It started with one question: where were the photos I took of those flood-watch cameras up in the mountains? Answering it meant digging through years of my camera roll, and I found out I’ve been photographing unattended cameras for more than a decade without noticing I was building a collection.

Some of these are exactly what they look like. Some look like surveillance and turn out to be traffic plumbing. And one of them turned out to be quietly timing every driver’s average speed.

This is the field guide I wish I’d had. Every identification below is graded by how sure I am:

Plate 1 · Average-speed camera tower

Confirmed CDOT speed-safety camera · Blissway system · Roads & signals

Tall solar poles with a big black panel, a stylized “B” on it, and camera heads stacked down the mast. The “B” is Blissway, the vendor behind CDOT’s speed-enforcement cameras. These systems don’t clock you at one spot. They read your plate at one station and again at the next, then divide the distance by the travel time.

CDOT lists six cameras in the I-25 / US 50B interchange work zone in Pueblo, between Mile Points 99.3 and 100.8, including one northbound trailer unit. Warnings started June 30, 2026. From July 30, drivers averaging 10 mph or more over the work-zone limit get a $75 civil penalty mailed to the registered owner.

Field marks

• Large black-framed solar panel with a stylized “B”
• Three or more camera heads at different heights
• Lockable cabinet at the base
• Installed in pairs, a known distance apart, next to the travel lanes

Power: Solar + battery cabinet · Mount: Dedicated steel pole · Measures: Average speed between stations · Penalty: $75, 10+ mph over (CDOT)
Sighted: 2026-07-21 · 4:48 PM · 16 photos; Corridor: I-25 / US 50B work zone, Pueblo

Plate 2 · Signal detection sensor

Likely ID Video / radar vehicle detection on mast arms · Roads & signals

The small boxes clamped to traffic-signal mast arms are usually not enforcement cameras. They tell the signal controller that a car is waiting or a lane is filling, replacing the old wire loops cut into the pavement. Some are video, some are radar, and radar holds up better in snow, rain and glare.

Common makers include Iteris, Econolite (Autoscope), Wavetronix and Sensys. None of the units here had a readable label, so the make is unconfirmed.

Field marks

• Small box or short tube on the signal mast arm, aimed at the approach lanes
• Band-strapped, no solar panel, powered from the signal cabinet
• Often one per approach direction

Power: Signal cabinet · Mount: Signal mast arm or pole · Watches: Lane presence / queue · Enforcement: Not by design
Sighted: 2025-05-14 to 2026-09-04 · many intersections

Plate 3 · Portable work-zone signal

Likely ID Solar trailer signal with a site camera mast · Roads & signals

Temporary traffic signals on trailers, set up where road work has closed a lane. Each runs on its own solar panel and batteries, and the units talk to each other by radio. A separate mast nearby carries a camera and sensors watching the site. That’s common on active construction jobs, but its owner isn’t marked.

Field marks

• Signal heads on an orange folding arm, trailer-mounted
• Solar panel and battery box at the base
• A separate mast nearby with camera-style heads

Power: Solar + battery · Mount: Trailer / ballast · Watches: Work-zone traffic
Sighted: 2026-03-13 · 4 photos

Plate 4 · Flock plate reader

Confirmed Flock Safety “Falcon”-style ALPR camera · Plate readers

An automated license-plate reader. It photographs passing cars, reads the plate, and logs the vehicle’s details to a searchable cloud database used by police, business districts and HOAs. It runs on a small solar panel and cellular, so it can go up on almost any pole.

In Pueblo, the Pueblo Downtown Association bought two Flock ALPR cameras for busy intersections, coordinating with the City and CDOT. A Flock representative told KOAA the images are purged every 30 days. The units pictured here aren’t tied to that purchase, only to the same camera type.

Field marks

• Small, matte-black, shoebox-shaped camera
• One compact solar panel on the same pole
• Band-strapped to wooden utility poles
• Aimed along a traffic lane

Power: Solar + battery · Mount: Existing utility pole · Watches: Rear plates · Uplink: Cellular
Sighted: 2023-11-27 · 2:29–4:36 PM · 8 photos

Plate 5 · Hooded plate reader

Likely ID Newer Flock-style install · Plate readers

Same job as the Flock reader above, with a squarer body, a deep sun hood over the lens, and a heavier swing-arm bracket. The close-ups show a single cable running up to its own solar panel.

