Neighbors can be great or horrible.

I’ve had to deal with both kinds, but thankfully I’ve never had neighbors spy on me like in today’s story.

Thankfully, the spy learned his lesson.

Let’s see how the story progresses…

Amphibious Drone? Not This Time…

I am a licensed Ham Radio Operator, a former military comms tech, and a retired civilian electrical engineer (comms, security, et cetera).

My backyard pool is surrounded by a 10-foot (3-meter) high privacy/security fence.

Next-door neighbor got a new drone and liked to hover it just high enough in his back yard to see over the fence whenever I had guests over for a swim. (I could see the camera was pointed at the pool).

Nothing I could legally do at that point, since it was hovering over his property.

It turns out there actually was something he could do.

One day, I was messing around (legally) in the upper UHF bands when I noticed the pitch of his drone’s rotors changing every time I keyed up (transmitted) on a certain UHF frequency.

Being the conscientious radio operator that I am, I noted the frequency and avoided it whenever he was playing with his drone . . .

That is, until one evening when my wife went for a swim.

He listened for the drone.

Almost as soon as she got in the water, I heard the drone’s rotors rev up.

Looking out the open window, I saw the drone hovering over the pool.

I switched on the UHF rig, checked the frequency for traffic, told my wife to get out of the pool, and keyed up the rig as soon as she did.

Let’s call this a “test.”

The drone apparently went into some kind of ‘safe’ mode and slowly lost altitude . . . right over the deep end of the pool.

After it hit the water, I spoke my call sign into the mic, said “Test Complete”, and shut off the rig.

I finished logging the ‘test’ just as the neighbor knocked on my door.

The neighbor did get his drone back.

The neighbor asked if I had seen his drone.

That’s when my wife appeared from the back and said there was something in the pool.

Sure enough, it was the drone.

Turns out the “test” was successful.

My wife took a video on her phone of me fishing it out, my neighbor identifying it as his, and me handing it back to him.

I said, “Maybe you should fly it in a park or something.”

All he said was, “Thanks.”

Haven’t seen him fly another drone ever since.

It sounds like the neighbor learned his lesson not to spy on his neighbors, but let’s see what the Reddit community thinks of this story.

This reader wishes the law were on OP’s side.

Another reader doesn’t own a drone so that he won’t be like this neighbor.

So the drone really is amphibious…

Apparently a lot of ham operators have “interesting” stories.

I’m really glad none of my neighbors own drone, or if they do, at least they don’t use them at home!

If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.