get one of my own to play around with
Nah yeah it's a serious game changer and the possibilities titilate the dark corners of the imagination
>perhaps I'm thinking a bit too hard
Now you are thinking like a soldier.
Would you like to enlist?
Leave the thinking to your CO. Less thinking more obeying and killing. If you have to stop and think in a firefight you might die. That's why they do a billion up drills so you can aim and kill like a perfect robot with muscle memory. Engineers, commanders, they do all the thinking for you.
One important thing to note with civillian drones in particular is how easily they can be tracked
DJI, for example, sells a little wand gun thing to law enforcement that not only jams DJI drones but also provides the operators location data on real time.
There are ways around it (we know this because the chinks gave a fuckload to the russians but the ukies still use DJI drones effectively in the field) but without care and the requisite knowledge an off the shelf drone can prove worse than useless
>https://www.dji.com/aeroscope
oh shit that's quite sophisticated. seems it can sniff out, from pure 2.4ghz control and video feed, quite a lot
Yeah supposedly a lot of would be ukie drone operators got schwacked early war because of that thing, but they've since found ways to beat it.
So there's definitely a way, but Im personally not gonna touch a drone until I found out what it is
no matter what you do, even someone with entry level radio gear can triangulate a 5.8ghz source with ease. It's detectable radiation. nothing can avoid that.
now, perhaps we should develop wired drones. thin spools of comm cable, fiber optics or something, permanently attached to the drone and unwinding as you go. It would need to have an onboard winding system
Sure, but when there are 5000 other transmitting devices it's far less easy. Nothing happens in a vacuum, anon.
What about attaching the transmitting controller to another slaved remote controller by means of a super long cable?
Like a field phone? Sure, but the drone itself can be tracked if its communicating. However, with modern software, I'd imagine you can have a radio silent drone, completely autopilot flown flight plan, to at least do pre-planned recon to get video you then recover manually when it comes back to land.
Not that anon but I'd consider the drone itself being tracked to be much less of a problem compared to tracking the operator so if the wire to transmitter trick works for that then I'd consider it a viable solution, if not neccesarily the best one
The dji Mavic 1 is still a great deal. It can haul over a pound and has decent endurance. Sure you can get more, but it's a great place to start.
Thanks for the recc. Is it worth it to get the special controller or does a phone work fine? The last time I flew a quadcopter was like 2014. Hasn't there been some sort of weird licensing FAA thing since then? I'll just be flying it around my property or in the woods somewhere.
I used my phone for a while. A cheap tablet does way better, its nice to still have you phone instead of it being tasked with that. Also, eventually, getting an app like lichi makes controlling it a lot better.
if I do want a controller, should I get the phone-screen one then to still use 3rd party apps?
That I don't know. I've never used a dedicated control, just the half/controller thing that comes with the drone, plus the screen.
you need a certificate from the FAA now, your part 107. it doesnt take long to study for the test, maybe 15-20 hours. going to a testing location is the most annoying part. they want you to register the drone as well as provide engraved information or a piece of paper on the drone to ID the user if it is lost or downed. the most interesting part of using tech guns to down drones is you have to spot them first, even at a few hundred feet they are hard to see at all, and at a max ceiling height of 400 feet, forget about beig able to spot one
That's only for commercial operations, you dingus.
my bad, he asked about special loicensing, forgot to mention its only for commercial use.
There's a useful exception in the FAA rules (as well as in many other countries): if it's below roughly half a pound (250g), it doesn't count. The DJI Mini series is sized specifically to fall just under this limit. Most homemade FPV drones are, as well.
Some people have, the war is very good on telling what you should buy. Get a DJI Mini 2 to start with, a burner phone that's never been connected to the network, and some supplemental software to load on there. The DJI Mini 2 is treated as a squad level asset by the Russians, and they like to use the DJI Mavic 3 as a platoon level asset, but they are more than the Mini 2. If you got gucci money, a DJI Mavic 3T Enterprise has a thermal sensor on it, Sparta Battalion has a lot of brutal with theirs that drops grenades on Ukrainian positions. The Ukrainians have been using FPV drones as cheapo loitering munitions. They're a must have these days, and definitely could be useful in situations like the 2020 Floyd chimp out. Most of PrepHole doesn't have them because they're only useful for combat units, and not as high clout as the latest /arg/ trend, and not enough people on here have friends to coordinate with. Lots of good resources from both sides on their use on telegram if you can get someone to translate them for you. Brent0331 also has some relevant streams on them.
>They're a must have these days, and definitely could be useful in situations like the 2020 Floyd chimp out
How exactly would they be useful?
perhaps observing where the mass of rioters are heading? still, imagine living in a city center. It's really a non-issue for most of us
>perhaps observing where the mass of rioters are heading?
