I re-positioned mine to in the hope that the reason it wasn't working was based on cellular connectivity. RESULTS - STILL NO LUCK! But that's the problem when you don't read the manual and do enough research before you go into the field. This thing worked great in my backyard at home on another camera so I thought it would be that simple in the field. Going into this weekend, my working theory was that it wasn't connecting to the cell network.
Now, after returning home and still having no pics I've done more research... I've watched a video on YouTube regarding the setup (keep in mind when I set this up at home it worked without issue). There is a quick sentence near the end of the video that talks about routing the connection cable out the bottom of the host camera and leaving some slack inside the camera to prevent it from tugging the SD card connector out when you close up the host camera. They specifically want the cable to route out the bottom of the host camera. I wonder if mine is tugging out ever so slightly when I close up the camera(??). That could be
one explanation of why there were no pics on the micro SD card in the Cell-Link. Of course, it's in the field 90 minutes away so I will have to try to set it up again in a couple of weeks.
I also read about firmware update and formatting the SD card (both of which I had not done on the camera in my backyard at home).
After reading this thread and doing more digging I've learned a few other things:
- There were no pics on the micro SD in the Cell-Link. That indicates an issue with the host camera or the connection to the Cell-Link.
- My host camera (Wild Game Innovations) was taking 3 pics at High Res in bursts. I now know that is a "no-no" for the Cell-Link. They actually recommend low resolution. I changed this to 1 High Res and a 1 minute delay. I was hoping that this change might help resolve the issue. Nope.
- I had a 64GB card in the Cell-Link (RTM - it says "up to 32GB card) but it had worked in my backyard... So my attempt to fix this was to swap the card with another working trail camera (I hope that camera can use a 64GB card - I never checked that camera after). I was hoping this might help too. Nope.
Most important part of the video says that the camera should connect to the servers after it goes through it's startup sequence. If it doesn't, you have a problem. Well... I thought it wouldn't connect until an interval defined in the setup (learned this last night). Looking back, I wish I would have read up on the intricacies of the setup more before I went to the field.