Once again, one of our base stations has been vandalized while on duty in Loving County, Texas. In the vicinity of the Pecos River along Highway 302 This time, the antenna was stolen. Nothing else taken or damaged.
Previously, we have had several cables cut and if I recall correctly, ELS had an entire base stolen in the same area. I couldn't say if it was competing field crews, angry landowners, random idiots or a modern day horse thief type but it is getting annoying.
Yes, we have the game cameras but I do not believe they were in use at the time. It has been several months since we've had any problems. We have also changed policy to prohibit control points from being established or used along public right-of-way. Any future violation of the policy will result in crew being responsible for repair/replacement.
In the meantime, if you're working in Northern Reeves/Loving County, watch your equipment. I'm waiting on the serial number and type of antenna which I will post when received.
Can't be too hard to figure out who it is, Andy. I'm pretty sure you can put the entire population of Loving County in a crew cab truck...;-)
I hate to here that. We frequently are in Reeves and occasionally Loving. I often drive by bases in the middle of nowhere and wonder if people ever have problems with vandalism or theft. All our projects are site specific and we set up the base and never are really out of site from it so we haven't had problems but I certainly feel for you and hope you recover your equipment and or catch who is responsible.
It is true there are only a handful of inhabitants in loving county but I bet close to a thousand people drive that road daily. Even with the oil downturn it is still pretty busy out there.
Serial Number 5235494939
I think it's a trimble antenna but the crew didn't tell me the type.
I hate to hear that. I have been considering getting some 6' X 12' portable construction fence panels to put around the base. I won't stop a determined thief or vandel but they sure couldn't say that it was abandoned and they just picked it up. We don't setup a base in non secure locations very often and when we do, we have someone stay within sight of it.
Here is a link to a site that handles them. It looks like you could get 4 panels and the stand for under $500, then you would need 4 cabels and 4 locks to secure it.
http://www.hooverfence.com/temp-fence/chainlink-panels.htm
Paden, you'd be surprised with the transient oilfield population in that county. Last time I drove 302 it was pretty heavy traffic, constant construction sites and men and machinery everywhere.
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> I hate to hear that. I have been considering getting some 6' X 12' portable construction fence panels to put around the base. I won't stop a determined thief or vandel but they sure couldn't say that it was abandoned and they just picked it up. We don't setup a base in non secure locations very often and when we do, we have someone stay within sight of it.
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> Here is a link to a site that handles them. It looks like you could get 4 panels and the stand for under $500, then you would need 4 cabels and 4 locks to secure it.
The multipath from that chainlink fence would be high, though, I'd think. I'd want to mount the antenna well above the height of the fence panel.
We try to always mount our Antennas 2 meters. We have some fixed height tripods that you can't mount some antenna directly to because the head is to big for the power cable or antenna cable so we set the tripod at 1.5 meters and use a 1/2 meter extension. We could just as easly put the antenna at 2.5 meters. We just use 2 meters to standardize and reduce plumbing error a little.