No, if they are watching local it is literally impossible to catch them from a cold start, just as it’s impossible to catch someone in a WH site if they have scouts on entry WH’s.
The difference being that one requires effort and assets in space, whereas local is just there for free.
You appear in local before you load system.
It’s pretty much a given that the whole reason people afk cloak is to get around local. And it’s the same with log on traps. Without local these two tactics wouldn’t be needed.
And a lot of hot drops are conducted as a way of engaging without local giving away your fleet before it arrives.
You’re talking about how defenders react to unkowns in local (that’s a tool). I’m talking about the tactics hunters use to get around local (this is a counter).
Defenders have historically always had the advantage.
So, I can concede that local needs a 1-2 second delay.
At least till you load in the system.
Maybe let local show that someone entered the system, but that is all until you have loaded in.
But any more than that and what advantage do the defenders have?
Typically you need 3-1 odds to successfully assault a fortified position.
Home field advantage.
The advantage of having all of their ships and players located in that system, the advantage of scouts in nearby systems to warn of an incoming fleet, the advantage of a station to dock up in if things look bad, the advantage of bubble camps, the advantage of being in jump range of capital support at all times, etc. The problem is not that the defenders can’t win, it’s that RMTers and renter trash don’t have the ability to opt out of PvP, or at least always have sufficient warning of PvP that they can swap out of their farming ships and organize a PvP response.
The rumor for observatory arrays is that they will provide the owners with some kind of local like intel. That and having reinforcements nearby is the homefield advantage. But the observatory arrays can be disabled/destroyed.
So if they implement this.
In what way will perma cloaked ships be effected?
If at all?
The rumor is that observatory arrays will reveal cloakers or help the structure owners to hunt them…no details thus far im afraid.
That seems kind of cheap.
A structure helping to hunt doen a cloaked ship? 
I want to hunt them… But some stupid disabling pulse would be lame.
Especially when there are more reasonable IRL solutions that could be used in game if the mechanics where added to make it not an [I win] button.
It isn’t an I-win button. You’re just a RMTer and/or renter trash and suck at EVE.
WTF?!
I think the reason its a structure rather than a mod or a ship is because it’s easier to control where it works if it’s structure related. Easy to restrict to null only. Keeps it out of other space.
This would be much more complex to do if it was a ship or mod that hunted cloaks.
Possibly, but it would be so much cooler to require like 3 or more ships outfitted with specialized equipment to actively track and hunt them down!
That would fall in line with how you can hunt down AFK cloakers that don’t move from the same spot every day they log in and be more realistic.
Maybe deploy able buoys, to aid in scanning, like suround the target on at least 3 sides in the system and then scan him down with the help of the buoys and combat probes.
Like submarine warfare.
Just 1 structure to decloak them?
I don’t like. 
Well we don’t know the details. And i imagine they are still being ironed out.
But bear in mind how long setting up different buoys could be when you might not even have local telling you if a cloaker is even there or not. You could be setting up buoys only to find that there isn’t a cloaker in system. Or he could spot you deploying buoys and leave without you realising.
Without local, It will be a lot harder to wave at reds that are just passing through and maybe make friends.
More than half the people I fly with now started as reds that I talked into joining up with the corp I’m in…
I don’t just play this game to just kill reds and chat with the people I know.
I’ve even talked a cloaked camper into joining my friends corp.
He would come back to his keyboard after work and see random silliness posted in local with his char name attached and eventually answered and the rest is history.
In fact…I don’t think I have ever met anyone outside of local until I joined the alliance.
I just have never really needed anything more than local to recruit, convince or carry out physiological warfare with my enemy’s.
Which is why I’m not completely against cloaking, only it’s current iteration as it is a form of physiological warfare.
He wasn’t whining about cloaks for once, but speculating about the observatory array. He doesn’t want them to have a i-win button that would make cloaking pointless and give all the power to RMTers.
^^ That
Fair. I misread that as wanting the structure to make cloaks not an I-win button, rather than not wanting the structure to be I-win.
Which is why I’m not completely against cloaking, only it’s current iteration as it is a form of physiological warfare.
The current psychological warfare effect right now is just fine. It is effective against RMTers and renter trash and other assorted players/alliances who are terrible at EVE and deserve to fail, but ineffective against strong players/alliances that are capable of defending themselves. It’s Darwinism at its best. The weak are broken, the strong survive. If AFK cloaking is effective psychological warfare against you then stop being a weak victim.
Which is why I’m not completely against cloaking, only it’s current iteration as it is a form of physiological warfare.
Translation
I like physiological warfare, that part is fine, however the requirements for a big alliance to hunt the damn things is to high.
In my opinion.
I want a way that does not take dozens of guys literally days to hunt them down.
Hours would be fine.
A day or two would be fine.
5 days with guys who live close to CCPs servers so they can be the some of the first players to log after down time for just a glimpse and a chance to slowly narrow down the location by repeating the process every day for about 5 days in row and hoping the cloaker does not move from the same spot in those 5 days.
Is not fine.
It requires
#1 to much reliance on people being physically close to CCPs servers.
#2 to much reliance on the cloaker not moving from safe to safe for multiple days.
#3 to much reliance on luck.
#4 to much reliance on sheer dedicated man power.
While the cloaker logs in and pushes 1 button.
and every 4 days moves to a different safe.