I see these things all over town. If I had to guess, I’d say they were part of some type of monitoring or control system for either lighting or power distribution. Anyone know what they are exactly? Here is a closeup of the object. If you trace the cable back from the device, you can see it appears to run to the transformer. I’ve also seen them attached to streetlights, like this one. I’m pretty sure they’re nothing sinister, but my curious nature demands to know.
Just a WAG, but if they’re new, is your town rolling out community Wi-Fi?
My guess is Wi-Fi repeaters.
Dunno how new they are, actually. I’ve only lived here for about 3 1/2 years, and they’ve been here the whole time. Could be WiFi repeaters, but they are sporadically located–some are as close as a hundred feet apart or so, others as much as half a mile or more. Unfortunately, I don’t have a laptop with a wireless card to test out that theory, either. I’ll put WiFi in the “maybe” pile.
Apparently, your image hosting site can’t handle more than 12 people viewing your pics, so I can’t really help.
My curiosity is piqued, though.
Very interesting. If your location field is accurate, you might call the Richmond, VA Deptartment of Public Works. Customer care number is on their homepage.
I’m curious!
gotpasswords’s wireless repeaters guess seems pretty likely, though probably not wireless internet like you might be hoping.
In our community, we had boxes with a Yagi antenna and solar panel attached to them that started popping up around town. After about a year, I finally connected it with the new wireless water metering that they were setting up. Presumably they collect data from nearby houses using a system similar to home wireless networks, then use the Yagi to transmit to a central location.
Very interesting. I’ve never seen them in SoCal, and I spend a lot of time looking at the electric/telephone infrastructure.
It does have an antenna look to it, but strange that it only connects to the transformer or streetlight. If it was a two-way communication device, it’d link to the telephone or cable line as well. Unless there’s an antenna on the top side. Is there any technology for sending communications down high-voltage lines (I know there’s in-building devices). I suppose the same antennas could be used for both up and downlinks.
Or, it could be a way for the power company to wirelessly send status data from their own equipment. One-way communication.
More information on the deployment pattern would be helpful. Do they cluster around population centers? Or, traffic intersections? Or, any other pattern?Obviously, they’re the uplink nodes for the orbital mind control lasers. Better used anodized foil for extra protection! Fnord.
This is along the lines of what I was thinking. The shape of the box is similar to the type of quad antenna array used in direction-finding systems, such as LoJack, so it could be part of a tracking sstem of some kind.
Rather than phone as Jayrot suggested, I sent an email to the address on the page he linked to, along with an attached image. I’m not sure I can describe it well enough over the phone to get a sensible answer. I’ll let you know what they say.
We have similar-looking things here in the Dallas area (not exact though). One day last year I happened to talk to a police officer and asked him if he knew. He said it is a data communications network for police and other public safety people, for them to look up license plate info, drivers license info, etc., while in their cars.
It’s probably part of a public safety Mesh Network. So it’s LIKE wi-fi, but not really.
Good idea. A picture is worth 10[sup]3[/sup] words. I would have called myself actually, but I wasn’t sure if your location was still accurate and I wouldn’t have been able to give any specific locatoin examples if they asked.
The one above, attached, to a street light is a clue, also what appears to be a tubular opening in the second would trigger a WAG that they just might be a control for a number of street lights.
This may constitute a hijack (it is I guess) but since we are on abuot strange things hanging off lamp posts seems as good a place as any to ask (I was kinda hoping the OP’s strange box was the one I have been wondering about but it wasn’t).
Around Chicago I have seen these police boxes hanging off telephone poles. They are not all over but you see one here and there and are not too uncommon. I say “police box” because it has a police badge printed on the side. These are not the police boxes of the old days or a TARDIS. They are mounted very high on the pole and have flashing lights on top like a police car. I have seen them flash blue and red and they seem to flash non-stop (never seen one not flash). All-in-all I guess they want to attract attention to them to let people know the police are in some fashion “there” but I have no clue what the box actually does. The box is maybe 2-3 feet square in size (rough guess).
Any clues?
Perhaps surveillance cameras?
I think I know what you are describing, though I’ve never gotten a good look at one, and I’ve never seen one flashing red, only blue.
I recently heard on the radio that the city is rolling out newer/better/cheaper/smaller cameras.
At which neighborhoods or intersections have you seen these? I haven’t seen any in Bridgeport, and I don’t get out much.
Yes, that’s what they are.
Yes, or at least there was a lot of talk about establishing a very high speed data network (for ISPs) across power grid cables. I think it was nobbled because of the RF interference it would have caused, but a low-bandwidth version of the same idea (which is perhaps all that would be necessary if the devices are just polling utility meters) might not suffer the same pitfalls.
To the OP, the only wireless internet nodes I know of are the defunct Ricochet ones that look a lot different. Could they be extenders for XM radio, Sirius or maybe Nextel?
Chicago hijack:
Here’s some photos of the Chicago surveillance cameras. Not surprisingly, they tend to be in high crime areas. I heard on the radio a few days ago that they ‘reduce crime by 30%’ in the areas they are installed. The blue LED strobes can’t be missed, they’re really bright. Some areas have them literally every block. This plus Operation Closed Market are credited with an overall reduction in crime, particularly street dealing.
I understand they won’t have lights, either.
Two words
Black Helicopters
:eek:
I got nothin, no idea what they are.
One would think the point of surveillance cameras (in the case of the city police ones) is to let people know they are there so they don’t even start to try to commit a crime. Just my $0.02 though.
Thanks for the answer on my hijack. That is exactly what I was thinking about.
I guess these would help them make arrests. Here’s an article I just found:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/81645,camera100306.article