1998-01-04 53 9

Location

A little bit south of the shore of an island in the middle of the Elbe river.
The city of Wedel (Schleswig-Holstein) lies on the northern river shore and the JVA Hahnöfersand (JVA = Justizvollzugsanstalt = correctional facility) of Jork (Lower Saxony) on the southern one.

Participants

Rsge (talk)

Plans

I wanted to start geohashing for a while now and what better way to start than to get to my Origin geohash first.
Looking it up (which I did via the Shotgun tool because I didn't realize I could go that far back on geohashing.info at first), I found it to be in the middle of the water. But luckily I own a drone and it shouldn't be so far off the coast of Wedel (which would be much easier for me to get to, living in Schleswig-Holstein, than the other shore would be - also, with a prison being on the other side), that the remote wouldn't reach - so I'd make it a Geohash by proxy.
I planned going on Fr. the 30th of June, as I wanted to have a bit of a special date but wouldn't have time on the 1st of July. Then I got the idea to go a bit later, on the 4th of July (today as of writing this) to reach it exactly 25½ years after my birthday, but the weather was forecast to be rainy, which my drone wouldn't like, so Friday it was.
I planned to go by car to somewhere near the beach in Wedel, as public transport from my home town to Wedel isn't great and I didn't have the time to go all the way by bike, as I had other appointments later in the day.

Retro Expedition

Rsge (2023-06-30)

After I came home from work and had breakfast, I packed my drone and took one last look at the weather forecast. My little brother was using my usual car, so I needed to use my mother's. I got in and started the GPS to the Wedel beach. The drone I had charged while eating, so it's batteries were full - but I realized my phone (which is needed for drone remote viewing) wasn't. Luckily, I put chargers in the family cars, this one included, so I plugged in my phone and started to drive.
Just a few meters from home I realized my phone wasn't charging - the cable was broken - so I looped around and got another cable. Then, on the way again, I mixed up the brake with the clutch, as I'm not used to driving automatic. Then I had to wait ages at the first crossroads, just missing a gap. I briefly considered aborting the whole thing, as it already seemed a bit cursed - but I'm not the superstitious type, so I kept going.
I got to near the beach without further problems and got the last parking spot just a few meters away from the pedestrian walkway to the beach. Going down the walkway I realized it was high on a hillside with stairs leading down to the beach area - and I could just start my drone from there, even having higher range because of being higher up. There were some benches to unpack my drone on, so I started getting it ready. A few retirees were sitting not that far away, but they didn't seem to mind and in fact seemed mildly interested as I connected everything up and started the drone.
I didn't know how to set waypoints by exact coordinates in my drone's app (DJI Fly) and in fact couldn't even get coordinate numbers, as I was still using Shotgun, which as far as I'm aware can't show coordinates on mobile. So I switched to satellite images on Shotgun and DJI Fly and compared location as best I could. Luckily, there was a tidal inlet almost exactly at the location, so it wasn't super inaccurate I hope.
It was a nice day, not too warm, not too cold, clear sky and very little in regards to wind, so the flight went over without any problems. I took a few photos with the drone and a few screenshots of the path and started packing again. While packing, a guy came over and asked me about my drone, so we had a nice short chat about drones, their use and the legal restrictions placed on flying them.
I got back to the car and drove home without any problems.

For those interested: In Germany, all drones which are not explicitly classified as toys need the following:
- A Haftpflichtversicherung (liability insurance) with explicit inclusion of damage done by drone.
- An e-ID from the LBA (Luftfahrtbundesamt, German federal aviation administration), which is free and just needs insurance and ID confirmation.
- A metallic sign on the drone with at least this e-ID. Name, phone number, etc. are optional.
The max flight height is 120 m (ca. 400 ft).
If your drone weighs less than 250 g (ca. 8.8 oz), nothing further is needed. For higher weights you need additional licenses and registrations.