Saturday 5 September 2015

"Big Brother" Van prowls the streets of Haughton Green and Denton.

This vehicle has been seen driving around Tameside after  midnight with two uniformed crew members. On top of the van appears to be a camera which shows a red light as the van drives slowly around the streets. The camera has a superficial resemblance to the fixed Data Collection cameras in Tameside. Top: The van camera.

Bottom: fixed Data collection camera.

TMBC usually use cameras for speed control . But as the photo shows there are no other vehicles on the street. And the eye witness claims they saw the van driving slowly past parked cars apparently filming them with night vision cameras.

The Citizen welcomes any observations or information on this matter.




14 comments:

1984 said...

It's not just Denton TC, I have spotted this unusual scanning camera vehicle in Dukinfield.

Reimer said...

Maybe TMBC is assessing the feasibility of assembling a motorised armada to taxi thousands of New Tamesiders from Calais and beyond a la Dunkirk, with Kevin 'Marty Feldman' Quinn riding up front, receiving the adulation from the Labour voters of Haughton Hall Road as the speed-bumps jolt him the way Roy used to back in the day.

Anonymous said...

Well done you have just blown an undercover police operation!

The box on top is a thermal camera used to detect heat signatures from houses, which can be analysed later to determine if cannabis is being cultivated.

They used to use the thermal imaging device on the police helicopter, but this has proved too expensive as flying a helicopter can cost in excess of £1000 per hour.

So they have put the equipment in a van and made it look like it belongs to the council, the two ‘uniformed’ people are police officers.

If challenged they may very well tell you they are surveying for Pollution levels, a rather good cover story.

Please don’t post this on your website as you may get in to a lot of trouble ……

Tameside Citizen said...

Anonymous @ 19.33

Interesting story. A few questions though. Most cannabis appears to be grown in the loft and upstairs. The heat signature of the rest of the house would obscure the heat from the loft if the sensors are at ground level. In fact the whole point of using aircraft is that most houses have loft insulation so most lofts are cold. Only those growing cannabis show infra-red.

Anonymous said...

Cannabis has destroyed the brains, will and character of millions of young men. Exactly as downgrading its drug classification and easing up on enforcement and punishment was intended to do.

Anonymous said...

So You published any way ....

You clearly have little idea how thermal imaging works , and trust me loft insulation will not, hide a thermal footprint for long.

The camera will see if a roof pitch is hotter than normal , plus many cannabis growers are using bedrooms as they think ( wrongly ), that because they are insulated from the roof void that the very expensive thermal imager will not detect it

When you see the thermal footprint of a room or roof void that has been used for cannabis cultivation it stands out a mile.... Trust me I have ;)

Plus a lot of growers use sophisticated extractor systems to exhaust the hot air out of the building, thinking that it will lower the thermal footprint. This in theory may work however air which is extracted is a lot hotter than the ambient Air (especially at night) and stands out like a sore thumb on thermal imaging equipment.

Point of interest thermal imaging works on heat, infra red is usually used with night vision and can bee seen as a green cast, the sort of thing we see on war films.

Anyway enjoy explaining to the police why you are effectively perverting the course of justice by printing my first post !

Tameside Citizen said...

Thank you for the update. Could you clarify a few points please?
1) If the van is used to detect cannabis growing in houses, why is it pointed towards the road behind the van?
2) Thermal imaging uses heat and is multi-coloured going from green (coldest) to red (hotest). It is these which detect heat.
3)The "Green Cast" is night vision and uses visible light. It has nothing to do with Infra-red! Would you like to clarify? Perhaps let us know which war film to watch?

I print your post and I can expect trouble? Why send it in the first place?

Tameside Citizen said...

Addendum to above. The multi-coloured thermal Images depend on the type of receiver. Some are indeed "Black and white".

Anonymous said...


Sigh....

In the order you asked,

In the photograph, the van was on the main road and was probably going to or coming from a surveillance operation- hence the camera was secured , when in operation the camera is on a telescopic pole which can be moved left or right, the camera has a wide field of view so up an down elevation is not necessary.

Thermal imaging does not use colour as such , the colour you see is artificially added in software to enhance viewing , most thermal imaging systems will 'toggle' through a range of screen outputs so the viewer can choose one that suits their viewing style.

Sometimes this will be black and white, sometimes blue (cold) to red (hot), and hey if you are on a greenhouse they don't work at all as thermal imaging wont work through glass!

You are correct that the 'green cast night vision' uses visible light, however when visible light is not available such as at night or if more illumination is needed , then one can use an infrared illuminator, which although is invisible to the human eye will be picked up by a night vision sensor or to to give it it's proper name 'tube'.

Here is a video to help you out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pSSDGzeMmE

Finally I asked you not to print the post I sent you because of the content, and you went and posted it anyway.. Don't say you weren't warned !





Tameside Citizen said...

"When in operation the camera is on a telescopic pole". Which part of this statement is at odds with the concept of "undercover"?

Iam still awaiting the "Knock on the door". But then again, it wasn't me who revealed the "truth" of this matter.

Anonymous said...

"When in operation the camera is on a telescopic pole". Which part of this statement is at odds with the concept of "undercover"

Mass Video surveillance without the use of air support is difficult to achieve, so they have gone for the "hide in plain sight" strategy which involves using a van with Tameside logo and plausible cover story.

The van moves around at night when most people are in bed , so less see it and those who do, possibly lack the technical knowledge to understand what they are observing - I had to explain it to you !

As for the " Knock on the door " - well that is down to you as a publisher , you are responsible for what information you published.

I clearly asked you not to publish my post, given the sensitive information it contained, and you did ....

Buck Mulligan said...

I think you are on to something here. A group of us saw this white van on Dewsnap Lane around 10.00pm yesterday evening. Comment was made that it was carrying out some kind of surveillance. I had though that the use of cannabis was legal in Tameside because I see so many people smoking joints on the streets. You can smell the stuff everywhere. They're even stood outside pubs now smoking joints.

SerpentSlayer said...

My whole town is full of dealers, cars, coming and going in the night. Just try getting the people who complain about it to do something though. The whole borough is a ruin.
Every street I cycle down has bad surfaces and one in every few street lamps is either off or flickers on and off at random, the town centres are full of shutters, and TMBC have just built new council offices in Droylsden.
Having had every chance to vote Labour out, the people of this borough get what they deserve.

Pray For Blood said...

Cannabis destroys the will. Young men are its biggest abusers, amongst whom its use is now becoming epidemic. Many will go on to other, even worse drugs.
The downgrading, soft pedalling and unofficial decriminalising of drugs is not just a potential disaster for the future of western civilisation, it is a planned disaster.