Bandwagon's Drones Thread

Sooo entering the drone era. I must continue to thrive my Walking Dead survival LARP.
Last time I checked a year or two ago drones was still $400+ for anything that was stable and took photos/cams.
Now it appears you can get them for $100 or less.
Currently thinking about a $100 Holy Stone HS100G to start

• Item weight: 176g ( FAA No Needed)
• Dimension: 12 *7.6 *3.6 inches
• Flight Time: About 13 mins
• Charging Time: 180 mins
• Camera: HD1920*1080p
• Live Video Transmission Range: 492ft
• Max Control Range: 984ft
• Battery Capacity: 3.7V 1500mAh

Which has 3x the range of the Holy Stones $30-40 cheaper but the HS100G also has GPS/Return to Home.
$100 bucks is pretty cheap it seems for a GPS HD drone with 400+ foot range control, but I wanted to make sure there wasn't any better deals out there.
My max budget this month is $120 but every buck saved is well a buck I can use to buy Krystals or something.

Been having a hell 5 months now really at work.

First off My Boss(my Father) got diagnosed with colon Cancer in umm late january, early Feb. He went in for a colonoscopy and when he came out of the procedure, they were like, you having your surgery tonight or tomorrow. The surgery went Well.

then covid hit

he goes to the doc to talk about chemo to prevent it coming back, he went on the meds and the first round went ok. this was before the shut downs really started

when they took him off that round of meds, he crashed and Crashed HARD-this is right when the shut downs started early aprilish. he crashed so hard that 4 days after he was admitted to the hospital- about a 9 days after being off the chemo meds. they called up my stepmom asking about what extreme measures they could take because they thought he was going to die that day(that monday was BAD). he is STILL in the hospital.

meanwhile, the state board of land surveyors and engineers Cancelled the april Test which i was supposed to take. (supposedly the test is NEXT month and i am taking it)

so here i am with the boss in hospital and suddenly i am in charge of EVERYTHING:
invoicing, estimates. plans, bill collecting scheduling answering the phone etc . in the middle of a shut down. without really any idea what we charged for our services....i did a lot of research on old invoices for a few days.

WE did apply for and get a PPP loan from the GOVT.

civil engineers and land surveyors were deemed essential workers.

the Business worked(s) on a quick turn around model for the bread and butter plans we do- we typically did around 150 boston water and sewer plans a year (at ~3500 per plan)

we would get a bwsc job, do the job and ~3 weeks later have a plan submitted/approved and paid; onto next job.

BWSC SHUT THE FUCK DOWN! they had skeleton crew only for 2 months only 1 plan reviewer in office reviewing plans so they got SWAMPED. New Plan submissions went from ~1 to 2 weeks to get a plan approved to 10 to 12 WEEKS to get REVIEWED...

Needless to say, our revenue has suffered significantly due to the delays.

it is getting Better...plans we brought in in July are getting approved Now...

update on my work situation
father/boss has finally moved to rehab 2 weeks ago. over 7 months in the hospital.
work is busy and we are just breaking even currently(averaging about 6-7 thousand a week in invoicing-prior to boss going down/covid we were 10k+ a week) due to delays by the city with me having to do more administration stuff.. we are behind doing plans. i do have ~30 thousand in invoices owed by clients.

the october 22 Professional Land Surveyor test was a shitshow.
new location, hotel convention area with rooms.

not one person running it knew which room the PLS test takers(12 of us) were in. so we were in the hall for ~10 minutes after everyone let in as they figured out where we were sitting since our test is only 2hr vs the PE test takers who's test was 6hrs.
then they didn't have the tests in the room- had to go get those
then no answer sheets -since they were not in the test packet.
then no pencils since it says right on the attendance sheet that they supply the pencils.
finally test starts and there are 10 FEWER questions on the test than previously. (40 instead of 50)

got the results TODAY. i was too nervous to open the email attachment for like 45 minutes. then it would not open direct i had to save it, THEN where i saved it....had my previous test results, and i opened that attachment(which said i failed the test) instead of the one for this year which i got fustrated from (due to fail) for a minute until i saw the top of the page saying 2018, then had to find the 2020 results where i got 31 out of 40 questions correct (77.5- passing is 70), so now i am officially minimally competent. i am also slightly younger than the average age of a PLS in the state of MA (which is 55 or 56).

in 2 weeks they will notify me as to what my registration number is so i can get my stamp.

a boundary pls is fine to hire IF they are willing to learn the other stuff.

Personally i am more of a boundary person than layout, but i can DO the layout stuff fine, i am just better at figuring out property lines.

had a good one in BOSTON...there is a 4 FOOT discrepency between everyone's deed and the actual LAND that is out there (more land)
all the deeds, the plans of record and the street layouts say from the bounds to River Street on my clients side of the street is 676 feet and the other side is 681...yet the city of boston Survey Department for that same section of land, and my survey has 680 feet on clients side and 685 on the other side....all the Bounds are on the OTHER side of the road (farther down the road) check PERFECTLY, the one drillhole we find near locus checks PERFECTLY to the bound....and everyone's FENCE is off by 4 feet.........(everyone is measuring from river street down the road fence wise...

So according to ArcGIS Web Application
If I wanted to buy a $100 Holy Stone drone that can go half mile with GPS I not only need to register it, but gain clearance to even use it from my home, even if I just want to look around at my house right?
It appears such is the case for literally most cities with over a few thousand people in the nation.
So unless you live on the coast or out in the sticks, it appears your ability to even use such a cheap device is severely limited.

I am bummed.
Guess I'll buy 2 camping chairs instead.

The map lists areas by ceiling. My home is 0. Some parts of the city is 100, 200,400. Does that mean those parts don't need clearance? I am confused because they are still classed as E.

Being specific this is my area.