NØEQ Urban Desert Ops
... Portable Remote, in the desert Southwest, USA.
This time, just 1 mile from civilization.
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Can you spot the amateur radio station?? These photos are taken in the desert north of Phoenix. It's typical of a lot of operating spots I find. |
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Where's the van? This photo is from the same viewpoint as the above photo, only zoomed in a bit. Can you see the van? It's dead center in the photo. Below the two, prominent upright Sahuaro cactus. |
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There's the van roof and four vertical antennas. I raised the camera a bit and zoomed even more than the above photo. Now you can begin to see the roof line of my van, parked in the desert. |
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View from the 'friendly' side. Here's my remote station setup and ready to operate. Details on the equipment are at my Rapid Deploy station page. Someone built the fire ring. Lots of people apparently use this spot. There are a ton of broken beer bottles in and around the fire ring. I always take shovels and rakes and trash bags and clean up any location I find. Just like we all learned in Boy Scouts, leave it in better shape than when you found it. |
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Move a few yards it disappears again For this photo, I've moved just 10 yards or so. As soon as the natural objects in the desert begin to break up the visual lines of the man made vehicle, it begins to disappear. |
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Man Made Objects in Natural Settings As the viewpoint changes different pieces of natural cover begin to break up the man made shape of the vehicle. This photo was taken from the same spot as the previous photo, only it's zoomed in tighter. Notice how the natural elements (the Palo Verde tree branches) tend to blend with the diagonal paint areas on the van. Note how the most symmetrical parts of the van (wheels, windows) don't disappear as readily as the pre-broken up shape of the van body. |
 
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Visual Similarity
If you're going to park a vehicle with a bunch of vertical antennas, park it where there's a bunch of vertical elements in the natural surroundings. There are thousands of these giant Sahuaro's in the desert. Even a non disguised vertical antenna or mast will disappear rapidly in a field of upright elements like these cactus. |
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