Like, I probably sound paranoid af. But I’ve read news about apparant “illegal CCP ‘Police Stations’” operating out of NYC (and variojs places) and um… I’m Chinese-American, and I was born in mainland China, especially under current administration, I personally feel like its a very bad time to be like… flying a drone.
See, because drones are made in China, there’s basically a fear of “spying” from these drones throughout the country, and DJI is already on the path of being banned, and I’ve seen videos of karens harassing a Youtuber, even when they are white, so I can’t imagine the shit I have to face if I cross paths with a karen. I feel like they would straight up call the FBI and accuse me of “being a spy”.
Same with radios. I’ve heard of the story where someone visited India with a radio (because they were gonna do hiking or something and there were no signal), then they got arrested and held for a few hours and investigated for being a “terrorist”, so that kinda gets worrying because this fear of “terrorism” is also prevalent in the US. Someone is gonna see that radio is gonna think “this guy must be a terrorist” or “is that [the radio with antenna sticking out] a bomb?” I mean, I heard about some woman on a plane called airport security on a guys doing… algebra, like just imagine in a crowded area with a “weird device that ‘looks like a bomb’”.
Kinda feels anxiety-inducing to be playing around with these gadgets, don’t you think? Am I worrying too much?
Normalize it! The best way is just to do your thing
When I fly a drone at parks I try to be as relaxed and obvious as possible. Sometimes there are curious people that talk to me about what I use, rules done pilots follow and how to get proper paperwork to fly. I see it as a good thing that I look approachable enough to talk to
If I were trying to be all low key and suspicious because I think flying a drone is weird people will pick up on that and start wondering why I’m acting strange. That’s when they jump to the wrong conclusions
Know the laws, play within them and be confident. Same goes with radios, meshtastic, gun stuff etc. In your case maybe avoid DJI drones though