Field marks

• Boxy black body with a deep visor
• Ribbed side panels, label on the underside
• Swing-arm bracket, panel just above

Power: Solar + battery · Mount: Wood or steel pole · Watches: Plates
Sighted: 2026-09-13 · 7:08–7:11 PM · 6 photos

Plate 6 · Parking-lot plate reader

Likely ID Retail entrance pole · Plate readers

A slim pole with a tilted panel and one camera pointed at a store’s lot entrance. Retailers put readers like this on their own property to log vehicles coming and going. The layout matches the Flock units, but the photos were too far away to read a label.

Field marks

• Single tilted panel on a dedicated pole
• One camera aimed at the driveway
• On private retail property

Power: Solar + battery · Mount: Dedicated steel pole · Watches: Lot entrance
Sighted: 2025-05-27 · 6:46 PM · 2 photos

Plate 7 · Streetlight acoustic sensor

Likely ID Probable gunshot-detection sensor · Neighborhood sensors

Short white cylinders mounted on streetlight arms, with nothing that looks like a lens. Pueblo Police use SoundThinking’s ShotSpotter gunshot detection, which KKTV reported covers about seven square miles of the city. When shots are detected, a remote analyst reviews the alert before it goes to dispatch. I couldn’t confirm from public records where Pueblo’s sensors are mounted.

When a local resident asked online about a similar device, another commenter identified these as gunshot sensors. No label was readable on the units photographed, so this remains a probable ID.

Field marks

• Small white cylinder or pod on a streetlight arm
• No visible lens or solar panel
• Powered from the streetlight itself
• Repeats across a neighborhood

Power: Streetlight circuit · Mount: Light arm · Listens for: Impulse sounds · Program: Pueblo PD uses ShotSpotter
Sighted: 2024-02-01 · 1 photo; More sightings on other streetlights, 2025

Plate 8 · Mobile surveillance trailer

Confirmed LiveView Technologies unit · Parking lots & mobile units

A towable trailer with a telescoping mast, several cameras, floodlights and a loudspeaker. It runs on a solar panel and batteries and sends its video out by cellular. The LiveView Technologies (LVT) logo, the unit numbers and the “Patrol Cam” and “Official Surveillance Unit” decals make the ID easy.

They’re usually parked at the edge of a retail lot with the lights and strobes running, as much a deterrent as a recorder.

Field marks

• White box trailer with LVT branding and a unit number
• Mast with a cluster of cameras, lights and a speaker
• Tilted solar panel on the trailer
• Blue strobe and warning decals

Power: Solar + battery · Mount: Towable trailer, telescoping mast · Watches: Parking lot · Uplink: Cellular
Sighted: 2018-01-20 · night · 27 photos; 2020-02-19 · 4 photos; 2022-04-08 · 6 photos

Plate 9 · Guyed dome mast

Unidentified Rapid-deploy camera mast · Parking lots & mobile units

A light mast braced with guy wires, topped with a wide saucer of lenses facing different directions and powered by a ground solar array. The whole thing is built to go up fast and move later.

Field marks

• Wide, flat, multi-lens head
• Guy wires staked out from the mast
• Ground-frame solar panels

Power: Ground solar array · Mount: Guyed portable mast · Watches: 360°
Sighted: 2024-02-14 · 4 photos

Plate 10 · Light-pole camera pod

Unidentified Permanent parking-lot camera cluster · Parking lots & mobile units

A white enclosure bolted partway up a parking-lot light pole, with two or three cameras around it. It’s the permanent version of the trailer: wired power, no solar, part of the lot’s own lighting.

Field marks

• White box mid-pole under the light heads
• Two or three cameras around the box
• No solar panel

Power: Lot lighting circuit · Mount: Light pole · Watches: Parking lot
Sighted: 2018-07-20; 2023-09-13 · 5 photos; 2025-12-24 · 4 photos

Plate 11 · Mountain monitoring station

Likely ID Remote flood / weather camera site · Remote & vintage

A self-powered camera site in a high meadow above a creek, with no utility power. A pan-tilt dome watches the valley, with a solar panel and enclosures for batteries and radio. It’s the same kind of station USGS uses for the live creek cameras listed below.

