Checking Out the CBP's TAS

Today's riding was mainly spent locating the Customs Border Patrol (CBP)Tactical Aerostats System (TAS).

Morning at camp:

The TAS is The smaller version of two types of blimps used by the CBP to do border surveillance. The larger version is mainly radar-based whereas the smaller version uses surveillance cameras mostly. It is the smaller version that is hanging out here on the north side of the wildlife refuge where I am camping. 

The blimp is about 11 mi straight line distance from my campsite. 

It was more like 20 miles by road to get to it, it's location giving away by the EFF website which apparently tracks such things for the public. 

From my campsite, it shows to the naked eye as a small white dot in the sky.  It's actually pretty easy to miss unless you're looking for it. 

Here's what it looks like close up: 

2.9x zoom with bino

This is how the blimp is anchored to the ground.  It's also the way it's retrieved for maintenance and for weather issues.  Apparently one of these made the news sometime back when it broke free and crashed in Texas. 

I rode away from the anchor site perhaps a mile or two south of it for these two shots: 

This was 3x zoom without binos, scaled up in post-processing 

These blimp systems are apparently hideously expensive and so the CBP has installed over 500 towers all along the border that carry out surveillance.  There's one about 3 mi from my campsite at the junction of our Arivaca Road and AZ State Hwy 286:

It's the one on the left, the other one is an old telecom tower

There is a noticeable increase in border patrol vehicles cruising about and also stationed about the area. 

A photo of Baboquivari Peak taken at the campsite using the bino adapter:

1x zoom with binos

2.9x zoom with binos