We set up the MSU by the market, to see what the effect of doing it away from the Observation Tower site was. Sabine was relaying info to Stuart and Ed to Niki via walkie talkies.



Pelle made more surveillance devices from offcuts of wood, and Stuart wrote on them. We considered putting them around town, but due to time constraints set them up near the tower.

We noticed that lots of people sat on the fence while waiting for the bus at stop MG, so Pelle decided to make a shelter for them. People seem to be using it, hopefully it can stay.

Stuart making an audio description for a group surveillance exercise at the "Bullring Beach". This was a much better way of gathering, or recording data, it does, however, require transcribing.



Ed relaying data, sent to him by the tower, back to the people at the bus stop.

We were going to do an observation in the Cathedral square, but by the time we all met up it was getting too late. We had a look through some telescopes set up by the RSPB to monitor a Peregrine nesting on top of a building, and noticed their notes on it were very similar to some of our surveillance notes.

We all worked together on intensive surveillance of the bus stop in front of the observation post (MG on Moor Street), below is a stop motion time delay animation of the hour, (may take a while to load).

Mastro's stuff finally turns up at the airport, and he immediately gets his equipment on, which amuses Ed somewhat... never change planes in Amsterdam.



Pelle arrives and immediately disguises himself as a rubbish collector. Nice.



The MSU with info on the Jewellery Quarter, The FXB site, and bag carrying habits by the Bullring markets: Total bags carried in the hand in an area approx 8m X 5m between 1pm and 2pm = 1060; total number carried on the shoulder in the same period = 768; other miscelaneous bags = 49



Tower with data, and left to right, Sabine, Eliane, Stuart, and Mastro

The MSU goes to the Jewellery Quarter for its first outing. Ed, Mastro, Ana, Eliane, and Stuart.



We all engaged in separate research activities, which may not have been the best use of resources, but we are here to learn, I guess...

So, I went out with Ana to do some surveillance and some logging of walkie-talkie effective range. Then I noticed the word 'snagging' in my notebook. What's that all about? So, I made some notes about the 2-way mirrors and odd radio antenna in the Pavillions shopping centre, before we went to a coffee shop to discuss how we were going to progress with our research.

We sat there for a bit talking, but then I decided to record how many 'coercive acts' I could see out of the window. 14:07 to 14:14 I recorded 5 such acts, but then noticed an unattended bag on the corner of New Street and The High Street. I immediately called the Police to notify them of this 'suspect package'.



We sat watching to see if they came.

At 14:17 a man in his late twenties wearing a grey jacket and a white baseball cap (Both generic looking, no obvious branding) walked briskly up to the bag, moved it enough to check its contents, then walked off briskly. After sitting there watching for a further ten minutes, we decided that this had been an undercover police officer checking it was not a threat.



We then went off towards Snow Hill Station to check the range of the walky-talkies. (see data wall image)



At the end of the day, I recorded a comparison between numbers of people passing the observation post (Research Tower) wearing monochrome dress: 136, and clothing featuring colour: 174. This was between 17:35 and 18:05 hrs.

Went up on the Car Park by the tower, took a photo of Stuart on the tower



Then I sent it to his phone

Some data from today:

During a half hour period under the bridge from Selfridges to Moor Street Car Park:
Number of buses: 38

On a walk from Digbeth Police Station to 'Ikon Eastside' on Heath Mill Lane:
Warning signs = 122
'Helpfull' signs = 55

On the journey (including the 50 bus route) from 'Ikon Eastside' to Moseley Village:
Number of adverts = 175

Now that's beginning to look much prettier. There I am attempting to attach a speaker horn to the post so we can relay data back to the people of Birmingham.



Here I am using 'The Hornet' to monitor pedestrians on Moor Street Queensway



Ana marks the effective range of our two-way radios, as measured from the Research Tower.



Niki relays data about Bus Stop MG on Moor Street Queensway back to the people of Birmingham.

The Research Tower is nearing completion, Stuart gets in practice for the work ahead.

Ed, Niki, Stuart & Ana continued building and painting the Research Tower and Mobile Surveillance Unit

Stuart and Ana tested surveillance techniques at the NGAF event 'Orange Box'.

View the data here

The main phase of Birmingham surveillance research will take place when all Red Line Group researchers are assembled together between 23rd and 29th June 2007.