Field marks

• PTZ dome at the top of a tall steel mast
• Solar panel mid-mast, plus one on its own stand
• Two gray enclosures at the base
• Long view down the drainage

Power: Solar + battery · Mount: Steel mast · Watches: Creek and valley · Operator: Not marked
Sighted: 2024-06-11 · 4:45–7:33 PM · 13 photos

Plate 12 · Fairgrounds pole, 2013

Unidentified Early security camera, light and speaker · Remote & vintage

The oldest sighting in the guide. A black box camera, a round floodlight and a horn speaker share a pole under a State Fair Grounds street sign. It’s a wired, pre-solar setup from before the plate-reader boom.

Field marks

• Box camera in a sun-shield housing
• Round floodlight and horn speaker on the same pole
• Wired, no solar

Power: Wired · Mount: Street pole · Watches: Fairgrounds entrance
Sighted: 2013-01-05 · 3 photos

Also in the field: live creek cameras near Beulah

The mountain station in the guide is the private cousin of a public network. USGS runs stream cameras on the creeks around Beulah and San Isabel, and you can look at them right now:

• Game Gulch at Highway 78
• South Creek at Pueblo Mountain Park Road
• North Creek above Panther Creek
• Willis Creek at Highway 165

Pueblo Ledger’s River Watch keeps them alongside the gauge data.

What I learned from my own camera roll

• Most pole boxes are not spying on you. The small units on signal mast arms are there so the light turns green.
• The ones that are, look friendly. A black shoebox and a little solar panel on a wooden pole is a plate reader, and it logs every car that passes.
• Speed cameras got smarter. The CDOT towers don’t care how fast you pass them. They care how long it took you to get from one to the next.
• Labels are the whole game. I could only confirm an ID where a logo, a unit number or an official page did the work. Everything else is labeled honestly.

Sources

• CDOT — Speeding drops in work zones; I-25/US 50B enforcement (June 2026)
• CDOT — $75 fines begin July 30 in the I-25/US 50B work zone
• CDOT — Location of speed enforcement cameras
• Denver7 — Blissway average-speed cameras on CO 119
• KOAA — License plate reading cameras coming to Pueblo
• KOAA — How ShotSpotter is changing crime response times in Pueblo
• KKTV — Gunshot detection technology helps Pueblo police (Dec 2025)
• USGS — HIVIS stream camera imagery

All photos are mine, taken 2013–2026. They’ve been resized and stripped of location data, with no readable plates or faces.

That was a reasonable job for AI.

Then it got to Rosemount Museum.

Rosemount is not a giant modern museum with broad galleries and polished concrete floors. It is a historic mansion. An actual house. A beautiful, old, furniture-filled house with narrow rooms, delicate artifacts, antique flooring, and enough stairs to qualify as a cardio program.

The AI looked at all of this and apparently thought: Yes. We should formally investigate riding a full-size electric scooter through the parlor.

The request

The message it sent was magnificent in its seriousness.

It identified my NAVEE GT3 Pro, gave the width, weight, motor rating, maximum speed, and planned pedestrian-mode speed. It cited the federal mobility-device regulation. Then it asked about accessible entrances, indoor routes, room-by-room restrictions, preservation concerns, advance notice, acceptable assurances, and whom staff should contact if anyone questioned access.

It even acknowledged the mansion might contain narrow passages, stairs, and delicate original furnishings.

In other words, the AI had already assembled every fact needed to realize this was insane. It simply arranged those facts into a very professional email instead.

Here is part of the actual request it sent:

Because it is a stand-up consumer scooter, I’m asking that it be reviewed as an other power-driven mobility device under 28 C.F.R. § 36.311. It is about 23.2 inches wide, weighs about 48.5 pounds, and has a 400W rated motor. Although its maximum speed is about 20 mph, I will use pedestrian mode at approximately 3.7 mph, yield to others, and follow reasonable safety rules.

Would you please confirm whether I may use it on the grounds and during guided tours inside the mansion? I understand the historic building may have narrow passages, stairs, delicate original furnishings, and other location-specific limits.

It then asked for the accessible entrance and routes, every room where the scooter could not be accommodated, the specific safety or preservation reason for each restriction, operating conditions, advance-notice requirements, acceptable assurances, and the person staff should contact if access was questioned.

The reply

The museum director answered with more patience than any machine deserved.

She explained that they would love to accommodate the scooter, but the building creates real problems. The mansion has 184 stairs. Its elevator is original, carries one person at a time, and is too small for wheelchairs, walkers, and the scooter.

Turning around in many viewing areas would be difficult. Other guests and irreplaceable artifacts would be close by. The 136-year-old parquet flooring is delicate.

