I was recently taking a leisurely drive over Ou Kaapseweg  when I spotted an interesting Landy. It was a white Puma 110 , Hard Top. What caught my eye was the dome fitted to the roof. The dome was about 1 m in diameter and a half m  high. The Puma turned off and stopped at the look out spot that has this great view over Tokai , the False Bay coast and the northern suburbs. Knowing that all Defender owners are friendly I went across and asked the owner what the dome was all about . He was less than overspoken and indicated that it had something to do with communications. And that he would prefer that i didnt take photos.What a challenge ! So I just waited to see what would happen. After a while the dome on the roof started rising , all the way up to about 6 m. As shown by the pics .

 So what was it all about ? I was witnessing an ICASA mobile scanning unit , used to search for and ID illegal radio transmissions. As far as I know it is pretty good at doing this . The sort of thing that happens is that ICASA turns up at an  organisations door , with a full transcript of radio conversations ,including of course peoples names etc, and asks to see the licences. Embarrassing !

This is a technique that could easily be applied to an off road trail , where ICASA could wait at the campsite for returning vehicles. Fortunately they will probably not be too interested in 27 MHz , and in any case we are all licenced.

ICASA - Independant Communicactions Authority of South Africa