This is my mate shop. alot of snow on the ground. Not snowing at the moment. Looks like NY has had a bit though.
Here in the US, for a drone to fly at night (legally…) we must mount a strobe that flashes and is visible for up to 3-miles so it is visible to aircraft.
Some good advice when flying at night, turn off all lights that will affect your night vision, use RED Lights if available, the RED Light does not affect night vision. Do not use vehicle lights, you will lose all your night vision and you will never see your drone when it is up in the sky. Flashlights (“torches” to you Aussies…) with tissues over the lens to reduce the brightness and no lights while you are flying.
Make darn sure you know where there are any trees, poles, etc… Makes sure your drone has a good GPS lock and has set the home point.
IF you do not have internet access at the site so you have a good google map, when you at home, open the Fly App, and go to the location in the map and save it off line.
Now go have fun…
A guy on another site flew a lot of FPV, down low, through forests and along creeks and rivers. Pretty neat stuff, he also had a dog that sat with him when he flew. All the videos always ended with a shot of the dog…
My all-time favorite movie is “The Man from Snowy River” and it was completely filmed in the high country of Mansfield, Victoria, Australia… and there is snow in that movie…
A Screen Grab from the movie…
I actually grew up in upstate New York, in the Adirondack Mountains, in a Log Cabin… The average snowfall there was over 10-feet, closer to 12-feet each year. The snowdrift on the windward side of the cabin piled up the snow so deep we could walk right up onto the roof.
On the Western side of the state, the average snowfall might be 15 to 16-feet. The Great Lakes pump a lot of moisture into the air and the Prevailing Westerly winds carry that snow over the state and Syracuse is one of the recipients of that snow… It is called “lake-effect snow”.
You sweltering and us freezing, well that what happens when we are in different hemispheres… We have the North Star and the Big and Little Dippers Stars, you have the Southern Cross, The Jewel Box, and You have like 10 or 12 of the brightest stars in the night sky… Where I live now, we have too much light pollution for any really good star gazing…
We do have Wallops Island (about 70-miles away) where they launch rockets there and on a clear night, it is a really good show…
Are you south enough to see the Southern Lights. I have only seen the Northern lights once, as a young boy, while living in the Mountains and it was wonderful!!!
We now have just about an inch of snow and the weather reports says we can expect rain about 3-4 AM and if that happens it will melt the snow. But I have already gotten my drone out, updated the Fly App, and if the snow is still out there in the morning, I fly and photograph it.
Here is an old photo of the house about 5-years back when we had a wonderful, peaceful, large flake snowfall… That’s the wife on the front steps…
And here it is from 300-feet with no snow (it’s the one with the RED Roof…)…
Later
The man from snowy river country is a pretty good drive from here lol
I once hiked across Tasmania (the apple on the bottom right of Australia) for 2 weeks with a 10 strong group. Most of that was hiking in 2 day old snow. Never seen it falling in real life.
Flying at night will be on works property. Across the 4 corners of the Almond orchid you seen in the other video.
im thinking i can get in waypoint training with night training, and see how good the belly light is.
The reason for getting the drone has alot to do with the Kapunda 24 hour which is a endurance race held in the barossa valley each year. We run one of the 20 odd checkpoints. My part, when not helping to check motorbikes or sidecars in, is comms, and photography.
As you can imagine, the huge portion of the event is held at night. In my mind im thinking that i could set a few way points that cover the bikes as they leave the checkpoint. That way when people who i follow come in, i simply start the drone on the waypoints, and get good footage of them.
Negative on the southern lights. we did get the aurora’s a couple months back, but i was never in the right place.
I want to see if the white light under the belly of the 4pro will be bright enough for a sustained hover over generator refueling or over motorbikes as they work on them.
All these things i can work out beforehand. Brother in law wants me to get the payload holder for under the 4pro so i can take his fishing line out to the deep and drop it off for him.
