Spotter
A spotter is a person who deals with the targeted observation of objects or phenomena, the so-called spotting (from English to spot "observe, make out, recognize, sight, locate, localize").
In addition, the term spotting and the term spotter are used in a variety of other meanings - especially in English-speaking countries - such as digital film editing, climbing and weightlifting. In the USA , detectives , “track spies” in motorsport and assistants for snipers are also known as spotters .
history
So-called "scouts" became active in Germany in the 1950s and 1960s. These were mostly children or adolescents who wrote down their observations in little notebooks. The movement of the magazine was controlled Star or supplement asterisk , the booklets could be ordered from the publisher. The subject areas were popular
- automobile
- In the street
- In the countryside
- trees and shrubs
- Art and history
Spotting as a hobby
Spotting as a hobby can be broken down into different areas, such as trains, buses, planes, ships, and birds.
railroad
The so-called trainspotters collect images of traction vehicles , locomotives , wagons and their license plates. It is important to them to have seen them for themselves, photos of others are not enough. A trainspotter usually uses prism binoculars , notepad / PDA , camera / video camera and often a safety vest as an aid on site . During the domestic follow-up, the observations and photos made are then compared with data collections (such as production lists and timetables) and organized and archived in databases . Today, special internet forums , community websites or Instagram often serve as a medium for exchanging ideas with other spotters and for publishing your own photos and observing them. Many trainspotters use so-called "sighting groups" to find out about special train journeys via WhatsApp , SMS and the like. The typical outer clothing is transferred to the spotters themselves in the English slang with the expression " anorak ".
The term became better known in Germany in the mid-1990s through the novel Trainspotting - New Heroes and its film adaptation .
Planes
The observation and photographing of aircraft ( planespotting ) is mainly carried out in the immediate vicinity of an airport . Most of the time, attempts are made to photograph or film aircraft landing or taking off. The planespotter often has to go for kilometers to have a good view of the runway . The light situation and time of day are decisive for the choice of the location, since backlit images of flying aircraft rarely deliver good results. The weather is also an important factor, as photos usually have to be taken from a greater distance and so even the slightest haze leads to an impairment of the image quality. Airplane photos are often uploaded to websites and archived there in databases . In the largest aircraft image databases (e.g. Airliners.net ), however, only high-quality images are accepted, whereby the requirements vary depending on the page. For this purpose, each image is examined by a so-called "screener" and then either added to the database or rejected. Planespotter's own internet pages are often operated for planespotter, in which photos, reports and the best positions at airports are listed. Airplane videos are mostly uploaded to the well-known video platforms (e.g. YouTube ).
Many plane spotters concentrate on photographing as many different aircraft as possible. Often they use registers of a company's planes and their registration numbers, and then tick off the machines that have already been photographed. Older types of aircraft are sought after by many spotters, especially in Europe, as are rare special paints that are introduced on special occasions, such as anniversaries or the Olympic Games.
In addition to photographing airplanes, spotters are also interested in observing air traffic .
The beginnings of this hobby can be found in the war: Here the air traffic was observed particularly intensively and the individual aircraft were noted. Even today you can still find spotters who record flight movements only with binoculars and notepads.
Since the 2000s, spotters have also increasingly been operating ADS-B receivers, with which they can observe and log flight movements in their region in real time and make them accessible to the public via web services such as Flightradar24 . This creates an increase in safety through the spotters and also the photographers at airports and runways, because an observer network of recipients and documents are available in the event of breakdowns.
Amsterdam Airport is particularly popular in Europe , as there are almost no fences and you can get very close to the planes landing and taking off. But there are also vantage points at many other airfields, some of which have even been created for aviation enthusiasts. The Philipsburg / St. Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles has developed into a hotspot for planespotter due to its spectacular approaches over Maho Beach . The Flyvergrillen snack stand at Copenhagen-Kastrup Airport , which is popular with spotters , has even been declared a Danish cultural asset.
Since the 2001 terrorist attacks in the USA, spotters have been viewed critically in many places; Some airports even have a general ban on photography. For example, at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, it is forbidden to photograph aircraft without a corresponding ID. Photographing at airports was also forbidden in the GDR.
At Leipzig / Halle Airport , where every fourth passenger is said to be a US soldier, all flights are recorded by pacifists every 24 hours in order to document military transports taking place there.
At Geneva Airport (Switzerland) (as of October 2016) activists operate a Twitter bot that advertises take-offs and landings of planes that are supposedly assigned to undemocratic governments and dictators. The background to this is Switzerland's liberal monetary policy, which allows anonymous accounts.