All completely predictable.

Then came the plot twist: they had already tried it.

About a year earlier, the museum allowed a similar scooter inside. It left major scuff marks on the old parquet floor, was difficult to maneuver, caused several near misses, and contributed to a tripping situation.

I had been laughing because AI proposed an obviously ridiculous experiment. The museum had to reply with the results of the previous experiment.

The actual reply somehow made it even funnier:

We would love to allow the NAVEE GT Pro Scooter inside the museum, however it actually does create a few issues. Let me explain. We did allow a similar scooter about a year ago and unfortunately, we did encounter several problems.

The scooter left major scuff marks on the 136 year old parquet flooring on the first floor and they were difficult to get rid of, due to cracks in the flooring. Turning around in many of the viewing areas was difficult and often not an option. It was also difficult to navigate around and with other guests on the tour. There were several near misses and one tripping situation.

There are 184 stairs in the mansion. We do have an elevator, however it is the original and fits one person at a time. Wheelchairs and walkers do not fit in the elevator, and the scooter was also too long to fit.

That is not a refusal. That is a field report.

Somehow, they were still incredibly nice

This is the part I do not want lost in the joke: Rosemount handled the request exceptionally well.

The director did not dismiss the disability need or send a one-line “no.” She explained the real safety and preservation problems, said the scooter would be fine outside and around the grounds, offered to inspect it in person, and described the museum’s alternative arrangements.

They keep wheelchairs on each floor because the original elevator cannot carry one. Staff can help push a chair and can carry it between floors when necessary. That is a thoughtful response to the limits of a building designed long before modern accessibility standards.

The director also wrote:

The scooter is totally fine on the property and anywhere outside. The museum does have wheelchairs available for anyone who would like to use one while on tour and we can provide someone to push the wheelchair as well. We have a wheelchair available on each floor (due to the elevator issue), or a staff member will carry the chair to the next floor for you.

I would be happy to look at the scooter upon your arrival, with the understanding that I do reserve the right to uphold our original answer.

The quoted portions are lightly trimmed for length. The director’s signature and personal contact details are omitted.

The museum was not the failure here. The AI was.

The actual bug

The automation treated every attraction as if it belonged to the same category.

attraction found
  -> ask about scooter
  -> include every legal and technical detail
  -> send

What it needed was one additional check:

is the attraction literally an antique house?
  -> yes
  -> maybe let a human look at this one first

AI did not misunderstand the task. It followed the task with terrifying competence and absolutely no instinct for the physical comedy of the result.

That is how a simple accessibility question became a formal proposal to pilot a 48-pound electric scooter around 136-year-old parquet floors—and how a museum director, with a completely straight face, delivered the incident report from the last person who tried it.

The AI had a plan. The mansion had already tested it.

By Justin · September 2026

For most drivers, they were simply two red-and-white towers rising from the flat ground along Highway 50. For Justin, they were part of home: the vertical frame around his family’s used-car lot, and a humming remnant of Pueblo broadcasting hidden behind office doors.

The address was 2600 W US Highway 50 in Pueblo, Colorado. Before it became Hwy 50 Autoplex, the property was the two-tower directional transmitter site for KGHF 1350 AM. The station rooms did not vanish when the car lot arrived. Some equipment remained alive, warm, and loud—generators, relay racks, a fallout shelter, and a large RCA transmitter whose vacuum tubes glowed through the cabinet.

This is what can be proven, what survives in family memory, and what is still missing.

The photograph that fixes the memory to the ground

Original family photograph, circa 1990s. The Autoplex buildings sit between the two active towers. The taller western tower dominates the frame; its partner stands to the east.

The transmitter coordinates printed in the 1992 Broadcasting Yearbook—38°18′29″N, 104°38′24″W—land on this same property. A USGS-derived record places the former KGHF-AM tower at 38.3080577, -104.6405303.

One frequency, many names

The license stayed on 1350 AM while its call letters and owners changed around it. The Highway 50 plant spans the middle of that story.

KGHF was authorized in 1927 and signed on in January 1928 from the Congress Hotel. It moved from 1430 to 1320 kHz, operated from the Broadway Arcade Building, and used an earlier transmitter location near Lake and Maryland Avenues. The 1941 North American reallocation moved it to 1350 kHz.