Funny you should mention Tasmania, As it turns out, my wife and I are Binge-Watching “The Kettering Incident” It was billed as the first adult drama filmed in Tasmania. The series was filmed in and around the town of Kettering and Bruny Island in Tasmania. It is a Sci-Fi Thriller in 8-episodes… We watched it several years ago, and we remember how it ends, but I have to hand it to the BBC, Aussie, and Kiwi writers and directors are not caught up the tired old Hollywood Plots. They have so many neat twists and turns in a plot that we cannot guess how it will end… We just finished Binge-Watching the BBC “Blue Lights” series…
Here is a link to the “Great Hampton Roads Blizzard of 2025…” I shot the 360 Photosphere this morning at 7:30 AM. If you scroll directly up and then zoom into the horizon. That structure, a Large Gantry in the distance (4-miles away), is the “Landing and Impact Research Facility” at NASA. They use that to ram aircraft into the ground to study impacts and such.
Every astronaut that landed on the moon including Neil Armstrong (below) trained at this facility utilizing an offloading system that supported 5/6 of the gravity of a lunar lander simulator while they worked through problems at night above a simulated moonscape.
Before the Pandemic, we used to be able to go on NASA and watch the tests… Now, it’s closed to the public…
I’ll write more later, life awaits…
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Thats pretty cool. If i lived close to Nasa id have the telescope out watching the goings on.
Cool 360. everyone’s drives are all swept and neat.
Id love to see snow falling, and stand out in it. Possibly a well shot snow cam. but i wouldnt like the shoveling side of it.
I didnt get out to do the night drone training. Winds were 30km/h 18/mph. Not really good conditions to be flying in the dark, near high tension powerlines, over and about a deep dam full of water lol.
A few streets from home, they filmed one of the most graphic movies i have ever seen.
There was a real life event that sparked it.
“the bodies in the bank” made headlines im pretty sure around the world.
A little country town called snowtown. (ironic as they dont get snow)
some folks decided to murder a couple people and cut them up and put the bodies in acid.
All so they could claim their benefits from the govt.
The movie was filmed in a house a few streets over. they had a 40ft semi, excuse me trailer truck, for the catering. i went past that every day thinking i should just walk in and say i was an extra on the set. the food smelt that good lol
Very obviously Australian film corporation movie, but still good. One of my friends is in the movie. My mate AJ. She always dated Army guys so got the nick name AJ. In the movie, they show my local shops and our streets. The salt pans are pretty close to St Kilda that i showed in the vids.
If your in to real life movies, and horror movies, this is worth a look.
My Library offers a free Streaming service and “The Snowtown Murders” is one of the films offered. I’ve added it to my Save List…
Have you ever watched the “Mystery Road” series, there are three in the series… It’s a bit like Star Wars, all filmed out of order…
Mystery Road Origin…
Mystery Road Series 1…
Mystery Road…
Here is a photo I shot (phone) at night after I signed off last night…
And here is a photo of me in the driveway this morning after the snow using the drone…
You know the funniest part, all the schools are closed, the military bases are opening two-hours late, the government offices are all closed and it will continue tomorrow too…
Later…
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i found a local tv station that has all 6 episodes. Its the free to air catch up channel, that streams over the interwebs. Might need a vpn set to adelaide south Australia to get it.
A snow wave is a good look lol 
[edit] this is filmed out in the west country. Wyndham in far northern western Australia. iron ore mining country.
[edit 2] this show makes Australian look so backward. This is how Australia in the 70’s
[edit 3] Id love to have a drone there/ its really pretty
As I wrote, my libraries (I’ve joined the ones in York County, Hampton, Newport News, Williamsburg, Poquoson, Smithfield, and the Department of Defense Library). All offer various sources for streaming movies. Some of my favorite that I get through the library are “Kanopy Streaming” and “Hoopla Streaming” and guess what, so does your local libraries, including the Playford Library, and the Salisbury Community Hub, to name a few…
I do not know how your municipal areas are set up. When I mentioned the various cities above, each is independent of each other and they all allow folks from adjacent cities or counties to join even if you do not live in the particular area. For example, Hampton has 5-libraries in that city and one membership is valid in all of the libraries in Hampton so I only have one Kanopy and one Hoopla account in Hampton and I use my library card number for membership. However, I also have cards in the other cities and each also offers an account.