In some countries, military airfields are banned from photography, where spotters can be suspected and sanctioned as spies.
Ships
Ships are also a popular target for spotters. Rivers and canals, such as the Kiel Canal or the Hamburg harbor entrance, are popular places with spotters. In many ports, restricted access for unauthorized persons to the quays makes it difficult to get good pictures of ships. Many ports, such as the Port of Hamburg , offer harbor tours that make it possible to get close enough to ships to register or photograph them. There are also spotters who only take photos of a certain type of ship, such as cruise ships or oil tankers .
cars
Cars, preferably brands such as Ferrari, Maserati, Porsche or Mercedes, are photographed or filmed on public roads, often the photos and films are then uploaded to specially designed websites and presented there to like-minded people. In most cases, they can then rate the photo with points, stars or the like with a click of the mouse. Occasionally accidents with such cars are published.
“Erlkönig hunters” are the names of private individuals or professionals who try to photograph Erlkönig .
Warspotter
Warspotting may have started in the first Iraq war. Warspotters collect photos of current theaters of war and war equipment. Recordings of combat situations are particularly popular.
Emergency vehicles
Emergency vehicles from authorities and organizations with security tasks are photographed or filmed on public roads, the resulting videos are shared on certain internet platforms. In the meantime, many of these filmmakers are getting a lot of attention on their YouTube channels, with up to 1,000,000 views in some cases. This hobby can be found in many parts of the world. The internet platform YouTube is very popular. The aim of the filmmakers is to film an emergency vehicle using a special signal, so the spotters usually stand in front of fire stations or busy roads where the probability of being able to record an emergency vehicle during an alarm trip appears high. The focus is on the emergency vehicle that is on an alarm trip. These spotters often spend very long waiting times in front of the guards in the hope of filming an emergency vehicle during an emergency drive. Another option for them is to take a position during larger exercises of various aid organizations and to film the advancing forces. In addition, the spotters sometimes have the option of standing near larger deployment points in order to film vehicles approaching there. A reasonable distance from the scene is always kept so that the spotters are not seen as gawkers.
Occasionally there are minor disputes between the spotters and the emergency services, for example if a filmed emergency worker feels disturbed by the spotters or residents feel they are being watched by the spotters, so that the police are called. The legal situation in Germany allows spotters to practice their hobby. At most, the police issued a dismissal in order to "smooth things over".
Birds
Especially in the UK are birders ( bird watchers ) also referred to as spotters, the largest possible number of different species of birds in the wild with a camera, binoculars or spotting scope want to observe. Is also a digital camera used to document, is called the Digiscoping, German digiscoping . In order to observe rare species, the spotters also accept long journeys. Many birdwatchers are involved in bird protection and are members of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and / or the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). Particularly enthusiastic spotters are referred to as twitchers , who tick (check off) every new species observed on their personal watch list. The UK record holder is Ron Johns, who has spotted 563 different bird species in the UK to date . The German equivalent is the Club 300.
Skywarn volunteer weather monitors
In weather observation, a spotter is a person who deals with the detection, tracking and reporting of extreme weather conditions . For accurate warnings of severe weather events regular observations of the weather-rich (by weather / precipitation radar , lightning detection , satellite images , weather stations , etc.) is not sufficient. From this data one can sometimes only roughly estimate the respective situation. Therefore, face-to-face observations, in a network similar to that of the weather stations, are one of the most important tools at Skywarn . There is also an observation network in each individual federal state.
A spotter (also called Stormspotter at Skywarn ) always has an eye on the weather around his location and / or in his region . He is in contact with the coordinators in the respective federal states in the event of weather conditions that are potentially prone to extreme phenomena. If an extreme weather phenomenon occurs, he reports this either to the respective coordinator in his state or directly to Skywarn centrally, taking into account certain reporting criteria. The messages are sent by telephone. The coordinators then pass these reports on to Skywarn centrally after they have been checked for validity. Even if damage is seen due to extreme weather, the respective spotter must report this to his responsible coordinator, although he does not have to have directly observed the cause. If necessary, the spotter should also document the damage with photos, etc.
