Scythe13 sent me a link to an Instructable to set up an off grid camera beacon. This looks very good for monitoring remote locations providing that you are within radio range or can set up a relay point to forward the images. This includes a camera and tranmittor as well as power for the units.
All handy for monitoring our caches, bug out locations and even critical areas around our homes.
I’ve been looking for a while now for a more local solution that needs no mains or standard battery power that provides video monitoring of the area around my house and supplies that to a tablet or smartphone that has the capability of recording the data.
I found a nice little camera and tablet unit on eBay that gives me a view of what is going on, the quality is adequate but not exceptional and it uses WiFi to communicate. The only issue is that it needs mains to power the cameras so I can’t set it up exactly where I want it and setting up a 240V solar panel system to bring it back down to 5V seems a bit of an overkill.
I’m going to try setting up a 5V solar panel and feeding it directly into the camera replacing the transformer. That should resolve my issue.
As an aside with the Stasi having this rule about charging us for watching any live TV broadcast and the exact phrase is ‘You need to be covered by a valid TV Licence if you watch or record TV as it’s being broadcast. This includes the use of devices such as a computer, laptop, mobile phone or DVD/video recorder.’ Bear in mind that TV means Tele = remote and vision I would guess that legally we have set up our own transmitter with the SSTV set up in the instructable and that would make us liable for a TV license at the minimum and I was wondering if in this mickey mouse country we don’t have some licensing issues with transmitting SSTV anyway. For my use I know that WiFi won’t create an issue with transmitting video, although I’m not clear on the TV licensing issue for receiving the images simply because they are being broadcast live and the BBC want’s what they perceive as their cut. Worth remembering if you don’t have a TV license.
I used hard wired cameras around the house and buildings but further out I’ve set a perimeter of PIR sensors. The reason for this is that they’re harder to detect by the casual observer and don’t attract unwanted attention at night with the dull glow of IR lights.
There are also natural warnings if you pay attention, stop and just listen to the background noise of your property from time to time. Birds alarm calls, neighbour’s dogs and traffic all build an aural picture of what is going on.