Each account allows so many loans a month and if you go after a multi-season series, you might run out of credits before you watch all the episodes, hence the reason for the multiple accounts.
Another great series I enjoyed was “the Bridge” (English subtitled) movie in Norwegian, It was 4 seasons with 6 episodes in each season, for a total of 24 episodes and we really needed several accounts to watch all of that…
We also have a Roku streaming device that plugs into the TV and streams thousands of movies and TV Shows off the internet, Once you buy it, there are no monthly fees and you only pay your internet bill…
I also have a Tablo, it is a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) and it also accesses the internet and I have 65 local over the air TV Stations and it also brings in an additional 40 channels from the internet and it can even record about 50-hours of TV shows. Also, like the Roku, once you buy it, there are no monthly fees…
Just for the record, I do not have any “pay for” streaming services. Everything is get is free and I only pay for my internet service.
Now, Back to your note…
You wrote, “i found a local tv station that has all 6 episodes.” What 6-episodes?
How fast is your internet, You really need at least 50 Mbps to stream Movies…
Did you know you can also stream movies from YouTube, Just type in FREE MOVIES in the YouTube search box…
The photo of the Wyndham Grotto is beautiful, how did you ever find it when the water was so clear and apparently not overrun with swimmers and tourists? Yeah, I would like to fly a drone there too and explore every nook and cranny…
Well, the wind is howling and it’s past midnight so I’ll call it and say “Hooroo” ( is that still in use for Good Night?)
Later
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i pay for netflix. everything else i find via torrent normally.
“what six episodes” was refering to Mystery road origin
you said you had access to 3. via that link you can have all 6 episodes for free.
you have to sign up, but thats just an email address and sign up. free.
Wyndham cliffs is a photo i acquired from google images lol.
I seen where it was filmed so went to see what the towns really like.
They made Australians to be so simple. Made in 2003 yet there is orange pay phones in the pub and shop. thats a 90’s thing. no mobile phones either. all the cars are 90’s as well.
Australian film corporation always do that in there movies. portray Australians as dumb and very backward lol
Playford library im pretty sure just has computers that you can use in there. book 30 minute time and do what you wish on there. No streaming that im aware of. i got what i need from here anyway so its all good.
Broke my office chair. time to go get another one. Been a good ol boy has taken its toll on the seat lol
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Mystery Road is actually three separate series, I guess yur could say “seasons” they did not come out in order and maybe that is an “Aussie” thing (like StarWars…) that series jumped all over the place, it has shows with Luke as a young man, it has shows befoe luke was born, it has shows after Luke is old, etc…
The links I included were for the each of the series and each series has 60-episodes, so if you watch all three series, you will see 18-epispdes. Does that make sense…
Here is a Wikipedia link…
If you want to see Americans portrayed as dumb hicks (gap tooth jawed, knuckle dragging, in-breeds…) then watch the old 1972 version of “Deliverance” and you will never forget the expression, “Squeal like a pig…”
But the dueling guitar and banjo are unforgettable… The music plays but the scenes are the worse from the movie… If you have never seen it, yu will understand after see the clip…
I sent you the links to your local libraries. Those library links are the links you would go to after you join the library, you go in, join the library, get a library card and then you log in on the web site (those links) enter you card number and maybe your birthdate and then you can stream from Kanopy and Hoopla.
Easy Peasy, If I had a library card at those libraries, I could be streaming from there…
Stop by your local libraries and check it out…
Later…
its all good. Between youtube and netflix i got it covered.
I remember seeing deliverance in the 80’s.
Billy Redden played the part well.
I got out this morning to do some night flying. I took too long getting from alarm going off, to in the paddock. Was pre dawn b4 i got started. i took some video and some pix.
Made a trippy night launch pad. waypoint training didnt go too badly, but not as expected.