But why would this be relevant? If someone is out defending a business/home/whatever, then that really isn't an issue as they're going to be sticking near wherever they're defending. If someone is going about their day, then the best course of action would be to stay a good distance away from where shit is happening rather than sticking around within a block or two of a riot where they might benefit from hardware to gather intelligence from the surrounding area to see if the riot is liable to head their way.
idk I'm not that anon
>then the best course of action would be to stay a good distance away from where shit is happening
That's why a drone is very useful. Their range is much further than a block or two away.
the mini 3 pro I'm looking at can do ~12km? that's crazy
Anon, the point is that if you're close enough to a riot that you need to worry about bringing specialized hardware for reconnaissance so that you don't get caught in the riot, then you would be better off just leaving the area.
Not everyone can just afford to leave, some people have to defend their businesses and such. Drones have plenty of range to operate safely on nearby threats, that's the whole reason they're popular.
>some people have to defend their businesses and such.
Why would those people be running around, rather than just sticking by whatever location they're defending? Only way you're benefiting from drone reconnaissance is if you're mobile, and if you're mobile rather than sticking around to defend a static position, then you should be leaving the area because there's zero reason for you to be fucking around where people are rioting.
>dropping "things" using a plastic mechanism triggered by the landing lights
Just show us the blueprint I want to throw water balloons this summer!
Here.
>They fucking sell it on Amazon
Lmao of fucking course. Building one must be easy as fuck with a light sensor and $3 parts.
lmao this is sad. if you can not even design and build any sort of release mechanism for your drone you have no business fucking with them in the first place.
first of all, stop fucking with DJI which is basically a flying apple product, build your own damn drone.
second, literally just build a drone and you'll learn how to build any number of cheap and reliable systems for carrying/releasing payloads
>stop fucking with DJI which is basically a flying apple product
>stop fucking with the most combat proven man portable drone system on earth
what you're saying is even a severely gimped system can do a lot. still no reason to limit your capabilities and prevent yourself from doing more. imagine being geofenced lmao
>imagine being geofenced lmao
It's very easy to bypass that.
I’m surprised dji hasn’t dipped into making a military config drone. Maybe they’re worried drones in general will be labeled as arms under itar
Post your drone and release mechanism. Oh wait, you don't have one.
nice try fbi
DIY
it pisses me off that you need to use your cell phone for most of them
I have my spare phone from when I recently upgraded and it works great
FPV munitions used by Ukraine. Perfect for home defense.
>Four ruffians break into my house
Why would you bother the most they'll do is steal your washing machine and fuck each ot-- oh you said ruffians
The /rcg thread on DIY is a great source for information. I'd stay away from "how do I kill people" stuff, but if you want to learn a shit ton about drones and ask questions from people who regularly fly them.. it is my goto.
How do they arm the munitions?
I've seen a couple where it's a pair of bent wires mildly hooked around each other but not touching (at the front). when the drone impacts, the wires contact one another and set it off electronically.
oh ok, I was assuming you'd want your drone back and would just be dropping something. I mean especially at night, those things can fly by GPS on preset waypoints. An old DJI Phantom can do 14 oz necessary for a grenade or similar.
A drone can easily be set to drop an item, and deliver voltage to start a timer. maybe have a small ripcord on the munition, so when it is dropped it allows the connection that starts the timer. obviously a specially designed PCB would be the way to go, but I figure this is more about improvising what they already have.
5 seconds should be enough time to get from 100M to ground. I was looking at the M40 grenades, and some of them require a rotation to engage the pressure trigger pin. Removing propellant, gluing some fins on the grenade to have it spin it as falling.
>DJI
>Using a Chinese drones to operate
morons you know that if shit hits the fan they can disable all of them pushing a button right?
Also
>Meeec you are near an airport or a red zone. I'm not gonna let you using your drone no matter what
hm, ok then. I'll avoid the Chinese compromised DJIs. I'll use a Chinese knockoff DJI instead. Wait...
If shit hits the fan, they will do what they've always done and harvest data from our drones, not disable them.
They recon they'll get from our drones will be equal or greater in value than the recon we will get out of them.
who is They
>But - I hardly ever see personal drones shown in peoples kit breakdown pics here on PrepHole. Why is that?