In 1947, Colorado Broadcasting applied to raise power to 5 kW day and 1 kW night, install a new transmitter, move the transmitter site, and construct a directional nighttime antenna. ABC listed the project under construction in 1948. Taken together, the evidence places construction of the two-tower Highway 50 plant around 1948–49.

Period directories consistently describe a 5 kW daytime, 1 kW nighttime facility with a directional night pattern. A 1964 directory gives the address simply as “Highway 50, W.” The 1992 yearbook prints the exact coordinates.

An October 1997 filing proposed a new transmitter point roughly three miles north, with 4.7 kW day and 750 watts night. The old towers came down in the late 1990s. The 1350 license survives today as KUBE from a different site.

Why were there two towers?

At night, AM signals travel farther because they can reflect from the ionosphere. Stations sharing a frequency have to protect one another from interference. KGHF’s second tower was not a spare. Together, the two energized towers formed a directional array: their signals combined in some directions and partially canceled in others, shaping where the nighttime signal traveled.

The two towers were therefore one antenna system, engineered around the nighttime assignment on 1350 kHz.

The room that sounded alive

Illustrated reconstruction, not an archival photograph.

“I remember sneaking into the radio-station side, admiring the sounds the broadcast gear made, and the wall of vacuum tubes.”

During the Autoplex years, the front and studio areas had become the business. Behind them, part of the broadcast plant remained restricted and operational. Justin remembers the equipment noise, transmitter heat, generators, tubes, and a fallout shelter. The building was both car lot and machine room—ordinary family life sharing walls with high voltage and a live AM signal.

The station answered the telephone

One surviving memory was unusually precise. Call a telephone number connected to the transmitter site and a computer voice would answer with one word:

ENTER

The mystery device is identified with very high confidence as a Sine Systems RFC-1/B Remote Facilities Controller. Sine’s archived firmware manuals say the unit answered the line, spoke “Enter,” accepted an eight-digit DTMF security code, and then read telemetry or operated relays.

It could provide spoken analog readings and on/off status, handle as many as 64 telemetry or control channels, raise or lower transmitter power, switch equipment, report alarms, and place telephone callouts. It even said “Goodbye” before disconnecting.

The remembered password was based on the station frequency. Because the surviving manuals require eight digits, a code such as 13501350 is plausible—but that is only an inference, not a recovered credential.

KKTV is documented. KOAA is still a question.

By the mid-1950s, Colorado Broadcasting—the KGHF licensee—owned half of TV Colorado Inc., licensee of KKTV channel 11. In 1963, KGHF, KKTV, and KFMH(FM) were sold together in an $885,000 package.

That corporate relationship makes television equipment, shared engineering knowledge, or stored material at the KGHF property plausible. It does not prove that KKTV originated programs from Highway 50.

The family was also told that a large rear room had been a television studio, and KOAA-related material was found inside. But KOAA began as KCSJ-TV, whose documented facility was on Big Hill at TV Lane—not at 2600 Highway 50.

The KOAA material may have been stored, salvaged, transferred through engineering relationships, or connected to an undocumented use. For now, saying that “KOAA operated here” goes beyond the evidence.

Hwy 50 Autoplex

The property’s second life was not separate from its first. The car lot occupied the studio spaces while the transmission plant lingered next door.

Justin remembers building Hwy50autoplex.com around 1999 in Dreamweaver after buying the domain through Network Solutions. A 2001 Wayback capture calls it “Hwy 50 Autoplex—Your Friend In the Car Business!” and points into an older Hypermart-hosted site.

His office had a Gateway computer and multiple phone lines. Nearby were his dad’s office, candy and pop machines, customers, mechanics, family friends, and the strange privilege of growing up beneath active radio towers.

Someone documented the inside

In the late 1990s, a group of college students visited the Autoplex for a project. Justin personally led them through the former station rooms while much of the equipment was still intact. They took photographs. Their names, instructor, class, and images are now unknown.

The strongest lead is at CSU Pueblo, then the University of Southern Colorado. Its University Photograph Collection includes an undated “Academics—Field Trip” folder, 1994–2003 slide additions, Mass Communication records, KTSC radio and television records, and a complete run of the USC Today student newspaper. An archives inquiry was sent in September 2026.

The search is for interior photographs, negatives, contact sheets, captions, class projects, and the names of the students or instructor. If you recognize the site or remember the visit, preserve what you have. A handwritten envelope, processing date, or class label may be the key.