I set home point to next to the car. flew to the middle of the paddock. C1 to mark waypoint. then flew it to the 4 corners of the paddock, giving each its own waypoint. then a waypoint over the landing pad.
saved it and changed batteries. took off and flew just forward of the car and set it going. i assumed the waypoint would be the same spot as when i set it. but i didnt set it going from the same point, to start it, so every waypoint was closer to me. i was thinking waypoints were gps points. Anyway i had a play with that. hopefully there will be a video, including the first hyperlapse.
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You are on your own with the waypoints, my Mini 2 doesn’t have this feature… Good Luck! By the way, we got another inch of snow last night to replace the snow that melted yesterday. This morning the sky was crystal clear and the sun was bright and if I had gotten up, I would have gotten some really great photos of the sun glinting off the ice and snow, but by the time I got moving, it was too late… Only cold is predicted for the next week or so…
You asked previously how or if the cold affected the batteries. It does but the smart pilot keeps the batteries warm, inside pockets, not just lying about on the ground near the launch site. The cold does decrease the power and thus the flight time, but if you keep the batteries in your pockets, you hardly see any decrease. The batteries get warm as they are used, so when you start flying, the outside cold has not effect then…
Later and have fun with that night flying, bat chasing, flying…
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I have the opposite issue. i take the landing pad and put it in the freezer the night before.
Put it into a foam vegtable container, then put the drone hard case inside that, so it all stays cool.
Once im onsite the foam is all cooled and will stay cool for a couple hours.
Still on the hunt for the proper night flight. See how i go on sunset possibly
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I understand what you mean by opposite issue. When I have the drone on, not flying, just ON while I review the Manus or am doing updates, the drone really get warm, even Hot… I installed a small fan in a small box that operates on 5V and plugs into the USB plug on the computer to power it. I then place the drone on top of the box and the little breeze from the fan keeps the drone from getting to HOT…
Now, I have to admit that I have never read or heard of a drone overheating while merely being left ON and not flying. But I am a retired computer programmer and I know that heat is the devil of electronics. When I first started programming in 1970, I was working on main frames and the floor was elevated and the computers were all installed on the floor with open bottoms and tops. The air conditioning was forced under the floor and it vented through the computer case (and these cases often stood 6’-tall.
Ah, the good old days…
The Sun rise was neat, I cannot hyperlaspe, how long did that actually take?
Wow, those are some fancy landing lights, I guess Australia is very “Woke”
Battery usage is computed by the firmware based on several factors, Voltage, Amperage, Voltage Draw, Amperage Draw, etc… It’s not perfect, so you have to watch it… If you are flying around in Sport mode, Full Power, the battery will deplete quicker than if you are just tooling around in Cine Mode…
You can find on YouTube, “blooper” videos of idiots who want to see how far and how long they can fly their drones. They must be made of money or have no concept of money, or they were given the drones and do not care what happens to them… I have watch numerous drones go for a swim because the idiot wanted to see if they could fly over to the other side of river or something.
For example, this 360 I shot is looking over the James River, and it is over 5-miles across, and there are always strong winds. I would never try to fly across and back, but there folks who would try this…
My first drone cost $30 from Amazon and was non-GPS, but she was a good drone… the camera sucked so you really could not fly based on the video and the telemetry and it did not give any battery reports. It came with 3-batteries and each was “suppose” to give me 15-minutes of flying time, but I was lucky to get 12-minutes… The one bad aspect was that when the battery was depleted, the lights on the drone would flash quickly, but within 30-seconds, it went into landing mode and it did not matter where it was and you could not stop it or control it at the point. Since the phone app was really useless and the drone flew just fine with controller while watching it all the time with your eyes, I still mounted the phone on the controller, but ran a Clock App and set the App to alarm at 10-minures so I still had about 2-minutes to get it back safely…
So, don’t fly your drone anywhere dangerous, over roads, water, dams, etc… when the battery gets down to 20% or less, bring your baby home and put in anther battery or you might have to “put in another order to replace your drone…” L o L . . .
That’s a lot of almond trees… And that was a cute ending as your baby came home to “Daddy”.
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G’day. Alot to cover in all of this. With Australia been so hot at this end of the year cooling is a must for the drone. it has no onboard fans. it relys on the motors spinning to force cool air to keep it cool.