If a spotter wants to report directly to Skywarn, one must be certified as a spotter, as these reports are passed on directly to the partners cooperating with Skywarn, who then include these reports in their respective warning system. In the future, warnings of extreme weather events should be possible at the district level and almost in real time . These partners, who cooperate with Skywarn, are state weather agencies , weather companies , media outlets (radio, television) and disaster control organizations . The certifications serve to give the cooperating Skywarn partners the certainty that the respective spotters have the appropriate knowledge about the processes and causes of extreme weather and about the reporting procedure. For this purpose, training and courses with final exams are held at regular intervals. The contents are meteorological basics, basics of thunderstorm science as well as the reporting procedure. A spotter then receives a certificate and a spotter ID . This procedure is intended to protect the cooperating partners of Skywarn from false reports.
Working as a spotter at Skywarn is currently voluntary and not tied to any fixed working hours. There should only be an interest in this interesting activity, in meteorology and enough time to keep an eye on the weather around you in appropriate weather conditions. The minimum age is 15 years.
A Storm Potter is not a Stormchaser to be confused ( "Sturmjäger, Storm tracker"). A storm chaser follows extreme weather and is rarely in one place for long. A spotter usually observes what is happening from a fixed point of view. You can also combine the activity, but then you have to make sure that you know exactly where you are in order to send a possible report precisely. Spotters are the most important part of Skywarn. A dense network of spotters is necessary so that Skywarn misses as few harmful and life-threatening weather events as possible. Without these observers, Skywarn cannot achieve the goal it has set itself: warning the population of the threat to life and property from the rigors of the weather.
Spotting in motorsport
In the USA , the so-called spotters also include members of the respective team who, in the well-known series, such as the IndyCar Series or the NASCAR series, are supposed to communicate to their respective pilots via radio the respective route conditions, their own position and that of their opponents . Some of the spotters sit in the grandstands of the respective high-speed oval courses in order to be able to inform them of any accidents or overtaking maneuvers in good time. Some pilots blindly rely on the instructions of their spotters, even though the wrong ways of a crashed racing car can hardly be assessed in the elevated banks , i.e. banked turns . Most of the spotters can look back on many years of experience, which can increase mutual trust, especially since they may only hear "Up, up, up in turn three" or "yellow flags in turn four" due to lack of time. However, strategic or basic tactical instructions during the race are only given by the team boss himself or the team manager.
Even in Formula 1 , a few drivers such as Jarno Trulli or Takuma Satō try to keep an overview of all the vehicles around them via radio through their personal mechanic in the confusing start phase. However, this is rejected by most experts, since it is ultimately always the responsibility of the driver how he behaves in situations in which accidents can very easily occur. The fatal accident of the US American Paul Dana on March 26, 2006, who presumably did not pay the necessary attention to the tips of his spotters, made this racing tactic known nationwide.
In Germany, the activity of a spotter makes sense mainly on the EuroSpeedway Lausitz , the only oval course . According to the DMSB oval regulations, each spotter must be marked with the start number of the respective participant in the size 10 × 10 cm and must occupy a fixed place.
Military spotting
A sniper is usually assigned an observer who clears up the target, supports the shooter with additional data (for example, distance, wind) and observes the effect. The term “combat observer” is also used for military flight missions.
Web links
- Link catalog on the subject of spotting at curlie.org (formerly DMOZ )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mobile learning 60 years ago: The Scout , on geschichtsunterricht.wordpress.com
- ↑ "The Scout" from the 1950s / 1960s - "Das Sternchen" v. November 10, 1956 ( Memento from March 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), on kalaydo.de
- ↑ Alex Games: Balderdash & piffle: one sandwich short of a dog's dinner . BBC, London 2007, ISBN 978-1-84607-235-2 .
- ↑ Oxford Dictionaries: anorak, definition 2
- ↑ Leeroy Matata: What is the Trainspotter like? In: Youtube. May 28, 2019, accessed April 21, 2020 .
- ^ Aviationspotter - Planespotting in Hamburg. Retrieved August 27, 2015 .
- ↑ Sonja Álvarez: “Flightradar24” real-time radar: On the trail of aircraft. Der Tagesspiegel , July 24, 2014, accessed on December 29, 2014 .
- ^ Troop transports for the reconstruction east, DLF, February 17, 2009
- ↑ Here you can see which dictators are coming to Europe at bento.de
- ^ GVA Dictator Alert , on twitter.com
- ↑ BBC News April 26, 2002: Greek court convicts plane-spotters
- ↑ Unusual hobby: 15-year-old Swiss filming emergency vehicles ( memento from February 4, 2019 in the Internet Archive ), on retter.tv
- ↑ Discussion: Emergency doctor shows operational film middle finger ( memento from May 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), on retter.tv
- ↑ Club300 Germany , s. under "Ranking".
- ↑ DMSB oval regulations (as of April 11, 2005) , on dmsb.de