The last day of January was unusually rainy in the typically Sunny Socal, but the rain stopped after lunch.
As I was driving home I could not stop admiring some nice clouds over the Santa Monica mountains.
I called my wife to tell her I'll be an hour later than normal and took off onto the winding Hwy 23 South.
I stopped at the highest point of the Yerba Buena Road a flew off a couple of batteries.
If you followed my previous posts, this is a couple mile prior to my previous RTH point near Mishe Mokwa trailhead, with a view to a different valley.
One obvious point of interest was the radar station at the end of the S. Bardman Ave.
I was admiring the facilities for many years but never had a chance to get close. This time I got to get *really* close
The station was about two miles away, but with no obstruction in between, the connection was perfect. And I was able to use the Sport mode on the way back, which made the return fast.
Below is some content I was able to shoot with my Mavic 2 Pro (which I happened to have in the car with me).
A couple of shots of the road itself. If you squint hard enough, you can see my car, and maybe even yours truly next to it
YouTube Video
compilation of vids and pics
Made with original Windows Movie Maker 2012
Hello and good day DarthSLR. Thank you for sharing these excellent photos and your experience as well. Perfect location to capture shots. Great work and thank you for your support.
Not sure if I would have the cohunes to fly over an installation like that though, seems like an ideal place to install an anti-drone device
Thank you!
The thought crossed my mind, but I figured I'm not gonna cross their beams and approach tangentially, should be ok. Besides, the whole thing was probably at 1000ft below my RTH (as I have mentioned, I launched at the top of a mountain road, while the station is located deep down in the valley), and given I was still ~200ft above RTH they could not possibly notice my little M2P
DJI Stephen Posted at 2-1 09:27
Hello and good day DarthSLR. Thank you for sharing these excellent photos and your experience as well. Perfect location to capture shots. Great work and thank you for your support.
Thank you!
Yeah, we get lucky sometimes. Typical Southern California weather here near Los Angeles is "clear blue skies" or "complete overcast", but in fall/winter months, when it rains, we do get occasional pretty cloudses
Atlas_Aus Posted at 2-1 20:39
What a strange place to have something like that ! The colurs are stunning BTW. "And you just happen to have the MP with you" hahahah
Thank you!
Well, when the weather is like I do tend to grab the mavic bag with me "just in case". It seldom plays out, but this time it did.
There is surprisingly little info on the sat site. The only one I could find was this: http://wikimapia.org/1597734/Triunfo-Pass-Earth-Station
I have a feeling it's more than that, cause everyone who ever drove Mulholland Way to the ocean (one of those winding roads below in the valley) cannot help but notice those giant dishes. So the lack of info seems strange.
DarthSLR Posted at 2-1 21:43
Thank you!
Well, when the weather is like I do tend to grab the mavic bag with me "just in case". It seldom plays out, but this time it did.
There is surprisingly little info on the sat site. The only one I could find was this: