Adding hinges to an antenna tower.

[Bill]

So I have this old antenna tower on the house. It had an old CB omni antenna, a TV antenna, a satellite dish and my buckeye camera antenna u bolted to the side with pipe clamps.

My camera reception was getting bad. So we trouble shot everything and worked with buckeye to determine the base antenna was either bad, getting interference or two low.

When we put up the original camera antenna I climbed the tower as high as I dared and clamped it on. Since my "Super Dave" days are coming to an end we needed a new plan.

Built a redneck Jig using a level and some clamps to get the hinges straight so they wouldn't bind.

Cut an inch out of the uprights and added the hinges.

Used a big maple in the back yard to run rigging to lower it.

Took off all the crap that wasn't needed, added the new camera antenna and pushed it back up with the FEL

Signal strength improved considerably. And I wasn't Humpty Dumpty.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[John-W-WI]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who needs to find smarter ways of doing things, because my body doesn't always keep up!

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[Turkey Creek]

Do those Buckeye cams run on their own signal or do they relay through cell phone towers?

 

[Bill]

Do those Buckeye cams run on their own signal or do they relay through cell phone towers?

They run in their own RF line of site signal. Pics download to my laptop at the farm. I connect to the laptop via splashtop from anywhere in the world.

Buckeye has a cell base for guys that have no where to plug in a computer but I have no experience with that setup.

 

[yoderjac]

Bill,

Great project and pics! Looks like a nice tower. Most of mine are more homebrew bases with a mast. I do like the triangular tower though. Mind if I ask what that cost you?

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Bill]

Bill,

Great project and pics! Looks like a nice tower. Most of mine are more homebrew bases with a mast. I do like the triangular tower though. Mind if I ask what that cost you?

Thanks,

Jack

Luckily it was on the house when I bought the place. It had the old tv antenna on it.
It looks about 35 foot then I added a section of conduit. New 35 footers are around $600

Don't know where front Royal Virginia is in relation to you but a guy has a used one on eBay for $200
http://www.ebay.com/itm/radio-tower-for-ham-radio-or-cb-radio-/272375004665

They show up on eBay and Craig's list but there usually pick up only.

 

[yoderjac]

Thanks Bill! I put it on my watch list.

 

[Buckly]

How far do these cameras transmit through a normal wooded area? I also have a hill right behind my house then all downhill and flat from there but, I would need to address the hill problem by using some cameras as repeaters. Do you lose a lot of performance this way with repeaters. Can you go through several cameras to get back to the base? I was just wondering as maybe I would need several of these towers around.

 

[Bill]

How far do these cameras transmit through a normal wooded area? I also have a hill right behind my house then all downhill and flat from there but, I would need to address the hill problem by using some cameras as repeaters. Do you lose a lot of performance this way with repeaters. Can you go through several cameras to get back to the base? I was just wondering as maybe I would need several of these towers around.

Good questions. Buckeye advertises up to 2 miles of transmissions. But I'm sure this is under the best circumstances. Like flat ground and no obstruction. I can't give you an honest evaluation on how far through timber the signal will travel. I've gone 1/4 mile but that's all I've tried. Also in the growing season the water in the trees and foliage can slow transmission.

I have one camera 1.5 miles from the base on leased ground. To achieve that I had to use a 56 inch yagi antenna mounted 10 feet above the camera an pointed at the base.

To get over your hill you would need a repeater or another camera to route through. In the pic above you can see I have two cams routed through other cams to get to the base. I think you can route something crazy like over 150 cameras through another then on to the base. The drawback is transmission speed. It takes twice as long to get a pic to the base unit. And battery life. If multiple cams are routed through 1 camera battery life can become an issue. I use 12V 7amp hour SLA batteries and thier small solar panel. In the past 6 years that's only been a problem once. That was 2 days ago. One camera transmitted 700 pics in one night. It's now down for the count. Being remote I had to read the log files to verify the battery died. I suspect the battery is at the end of its life or my Solar panel blew down. There are other options to improve this like bigger solar panels and deep cell auto batteries.

Transmission speed isn't an issue unless your getting lots of pics. with 8 cameras I typically get 300 to 400 per night. The other day activity went through the roof and it was over 1000. Pics were still downloading when I was drinking morning coffee, which is usually when I view them.

 

[yoderjac]

How far do these cameras transmit through a normal wooded area? I also have a hill right behind my house then all downhill and flat from there but, I would need to address the hill problem by using some cameras as repeaters. Do you lose a lot of performance this way with repeaters. Can you go through several cameras to get back to the base? I was just wondering as maybe I would need several of these towers around.

There is not a fixed normal distance. RF transmission at 900 MHz is not simple. It also depends on the radio. The longest distance radio is in the old Orion system. The shortest is the X7Ds and the X80 is in between. Then you need to look at the antenna. There are different antenna types that can be used with different dbi ratings and antenna patterns depending on how you plan to configure your network.

"Performance" can be defined in many ways. Yes you can use multiple cameras in the repeater chain. You can also have multiple cameras transmit through a single camera acting as a repeater. One way using repeaters affects performance is in battery life. By the way, although BEC calls them repeaters, technically they are acting as packet routers. It takes power to transmit data, so when a camera needs to forward packets from another camera as well as transmitting its own pictures, it consumes more power. You can use larger batteries and solar panel combinations to deal with this. I find transmitting pictures in real-time of little value. What I find most important is not needing to visit a camera for many, many months and still being able to access pictures. So, for me, whether it takes 1 minute for the picture to arrive at my pc or 5 minutes, it makes little difference. However, if it is important to you, transmitting through a repeater camera will increase the amount of time it takes to get a picture back in most cases. Data rates are also affected by signal levels, so in some cases, if the direct path signal level is low enough, it may actually be faster to go through a repeater camera.

I do have an X80 (upgraded form the X7D) but most of my network is still the old Orion series. I'm on a pine farm and pines are the worst vegetation to transmit through. I have a tower at my camp on the corner of the property with a large 13 db yagi antenna. I also have a tower with an 8db Omni (again a slight misnomer) near the center of my property with a repeater camera. I put a large 45 watt solar panel with a 35 amp-hour battery on this to eliminate the power problem. The cameras which have a good enough signal to the base go directly. The others use the repeater.

I transferred some old threads from the other forum that have pictures and more detail on antenna usage.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Buckly]

thanks. I realize that sometimes the only way to know if it is going to work is to try it and see but, it would be better I think to work in worst case signal options before hand when designing so I was just looking for some basic parameters. The hill is probably my biggest issue. Are these antenna's just an extention of the camera antenna or is there an actual repeater unit. Thanks again.

 

[Bill]

The antenna that comes on the camera is a rubber ducky. "Real name". The rubber ducky unscrews and you can screw in the cable for a separate bigger antenna. No repeater in the antenna itself. Buckeye makes what they call an echo. It's a repeater. Recieves transmission from a camera and relays it to the base. The cameras themselves will talk to each other and act as repeaters also. I bought an echo to use as a repeater because it is in an area where it might be easy to steal. The Echo is 1/2 the price of a camera. If it weren't for the location I would have just bought another camera.

 

[yoderjac]

There are two general classes of antennas that are practical with these units. One is called a yagi. It focuses energy from one side of the antenna (both horizontally and vertically) to the other side. The larger the yagi, the more gain in the center of that beam and the more narrow that beam. The higher gain yagi you get, the more important pointing the antenna becomes. You can get yagi antennas with gain as high as 14 db. The second kind is called Omni (or omnidirectional) antennas. It is actually a bit of a misnomer as a true omnidirectional antenna transmits equally in all directions. These Omni antennas focus energy from above and below the antenna (vertical direction) to all directions (360 degrees) in the horizontal direction. The rubber ducky is low gain form of Omni that comes with the camera. You can get Omni antennas as high as 8 db.

For your situation with a hill, I would see a tower on top of the hill with an 8db Omni antenna that would be used as a repeater. If you want pictures from the top of the hill, you can use a camera as a repeater with a long 400 series (low loss) coax to reach from the camera to the antenna. If you don't need pictures, you could use a repeater. If you can easily access the top of the tower for replacing batteries when necessary, you can place the repeater near the antenna and use a shorter coax cable (note: the longer the coax, the more loss). Another option would be to use a long external battery cable placing the repeater at the antenna and the battery on the ground.

At your house, you could start with the stock antenna and see how your signal level is. If you need more gain, you could replace it with a yagi and point it at the repeater antenna. You probably don't need a tower at the house as you can probably just mount the antenna on the roof if necessary or any place where you can get line of sight to the tower.

All the cameras on the other side of the hill would use the repeater. Again, I'd start with the stock rubber ducky and see what signal levels you get. Since the repeater antenna is on a tower on the hill, you shouldn't have much vegetation between the terminal cameras and the repeater. If you find the levels are low, you could add yagi antennas to the terminal cameras pointing them at the repeater antenna.

If you want to send a link to google maps with pins at you desired terminal camera locations, I'll take a look at it and venture an opinion.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Buckly]

Thanks again guys, that answers a lot of my questions. I'll work up a map when I get some time.

 

[Buckly]

I don't seem to be having much luck with google maps so here is a topo however rough it may be. 115 acres mostly wooded. black X are camera locations and red X is the top of the hill and possible repeater location. North black dot would be the base. I know this isn't the best map.

 

[yoderjac]

It is important to have to topography, but you also need an idea of vegetation. Looking at your topo map only, you probably have something that is workable. PM my the address (I presume there is one looking at the topo). That is enough for me to look at the imagery.