Sources and boundaries

• 1964 Radio Annual — Highway 50 address, power, and directional operation.
• 1947 NAB/FCC report — power increase, new transmitter, and directional-site application.
• ABC 1948 annual report — KGHF improvement listed under construction.
• 1956–57 Television Yearbook — the KGHF owner’s 50% interest in the KKTV licensee.
• 1963 Broadcasting report — KGHF, KKTV, and KFMH sale package.
• 1992 Broadcasting Yearbook — former KGHF transmitter coordinates.
• October 1997 M Street Journal — application to relocate the transmitter north.
• Sine RFC-1/B manual — “Enter” prompt, security, telemetry, and control operation.
• CSU Pueblo Archives — university history and record groups.
• University Photograph Collection — field-trip folder and 1994–2003 additions.
• KOAA retrospective — KCSJ-TV at Big Hill.
• Archived Hwy50autoplex.com — surviving 2001 Wayback capture.

Editorial boundary: Family memories are labeled as memories. Generated artwork is labeled as reconstruction or illustration. The television-studio story remains open. The exact FCC completion date for the Highway 50 plant and the college photographs are still outstanding.

Two towers. One frequency. A car lot full of radio history.

They were not labeled. Some had dark panels or openings that looked like viewing windows. They appeared in more than one location, and at least one disappeared after I began asking questions. When I contacted Black Hills Energy, the company called the Prairie and Lucas device an “electric secondary voltage recorder” used “to monitor usage.” I recently recovered a screenshot preserving that exact response.

I did not believe it.

Years later, while recovering my old photographs and social-media archive, I found something that changes how seriously that suspicion should be taken: companies openly sell covert law-enforcement cameras disguised as power transformers and electrical junction boxes. One current product has the exact feature I remembered—a smoked-black band around the bottom of a transformer-shaped housing, with a pan-tilt-zoom camera concealed behind it.

That discovery does not prove the Pueblo boxes were cameras. It does prove that “a transformer would never contain a surveillance camera” is not a safe assumption.

This is what survives, what Black Hills appears to have said, what the photographs really show, and what modern covert pole-camera systems can contain.

Image note: The cover and technical cutaway in this article are labeled illustrations. The Prairie/Lucas and Acero photographs and the Black Hills reply screenshot come from my own archives. Manufacturer photographs are included for comparison and credited at the source.

The first post: two unexplained devices

On April 7, 2017, I posted this to Twitter and Instagram:

I found two of these hidden camera things on light poles in #pueblo. They are not labeled at all, wired to light pole power. Has view holes on all sides for cameras. Is this DEA? FBI?

The Twitter post still exists, and my Facebook export preserves the complete caption and date. Unfortunately, the export references an image file that Facebook did not include. The text survived; that first photograph did not.

The 2017 post matters because it establishes the observation before the later Black Hills exchange. I had seen at least two boxes, believed they had openings on multiple sides, and noticed that they were drawing power from the pole.

At that point I had no model number, owner label or confirmation from any agency. I had a visual observation and a suspicion.

Prairie and Lucas: the clearest surviving photograph

On December 14, 2018, I photographed another enclosure at Prairie Avenue and Lucas Avenue.

The photograph shows a pale rectangular box mounted above the street signs and below the streetlight wiring. Conductors loop into or around the enclosure. Two darker rectangular areas occupy its upper face.

I first posted the photograph with the caption:

I spy… A light pole camera. Recently added. Say hi to the feds :) #pueblo #spythespy

About an hour later, I asked Black Hills Energy directly:

Hey @bhenergy what do you refer the these boxes as? The thing that’s totally not a camera…

Black Hills replied on December 26, 2018. The original status, ID 1078047655622778880, has since been deleted—but a screenshot survived in my Facebook archive.

The company’s exact statement was:

Hi J, thank you for the message. I apologize for the delay. This is an electric secondary voltage recorder that is used to monitor usage. Thank you ^John

The tweet’s ID timestamps it to approximately 2:59 p.m. Mountain Time on December 26. The screenshot was captured about an hour after the reply and preserves both my original photograph and Black Hills Energy’s wording. The reply was posted through Sprout Social.

My response to Black Hills did survive:

Thanks for the reply. I’m sure you have an NDA on these. But a camera lens is clearly visible. What does that do??

My later posts shortened that explanation to secondary sensor and secondary current monitor. Those were my paraphrases. The recovered screenshot now supplies the verbatim corporate statement: electric secondary voltage recorder used to monitor usage.

