Heat Detectors

[Spanishfly]

A commonly asked question is Can LEO Use a Heat Detector to Find My Grow?? The answer is not a simple yes or no.

Thermal Imaging Devices detect the heat (Infra Red radiation) given off by an object that is hotter than its surroundings. This is especially useful in detecting warm objects, such as people, at night - we have all seen the police pursuit videos where the fleeing villains are glowing white.

But your plant growing in a hedgerow is at exactly the same temperature as the surrounding air and all other plants in the vicinity, and will therefore NOT show up on a Thermal Imaging Device. Good news for outdoor growers then.

Not so good for indoor growers. If your grow room is making an outside wall or roof more than a couple of degrees warmer than the rest of the building then that area will show up as warm on a thermal imaging device. But then the same is true of a hot bathroom. That in itself does not then necessarily indicate a grow by any means, but if it happens continually may give rise to suspicion. And the hot exhaust air from your ventilation system will also show up.

Another device used by LEO, but not so often as it is a lot more expensive, is the airborne spectrometer. In daylight, your plant growing outside reflects a particular spectrum of light wavelengths, a spectrum that indicates that the plant is cannabis and no other. So LEO´s flying spectrometer can give a positive ID. But it works best with large grows, a load of MJ all together, they would have to get really lucky to spot a solitary plant with this technique. So keep your grows small and well spread out - if you are an experienced grower you are doing this anyway.

Hope this helps.

[ganja_grower]

thanks for that +rep

[eclipsedesign]

Cheers for that!
+rep from me also

[DurbanPoison]

Right on.

[highflyer_47]

Great to know... THANKS!

[smoke__aLot!!!]

Howed you get to be so fucking cool. +Rep

[froggy]

LEO needs search warrant to search ur property. either by air, land or sea. they just dont drive around with machines looking for heat and they dont fly around the earth with scanners looking for plants. they MUST target ur grow and u.

and if they have a search warrant, they have more than a hunch on ur 'operation'.

with all that said, here is few other tidbits...

in 2006, DEA has shifted most of their LEO to Meth. so if ur under the radar before now, u should still be under the radar.

the war on terrorism has taken upwards to 50% of all the LEO that would/could be on the case of weed growers and has shifted them to other duties.

a 'friend' in the LEO business told me outright that 99% of the time, the ppl that get busted for growing is because of their own dumbass acts. like showing ppl the grow or selling to stupid ppl or ... and the 1% of the busts are big time dealers. and i quote 'they dont have time nor the technology to nab the guy with a few plants in their back yards or basements'

so u can be paranoid all u want...

[Lastout]

As I thought! +Rep

[LoosePhlegm]

Originally Posted by froggy

LEO needs search warrant to search ur property. either by air, land or sea. they just dont drive around with machines looking for heat and they dont fly around the earth with scanners looking for plants. they MUST target ur grow and u.

But when people often grow in large undeveloped (but still owned) or neighboring unowned property (defaulting to bank or gov't owned), LEO can search that property quite easily.

But they don't drive around or scan the earth as a whole either. Helicopters are often dispatched in non-city counties known for growing or other types of manufacture. They get grants from federal agencies or better funded city agencies that are supplied by the suspect county. So with cooperation of local gov't helicopters will patrol when the need is determined.

It does still happen very often.


If you're smart about it, the worst case is losing your crop. Better than being convicted of any crimes.

It doesn't happen all the time every where, but enough to know not to be careless about where, who, and when.

I cannot say specifically whether or not air searches are legal or not without a warrant. The United States legislature has had a habit in the last 10 years of violating very basic express and implied human rights.

[Nuglito]

Could they detect a single plant that is not in a hedge with other plants? Would they even give a shit about one plant?

[Spanishfly]

Originally Posted by Nuglito

Could they detect a single plant that is not in a hedge with other plants? Would they even give a shit about one plant?

Who knows?? Ask the cop using it.

[glass_girl420]

If they are flying around in a chopper and they spot a home, barn whatever glowing like a christmas tree from heat, one would think that they would take note and further investigate the resident. I don't know that's just a thought.

[Spanishfly]

Originally Posted by LoosePhlegm

I cannot say specifically whether or not air searches are legal or not without a warrant. The United States legislature has had a habit in the last 10 years of violating very basic express and implied human rights.

Why do you assume that we are all interested in the United States legislature???

[T.Bug]

Originally Posted by Spanishfly

Who knows?? Ask the cop using it.

High fly! lol thats kinda funny.
Back to the original post, Does the house insulation and reflective properties of the roof come into play? Im pretty sure If i went up on my roof a midnight, the surface temp of it would be the same. Im having a hard time believing it would be detectible unless the detectors see through that suff. Just wondering and peace, TBug

[silent1]

Originally Posted by froggy

LEO needs search warrant to search ur property. either by air, land or sea. they just dont drive around with machines looking for heat and they dont fly around the earth with scanners looking for plants. they MUST target ur grow and u.

and if they have a search warrant, they have more than a hunch on ur 'operation'.

with all that said, here is few other tidbits...

in 2006, DEA has shifted most of their LEO to Meth. so if ur under the radar before now, u should still be under the radar.

the war on terrorism has taken upwards to 50% of all the LEO that would/could be on the case of weed growers and has shifted them to other duties.

a 'friend' in the LEO business told me outright that 99% of the time, the ppl that get busted for growing is because of their own dumbass acts. like showing ppl the grow or selling to stupid ppl or ... and the 1% of the busts are big time dealers. and i quote 'they dont have time nor the technology to nab the guy with a few plants in their back yards or basements'

so u can be paranoid all u want...

Bump, for very good info!