Vandalism Problem

If your vandals are arriving by car on a regular or predictable basis you might want to set up a hidden camera where it will catch their actions and hopefully their plates. If you get them on tape turn it over to the police. Also most states DMV's will still release license plate records to the general public for a wide range of reasons. Run the plate yourself and send a letter or make a call to the owner of the cars house. That would work real well if it's a kid still living at home and you talk to the parents. Even if not the fact that you now know where he lives may freak him out enough that he will leave you alone.

"That's not a gate, it's a cattle fence"

Solves the power supply problems too - cattle fences run happily from batteries.

Anyone

too.

happily from

oh ? I stand corrected :-) a cattle fence. sure thats it :-)

Well, if there's a good fishing hole on the property, you can simply sign it over to me and solve the whole problem.

If you're some kind of possessive weirdo who doesn't like giving land to deserving sorts like me, then you could try hiring somebody like me to come out and watch the gate for a few days in exchange for fishing/camping access. Generally, we've found that chasing the vandals off once or twice pretty much settles the issue.

Wal-Mart around here carries a camera/motion sensor thingy in a weather resistant, and theoretically somewhat tamper resistant case. You'd probably still want someone camped nearby in case they start trying to bust that up, but pulling up and seeing a camera flash might have them turning tail before they realize that it's automated.

Or, as in the old joke, they may just steal the camera...

Having someone there would be nice if you knew when they were going to show up but how do you? It wouldn't be hard to hide a camera/recorder setup activated by a motion detector in such a way that the vandals would never know it was there.