One of the pictures on the main page of the arednmesh.org web site, of 2 sector panels overlooking Orange County CA, is a site I maintain out in the wild. I have setup an ipcam to motion detect in case I have visitors. Here's a few pics, following post, of the interested visitors checking out the site.
Joe AE6XE
Joe AE6XE
-Damon K9CQB
At Thanksgiving one year, before I had motion detection enabled, I had visitors txt me to say they were there. Not much detail, glad they sent a message.
Then about 3 years ago, during a high risk fire day in July, I received a call from the OC Sheriff's helicopter crew :) . The day before at dark, their night optics lit up. The site ipCam had the IR mode turned on and was spotted ~20 miles away. This of course was a red flag in an area that should be dark during fire season. I understand they raced up and circled, and became even more curious, probably wondering what kind of clandestine operation this was. It had camouflage covering at the time. The next day they landed in 105+ degree heat nearby and hiked to it. This would take some piloting experience given the heat, santa anna wind guests, and challenging location (I'm a general aviation single engine IFR pilot.) I'm happy to say the site is documented and they called to let me know of the visit. I thought at first the site was busted :) . Ironically, this is on land managed at the time by the OC Sheriff Dept of Corrections with a nearby facility, but easy to confuse as the location is in a corner borderline with the National Forest .
Apparently, with various merging of ham radio and 4x4 groups, the pilot of the helicopter ran into AREDN meshers, on 2 different occasions, at the nightly camp fire. The story was told, "hey, I ran into an AREDN site once..., yes, we know the site...".
Joe AE6XE
Thanks
Denis