What drone do you use? Your not flying the mini 4 pro? Im thinking you mentioned mavik ? They can do hyperlapse according to google. Mine took about half an hour. 1 photo every 2 seconds in auto mode.
Ive never understood the WOKE thing. google reveals it to mean aware, enlightened, all the way through to me been gay. None of the above. i was searching around the interwebs for something that would be cool for new years eve street party, to go with the lights and stuff. it just happened i got those. 15 for like $5 or something. The street party we normally have never happened as people had different things on this year.
Then im looking for illumination for the landing pad. I trip up on this plastic bag full of lights andit made sence to make use of them. The main time ill be flying at night will be for the motorbike endurance events. Ive got 2 garden lights coming that are solar powered. there on plastic pegs. one a few inch’s back from the mat on each of the short ends of the mat on a remote switch to turn on and off will work. while in flight and those lights are off the flashy ones are there for a reference point. They are white lights. i might have to get texta and make them red.
ive seen a few of the “how far can it go” vids. They are content creators. the actual drone itself is only about $400. then you add the price of the rc2 and the batteries and all the techy stuff and the costs go up. but once you have the tech stuff, you only need to replace the actual drone. As content creators, they get paid by youtube for the videos. So as long as they get alot of views, it pays for the drone if they crash it. drama creates views. a title including crash and drone will draw alot of people. so youtubes paying for new drones lol.
5 miles across the river. i wouldnt try flying that. we have a line of sight rule here. 5 miles is about 8km so well out of sight. plus the battery factor. you might make it there, but then you need to get it back. my over water time is limited. when i was doing the spins at st kilda it was over the water for a minute of 2 and then home to me.
So far if im down to 50% on the battery its not going over water. I have 6 batterys. its just easier to be safe.
ive never had much success with phone apps and drones. ive had a few and they have never worked very well. im very happy with the rc2 remote. speaking of which, there was a firmware update for alot of the dji drones in the last couple days. Did you notice it?
That patch of almonds is the small orchid. Roughly about a quater mile square. The other orchids are way bigger and i cant fly them because of the geo fence from dji. The orchids are right by the airbase. The next one along is 1km square and then the 3rd one is about 1.5 km … so closer to a mile square of almonds. ill have a look in the achieves and see if i can find a video i did driving the other orchids.
Strangely we mainly do potatoes and onions, but the almond season turns us good money.
My mum loves my mini 4 pro. with the camo job on it, she says it looks like a little frog. im thinking more a toad at that size lol.
So frog always comes home to me b4 the mat.
ok talk soon.
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I found a video of the robertstown motorbikes. A similar event to the 24 hour kapunda one, but they actually get to sleep for a few hours. The 24 they go hard for the full 24 hours.
Quality isnt high, this was on my samsung galaxy s7. But these events are where i think the drone will shine.
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I am replying to the last posting first about the motorcycles…
Interesting video, I never really got into mud slinging, but I did Ice Race in the '60s… Here is a link to CarTalk, a web site that I also frequent. I started posting here prior to getting a drone so I still use my “LoudThunder” User name, but I used my cat’s photo… Here is the link…
Here is another link of my bikes and my last bike, an '84 Harley Davidson Ironhead Sportster… I did all the rebuilding and the painting and I only got rid of it because my eyesight is messed up, cataracts and glaucoma…
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I am responding to your long posting now…
Your “Hot” is hotter than where I am. But I did live in Phoenix Arizona for 4-years and it is called the “Valley of the Sun” and it routinely get over 100 days over 100-degrees F (40-degrees C) and it is dry heat, you do not sweat, it evaporates first, you sweat salt and your cloths turn white from it, white armpits, leather shoes get caked in salt from your feet seating… But I have not yet flown my drone out there, but there are lots of YouTube Videos…
I have a Mini 2 drone, it’s about 3-years old and has over 200-miles on it, and she still flies great. I have three batteries and all have been charged over 100 times…
I can fake hyperlaspe by setting the drone to take a bunch of timed photos, but each photo is separate and I would be pasting each and every one into a video. I do not think it would be worth it… Your hyperlaspe is all one long video file isn’t it ?
