I'll give all you good folks some examples of the technology that's out there right now.
Keep in mind that the price tag for the purchase of most of this gadgetry is scary and some of it even costs a bundle just to use for awhile because of insurance costs and running costs.
1. IR cameras with high contrast screens that can easily see 1 degree differentials. High band, low band lockouts with mid-range tuning that can see a single match light from a mile in bright sunlight and measure it's temperature. Most of that has been out for a decade. It's used for a lot of things, pot plant viewing isn't one I've heard of, but those buttwads do have a lot of our money to play with.
The cameras are mounted on vibration compensating structure that keeps it right on balance within a serious range of vibration frequencies and magnitudes. It also will absorb any flight direction changes without any spinning, shaking or wobble. This is the type of mount that is used when they film stuff for the "Helicopter View" in movies like we've all seen at IMAX.
Forestry Choppers and aircraft use them for filming new growth patterns of plantings. The cameras can be set to block anything that isn't the heat return from a certain size and age of plant, down to a tenth of a degree within a given size range. They low fly over a known patch to get everything set and then just gain altitude and wait for all the locks. Once the machine tells them it's ready, it'll find that same age and size of plant all day long.
Mostly, with the plant piggies, it's a matter of what the budget is used for. Spend a million running a chopper back and forth and you could have paid for 6 months of overtime for the ground troops. Sometimes, both aren't possible. Especially smaller towns and cities.
The key to sound and sight filming and recording is filtering. Anyone can have the power needed and a device to point, but having what you're aiming at show up clear or sound clear from a useful distance requires filtering of all the crap between you and the object of your desire.
That's more millions in cost.
So, is the bacon hovering over your yard looking for MJ? I doubt it. If the equipment is on while they're making a run to a BIG operation, AND you have enough to get their attention (like 100 plants), and they can afford the time to mess with it, then sure, they carry cell phones. "Hi Billy Bob, Yeah, lon/lat whatever, ya got about 100 plants it looks like. Yeah, sure, see you at the bar tonight".
There are three things that make any business work.
1. Budget
2. Budget
3. Budget
I don't care if it's a Cop Shop or a Barber Shop, the books have to balance and money really doesn't grow on trees. The piggies have to pay for everything they do too. It all comes out of their budgets.
Flying over yards looking at pot plants by the one's and three's isn't worth it to them.
You have more to worry about with the nosey old busy-body two houses over than you do from cop choppers. Unless you have ten thousand plants down in that valley...
I have a family member who does aerial photography for a major mapping company. He knows the model numbers for that stuff. He has catalogs for equipment like that and tells me that one item in this wish book might cost 10 million bucks. His camera in the plane he uses costs 4 million, just for the camera.
Thought you guys might want to know the level of stuff that's out there. It can all be rented by the cops too. The owner of the company I'm talking about rents out to anyone with the money. They fly, you look. They'll record anything you want. Just pay the man his millions.
There's that damn budget thing again.