While I'm on the general subject of using the repeater function, here are some thoughts:

When using solar panels, with the right programming and sufficient light, you can keep a camera running for many, many months without visiting the site. Think of your battery as a buffer. It takes a certain amount of energy to operate the PIR, operate the flash if at night, take and store a picture. It then takes more energy to transmit that picture. The amount of energy it takes depends on the signal levels; the better the signal level, the less power it takes to transmit the picture and the faster it is sent. The camera drains the battery of energy and the solar panel fills it. As long as the average amount of energy going in is greater than the amount of energy being consumed, the battery won't need to be swapped until it wears out. SLA batteries have a finite number of charge/discharge cycles. You can either get a lot of tiny cycles or fewer deeper cycles. The thing that will reduce the life of an SLA battery the most is letting it sit in a low or discharged state for a significant amount of time.

So, the size of the battery (in amp-hours) will dictate how big the buffer is. The buffer size is important in that it dictates how many days the camera can operate without sun available to charge it. This will happen when you get consecutive cloudy days or storms.

This interplays with the repeater function. The repeater battery will discharge faster than other cameras, all other things being equal, because it is forwarding packets in addition to the other functions. When any camera's battery gets low enough, the camera goes into what is called a Low Battery State. In this mode, it uses the energy left to maintain any pictures that are in memory but have not yet been transmitted. It stops taking new pictures and stops transmitting existing pictures until the battery level is restored (by the solar panel) to a higher level. It then begins operating normally.

In a terminal cameras normal operation, it takes a picture and tries to transmit it back. Signal levels can vary with weather, vegetation, and other factors, so from time to time a camera may lose the ability to connect. When this happens, it just waits and tries again later. The camera continues to operate normally during this period and simply queues up pictures in memory until memory is full at which time it stops taking new pictures. Once it can connect again, it immediately begins transmitting pictures again.

All of this leads to the importance of having a large buffer and plenty of charging capacity with your repeating camera. If that camera goes into low battery state, none of the terminal cameras using it can transmit pictures back. So, they continue to take pictures and store them in memory. When you replace the battery in the repeating camera, all of the terminal cameras begin transmitting pictures from memory. The base only allows 2 cameras to transmit simultaneously, but when one of the two base channels is free, one of the terminal cameras will use it. This constant transmission of stacked up pictures will drain the batteries of the terminal cameras. Keep in mind that when a battery gets into a low charge state and you don't recharge it fully, you lose battery life. So, you end up needing to swap batteries in all the terminal cameras that use the repeater with fresh batteries.

So, as you consider your configuration, focus your energy and money on:

1) Placing your repeater cameras where it can get a good signal level.
2) Placing your repeater camera where the solar panel can get as much sun as possible.
3) Using a large capacity (amp-hour) external battery.
4) Using a large capacity solar array with a high quality charge controller for the external battery.

You really want your repeater camera to have perpetual power.

For terminal cameras, you want the best signal level and as much sun as you can get on the panel balancing with cameras placement needs. You also want to set your programming to match the charging capacity of your setup.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Bill]

I kept my shut because I knew Jack would answer that better than me.

 

[yoderjac]

Probably not better, just more verbose! :)

Let me add a few more things about changing batteries and programming your system. As I mentioned before, you want to set your programming (delay between pictures, resolution, picture quality, etc.) so that the amount of energy provided by your panel during the day is greater than the amount of energy consumed.

SLA battery life is reduced if you leave a battery in a low state of charge for a time period. So, the next question becomes, "How do I know when to swap and recharge a battery to maximize lifespan?".

The answer seems simpler than it really is. One would think you could just do a signal/battery test and if the battery reading is low, change batteries. However, you need to understand the measurement. The camera is simply measuring battery voltage and estimating percent charge based on that. When you have a solar panel connected, the reading shows the total voltage of both that supplied by the battery and the solar panel. So, during the daytime, readings can be false. The next thing to know about the measurement is that to get the best reading the voltage measurement should be taken when the camera is under a constant load.

So, for the most accurate reading you should do a battery check at night when the camera is in the middle of transmitting a signal. In practical terms, that is not always possible, but you can get a pretty good estimate by looking at the event log. Each time a picture is transmitted back, the battery voltage level is checked and transmitted back for the log. I don't believe the battery is under load when the measurement is taken but a load was just terminated. Ignore any entries that are time stamped during the daytime. If you chart these reading over time, you can see when your battery needs swapped and you can get a feel for whether you can increase or decrease your programming.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Bill]

I'm certain situations verbose can mean the difference between success and failure. :).

 

[LuckyIL]

With all the time and money invested in setting up your cameras, are you satisfied or would you consider a few cheaper MMS cameras on the market?
I've gone through more cameras then I care to admit
Something like this always peaked my interest but was terrified of the potential issues, adverse weather, theft etc.
Pretty much have knocked back most trespassing currently. I had 35 cameras I'm down to 6 and the refurbished ones to replace broken ones aren't great either.