The box disappeared

On February 15, 2019, I posted:

Black hills removed the spy camera they claimed was a secondary sensor. Looks like the drug house got raided too…

The sequence made me suspicious: unexplained device, company explanation, device removed, nearby law-enforcement activity.

It is also important not to manufacture certainty from timing. The surviving record does not establish when the box was installed, why it was removed, whether the nearby police action was connected, or who could access anything the device collected. Correlation made the story interesting; it did not finish the investigation.

Acero: another box below a transformer

On April 10, 2019, I photographed another installation on Acero.

This one is visually different. A normal cylindrical distribution transformer sits near the top of the pole. Immediately below it is a separate white rectangular enclosure with a dark horizontal panel on its face. Additional wiring runs along the pole, and a second narrow component is mounted farther down.

My archived caption reads:

Found another blackhills ‘secondary current monitor’ that’s totally Not a camera. On Acero right next to today’s crime scene… Makes sense

I then asked Black Hills: “What would you call the white box under the transformer?” I have not found a surviving answer to that second question.

What the photographs prove—and what they do not

The photographs prove that unusual, externally wired enclosures were installed on Pueblo utility poles. They show dark or recessed panels that reasonably invited questions. The archive proves that I asked Black Hills about them and that I later understood the company’s explanation to involve secondary electrical monitoring.

The images do not reveal the contents.

Real electrical instruments can be temporarily attached below transformers to measure current, voltage, load and power-quality problems. A dark rectangle can be a display, an inspection window, an infrared-transparent panel or simply part of a weatherproof enclosure. Wiring toward a transformer’s secondary conductors is consistent with electrical monitoring.

But the other possibility is no longer hypothetical.

The transformer that actually is a camera

MAXSUR advertises the DTCAM-3 Covert Utility Pole Transformer Camera. It is explicitly designed to blend into electrical-distribution environments.

Manufacturer reference: MAXSUR DTCAM-3. The dark lower strip is described as a Lexan viewing band. This is not the Pueblo device.

The housing can contain:

• an Axis fixed or pan-tilt-zoom network camera
• optical zoom and low-light imaging
• a Microhard 5G/LTE cellular modem
• low-profile cellular and GPS antennas
• onboard recording
• AC, DC, battery or solar-assisted power
• an optional downward-looking camera
• an optional motorized actuator that changes the viewing position

The black strip is not decoration. MAXSUR calls it a Lexan viewing band: a dark continuous window that lets the camera see outward while making its exact position and direction difficult to see from the ground. The company can customize window placement, antennas, mounting, finish and internal camera package.

i2c Technologies sells another transformer-style system, the VX400 Deployable Covert Pole Camera. Its published specifications include an Axis or Verkada PTZ camera with up to 32× zoom, low-light video, optional fixed cameras covering 270 degrees, a ruggedized computer with 1 TB of local storage, and 4G/5G remote access. It can also communicate over fiber, copper, point-to-point radio or mesh networking.

The result is an entire remotely controlled surveillance station inside something most people have trained themselves not to notice.

Custom educational illustration based on publicly advertised capabilities. It is not a photograph or blueprint of a particular product.

The fake high-voltage box

The disguise does not need to be round.

MAXSUR’s SV2 Covert Utility Enclosure Camera looks like a small electrical junction box. Its face carries a high-voltage warning and a dark rectangular viewing window.

Manufacturer reference: MAXSUR SV2. This shows the concealment category, not an identification of the Acero device.

Behind that window, the manufacturer advertises an HD PTZ camera, optical zoom, low-light performance and an embedded 4G LTE modem. MAXSUR says the system weighs less than six pounds and can capture license-plate detail beyond 200 feet under suitable conditions.

That is uncomfortably close to the visual question raised by the Acero photograph: a small pale utility-style enclosure with a dark rectangular face. It is not a model match—the proportions, label and panel arrangement differ—but it demonstrates why appearance and pole wiring cannot settle the question.

Cameras that do not need pole power

Boundless Security Systems sells The Rabbit, a much smaller cellular pole camera built for law enforcement.

Manufacturer reference: Boundless Security Systems’ The Rabbit.

The manufacturer describes a roughly four-inch-wide, nine-inch-high unit with true PTZ control, 10× optical zoom, internal HD and time-lapse recording, cellular connectivity and battery or solar operation. It claims useful license-plate detail at distances up to 450 feet under favorable conditions.

