Quote Originally Posted by Thomas913 View Post
I probably would wrap mine in some type of flourescent tape on the ends of the yagi. Some officers I know in my area get calls for kids playing paint ball, etc...they have no idea what to expect when they arrive. Any little bit I can do to help them I would do.
Actually that is not such a bad idea. Instead of using tape which will eventually get all gummy and peel off why not use some bright colored
heat shrink tubing. Be careful though because an insulated antenna element acts differently than an uninsulated one which changes the tuning. The good thing though is that you can always cut the tubing off easily if it is a problem. I was kind of suggesting putting the colored tape on the body of the receiver.

I have never had someone mistake me for a gun toting thug but I did have someone call the police because they saw me in the park "doing strange stuff with a bird" and they were apparently a bit paranoid about miscreants that like children. (How killing crows in a park in any way suggests an unhealthy liking for children I am not sure) The cop looked up my plate and because my phone number is listed they just called me and asked what I was up to. The incident was ironed out politely within 5 minutes and the officer basically said that it was probably not a bad thing because now if someone puts a description of my truck into their computer it will link to his incident report and a potentially uncomfortable incident with the police could be avoided before it happens. Where am I going with this? If you are worried about this you may want to carry a list of the police dept telephone numbers (DON"T CALL 911) so that if you are involved in a telemetry search you can call and notify them that you will be doing some odd stuff like driving around slowly and pointing a gun shaped antenna all over the place. They will most likely be happy that you
called because when they get a complaint they will know about it already and it makes them look good to the general public.