Not many people understand WOKE. But here in the States the WOKE culture means all inclusive, which means everyone, no matter what their preference is, male, female, neither, both, even animal… is free to do as they see fit…
The only issue I have is with transvestites. Not that a person born a male fells that they should be a female or vice versa, but when they demand to be treated as their preferred gender (as long as it suits them…). In the UK, if a prisoner (male by all accounts and equipment) says they feel like they are a woman, they get sent to a woman prison. But the funny part that not one trans man (who is a person who was born female at birth but identifies as a man) wants to get to a male prison…
We have had issues where “Trans girls” go into a girls locker room at school and then the trans girl gets a hard on and then rapes a girl and it is not treated the same as a “Real Rape,” but like two girls just fooling around, a misdemeanor not a felony.
And we have problems with trans females, (born a male) wanting to play on a girls sports team and that just is not fair…
But the original reference to “Woke” was because the “LGBTQ +” is identified with the Rainbow and your landing lights had all the colors of the rainbow… L o L . . .
As for flying over water, I too suffer that fear, I have never gone far over water. You saw that 360 of the James River and you can see the James River Bridge in the photo. It is a Draw Bridge and the entire structure raises to allow ocean bound ships to pass and I cannot bring myself to fly out to the bridge… You know cats are scared of water, right, Well I too am a “Scaredy-Cat…”
My drone came with the RC-N3 Remote Controller and it has not screen, I have three devices that I link to it to get a screen readout… My Motorola Smart Phone, when I am just goofing around the house. But outside, I use one of my two tablets, I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 Tablet with an 8" screen and it provides really great video and I have a Samsung Galaxy A8 Tablet with an 10" screen, a really large image, but the tablet weight over a pound…
You have a Camo Suit on your Drone, I might be confusing you with another poster, but I thought you bought a RED Suit… Camo suits are OK, but if yur drone goes down or get stuck up in a tree, it blends right in and disappears…
Finally, here is a link to a video I just published on YouTube about the recent snow fall we had, I still cannot believe that it shut down the local economy…
Later…
Morning. after midnight there isnt it ?
Ill watch the videos shortly.
I had a feeling woke would have t do with the gay mob.
im same. trannys are not good. i have gay friends and gay bosses.
i figure what they do in there bedroom is nothing to do with me, and as long as it stays that way im all good with it.
yes i have camo drone. only because it looks cooler then the cream colour the dji’s come with.
red … im not a red person. blue maybe lol like windsor blue.
our summer is alot of days over the 100 mark. thankfully not too many in a row this year. temp is low 90s to 105ish.
On a different not i just got my landing lights for the drone pad. very bright. but i can angle them down so maybe i wont have to make them red.
I also have a string of little colman lanterns that i used to use in the tent. 10 or so little 2inch lanterns on a common battery cable. that around the edge of the mat might do for lighting as well.
either, or, both maybe. Maybe some woke lights as well lol
who knows where the journey will take me.
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Let it snow, m surprised there no time out from youtube for Doris days contribution lol.
Good video. Shared it to my sister. she liked it as well.
Question for you, what video editor do you use? im going from pillar to post trying to find something i can use. I have been looking for something simple. last effort was nero as people were raving about that. bought the package and nooooo bueno. had bit champ and a few others. Free or 1 time payment editing program which allows me to split the audio off of a video. Trying to get it so i can record audio to the rc2 when im on the drone. when it comes to post production, i can use the drone vid and the audio of the rc2.
Mum had her cateracts done not long back. she procrastinated about it for the longest time. finally we got on her case and she went and had it done. She was home the same day. Then back 4 weeks later for the second one. now she sees better then me.
Ice racing looks like fun. with the stuff i help with, its more about the technical side. endurance. They do get some time going fast but the majority is tight turns and ducking under trees and duck n weave. 99% insane to attempt it. Those that reach the end are stars. Hard to explain.
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