This matters when evaluating mysterious pole equipment: the absence of a conventional power connection does not eliminate a camera. Batteries and a small solar panel can sustain a remote system, while cellular networking removes the need for a visible data cable.

WCCTV goes further in the other direction. Its page for a covert surveillance pole camera describes onboard storage, remote access, mobile connectivity and cloud-based control—but says it does not publish photographs or detailed specifications in order to protect existing users’ confidentiality.

Some of this equipment is meant to be recognizable only to the people deploying it.

This has happened on a utility pole before

The strongest public precedent I found came from Phoenix, not Pueblo.

In 2016, ABC15 investigated an unexplained box on an Arizona utility pole. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives eventually acknowledged that the box belonged to ATF and was part of an ongoing investigation.

ATF would not say whether the box contained cameras. The local utility, Salt River Project, told ABC15 it had not known the box was installed. ATF said that security requirements could permit such measures without utility permission and maintained that it had acted within its authority.

That incident does not connect ATF—or any federal agency—to the Pueblo equipment. It establishes a narrower but important fact: federal investigators have installed undisclosed equipment on utility poles, and even the utility owning the pole may not initially know what it is.

Pole-camera surveillance can last for months

The legal record confirms how these systems are used.

In the federal prosecution of United States v. Tuggle, investigators placed three cameras on public property with views of a residence and recorded the exterior for approximately eighteen months. The government’s Supreme Court filing describes agents remotely adjusting the cameras’ pan, tilt and zoom and reviewing the resulting recordings.

That is not a product brochure. It is a documented description of prolonged pole-camera surveillance in a federal criminal investigation.

What may be inside one of these systems

Across the manufacturers reviewed here, a modern covert pole package may combine:

• one movable PTZ camera or several fixed cameras
• optical zoom powerful enough to read plates at long distances
• low-light or infrared imaging
• a rugged local computer or DVR
• weeks of onboard storage
• cellular, fiber, Wi-Fi, mesh or dedicated-radio backhaul
• GPS and low-profile antennas
• AC conversion, battery packs and solar charging
• remote health monitoring and camera control
• video-management software and automated analytics

Other pole-mounted public-safety devices can include automatic license-plate readers, acoustic gunshot sensors, traffic cameras, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi detection equipment and environmental sensors. Their presence does not automatically imply covert surveillance. It does mean “it is just a box” is not an adequate technical explanation.

Was Black Hills lying?

I called the company’s explanation a lie in my old posts. With the surviving evidence, I cannot prove that statement today.

A secondary current monitor is plausible equipment beneath a transformer. The visible wiring in the Acero photograph supports that possibility. Conversely, commercial covert cameras are deliberately built to mimic exactly that kind of infrastructure, complete with dark windows, plausible cabling and ordinary-looking electrical housings.

The recovered response lets us examine what the company actually claimed, but it still does not identify a manufacturer, model number, work order or collected dataset. “Electric secondary voltage recorder” is a technically plausible description of real utility-monitoring equipment. The photograph alone cannot show whether that description was accurate for this particular box. Black Hills may have owned the instrument, or another organization may have had permission to use its pole; the surviving record does not resolve those alternatives.

What would resolve them is straightforward documentation:

1. Manufacturer and model number
2. Work order and installation dates
3. Electrical measurements collected
4. Data retention and access policy
5. Owning organization and contractor
6. Reason for removal

If these were ordinary grid instruments, that information should be easy to provide without compromising anybody’s privacy. If some details were protected by an investigation, the record should eventually show who authorized the installation and under what authority.

My conclusion now

I still think the boxes deserved scrutiny.

The photographs alone cannot establish that they were cameras, much less that they belonged to the FBI, DEA or ATF. The electrical-monitoring explanation remains technically credible. The timing around nearby police activity remains correlation rather than proof.

But my underlying observation was valid: surveillance equipment can be disguised as utility infrastructure. It can look like a transformer, a high-voltage junction box or an anonymous cylinder. It can carry a PTZ camera, cellular modem, local recorder and enough optical zoom to watch activity from blocks away. Sometimes the utility may not even know it is there.

The honest answer is not “definitely a camera” or “definitely just a sensor.” The honest answer is that the available photographs leave both possibilities open—and the companies and agencies holding the records are the ones capable of closing the gap.

Until then, look up once in a while.