Spy Van?

I remember a few years ago i was with my dad and was driving down a small side road, i saw a van which had a really high pole on top of the roof and right at the top of the pole was a satellite. i also remember seeing the doors were open and inside there was alot of electrical equipment, computers etc.

There wasn't any shooting going on, I.e No cameras etc. Any ideas?

Could have been televison license people those kinda vans drive around my area from time to time to check on the signals etc.

yep TV detector van,

or we used to use similar vans to triangulate signals from cellphones to within 40 metres when i worked in Mobile Fraud.

An example of one would be: someone sets up a fraudualant company, takes out x ammount of company mobiles / cellphones.. At the same time they setup a premium rate mobile service i.e a chatline or similar.

They then get the mobiles / cellphones to auto redial the premium number constantly.. Believe me ive seen some excellent home made devices which press the talk button, speed dial, then hang up the cellphone, and keep looping it..

We catch on to this usually withing 24hrs of the first bank of calls, we then get the update on the cellsite the calls are coming from, then its out on the Van to catch them..

We could cut them off instantly, but youve then got a debt with no claimant due to the fraud setup initially.. Catching them is a lot more fun

It could have been any number of things. One thing comes to mind.

A few years back a friend of mine a few blocks over had the cable company come to their house to fix something, apparently the problem they fixed had been causing cable outages for the surrounding customers for a long time and the cable company had been investigating it for a while.

Your best bet is :

1. Take notes - plate numbers, strange things, etc.

2. Call the cops and report a 'strange vehicle' local law enforcement most likely wont be `in` on any covert ops and if it is a covert ops they will probably flake in front of a cop and get run off

3. Take pictures

4. Remember that not everything is 'strange'