Anything over 8.8 ounces/250 grams or being used for commercial purposes:
>needs to be registered with the FAA
>needs to have a number that can be linked back to you affixed to it
>needs to have a transponder that broadcasts it's position to everyone in the area
Manufacturers include the transponders on any quality option under 8.8 ounces as well since people will use those for commercial purposes. The transponders are integrated into the controller hardware and use the same transceiver that the drone uses for control, so you can't disable them. Some models also include geofencing from the manufacturer to lock out areas where you can fly them. Consider how posters here already feel about amateur radio, and then consider that the FAA goes a lot harder on enforcing their rules than the FCC.
why is this not a simple matter of scraping a single circuit trace?Why give up that quickly in the face of a perhaps trivial software problem? I refuse to accept that as a generic reason for being afraid of the technology.
>why is this not a simple matter of scraping a single circuit trace?
Because it's implemented in the firmware.
>Why give up that quickly in the face of a perhaps trivial software problem?
Because reverse engineering firmware and any security measures on custom user firmware is far beyond the abilities of posters here.
>People have done it in... and stateside.
Source?
the ADS-B functionality is not present on some models like the Mini 3 in the first place
>Source?
It's like two seconds of googling, there's is an entire modding community for these. People have removed geofencing, altitude limits, etc.
holy shit you fucking people.
the entire fpv community is flying nothing but drones they built themselves that never had any geofencing or transponders and never will. my god just go to /rcg/ you'll see they do whatever the fuck they want
Yes, and? Do you honestly think most posters here want to have to work for rather than just buying something that's plug and play?
but you can't even do half the things with an off the shelf drone you can do with one you built yourself. why would you limit yourself like that?
This is all trivially easy to get around. People have done it in Ukraine and stateside.
Sooner or later infantry will realize that a drone can designate small arms fire.
The drone simply designates a target, if the target doesn't flash friendly the drone sends the operator a left/ right indication to the operators gun, effectively allowing the drone to spot.
If the drone also had a airburst 40 grenade, the operator could give a visual confirmation of target for the drone to attack, or manually pilot the drone.
This is very very simple from a SIGINT point of view because the "friendly" beacon simply answers somthing like an IR challenge so can be fucked with remotely to any real gain, the drone only takes a local auth and designates autonimously, the user doesn't really need a full guidance array merely an IR designator.
The key here is making your drone operator a grenadier rather than a radio operator.
Other things drones can already do
A. Act as a target seeking landmine, which can be placed vertically.
B. Spray toxic gas
C. Protect tanks for sappers or possibly even to interrupt tandem munitions
D. Counter snipers, acting as one triangulation point and the target as the second point. Could triangulate a lot of things this way really.
E. As a relay for other drones. At some point jammers will get better and drones will start leap frogging. A crate of drones could form a radial search line to flag mines or clear infantry from complex enviroments by searching like a root system.
zoomers are doomed
>new djis have vertical video mode
humanity was a mistake
dji is a Chinese military company https://media.defense.gov/2022/Oct/05/2003091659/-1/-1/0/1260H%20COMPANIES.PDF
that tried to patch the CIAJeepDoors disabling trick for RID. They're complicit in killing Ukrainian drone operators.
Are there any western drone companies that we should spend our money with instead?
RID is unconstitutional. If you have a RID drone you're an idiot. Don't comply.
I think the big issue is how the fuck to avoid sigint with these. I think they're great for early work and recon but once someone is hunting for YOU they become targeting beacons.
>they become targeting beacons.
not really, unless they have some spook-tier equipment and at that point you're simply fucked. drones are super fucking hard to see past 200 feet.
and hard to hear past 50 feet. That surprised me
>discusses using them in a hypothetical boog situation
>they wouldn't have glowy teir sigint
Lol
I mean as a home defense weapon it'd be better to just have security cameras generally. Maybe a patrol drone to get an overhead if you're in a BLM protest zone.
look at how many people here have 9x scopes on their 3-meter engagement distance home defense carbines. It's silly, but hey it's not a bad thing to have extra capability
>but hey it's not a bad thing to have extra capability
It actually is, because "extra capability" almost always comes at a cost. Not just the obvious monetary cost, but regularly at a cost of performance elsewhere as well.
In a boog, the glowmorons would be stretched too thin to target you unless you're a major warlord or you're attacking them directly. They're not going after some random jackass just trying to survive.
SIGINT has its limits. It's not magic. These are used every day in Ukraine by both sides with significant SIGINT capabilities.
What about the FIMI X8? It seems like a good analogue to the Mavic mini. Also how difficult would it be to swap out the battery to extend the flight time? Is some glowy gonna bust out his scale and butt fuck me if the drone is like 260g with a new battery?
no
the way I see it the RID and weight thing is like 922r. No one gives a shit and the FAA doesn't have the resources or direction from higher ups to bother with it in the first place, unless you're like trying to fly around LAX