spy cam needed.

[The Natural Philosopher]

a real hassle to recharge

And very obvious too.

What I do NOT want is an 'obvious' cam so that people are deterred. I suspect they would simply steal it. I want to catch em in the act, because a lot of weird shit is going down, and if they don't create mayhem one way they will in another.

Basically armed with a bit of video I can both work out who it is and then tell em 'any more shit ever, and its the police'

So discretion is what I want

I could probably organise mains power to one location that wifi would reach.

But way down the garden its beyond any sane cable I could lay, and probably beyond wifi too so its more like ' new batteries and swap flash card every month' and then look at whats been 'caught'

[MattyF]

For many years I have had up to eight video cameras recording day and night. I get a perfectly good signal with 40 metres of cable, and I don't see why the signal wouldn't go much further. The only problem was a slight ripple in the 12 volt supply, which I fixed by putting a 3300 uF capacitor across the supply, and later by just using a 12v car battery with a trickle charger.

The main thing I did was to remove or disable any lights on the cameras. The lights are mostly useless anyway after about a metre. Now the cameras can be behind a little hole that nobody can see, and at face level. Obviously there should be some other kind of lighting, but away from the camera. A sensor light is best.

I can send some of the video to some old 22 inch TVs and immediately see any intruders. It's a good idea to have cameras with microphones, then you can hear anything that's happening.

I'm not recording any more. I think I have caught all the crims!

[Fredxxx]

If you can get mains there, then why not use a Powerline network adaptor?

How far??

[nutherperception]

I bought i little black and white wifi camera from maplins it could see in the dark,,

no scan or or fancy stuff,,

but i could sticky tape it onto a small 12 volt rechargable batterey ,

about the size of a small brick ,,also from maplins,,,

It gave the unit a heavy base,, very easy to use and move about,,

it would broadcast live to a reciever I hooked up to the pc in the kitchen..

Record was manual ,, at will,,

I had it set up in a kithcen draw once,,

watching mice coming and going...

The frogs were too smart for me,,

i got one or two snaps with an ordinary camera,,

Dont have much use for it any more,,

Photo graphing dead trees and stuff these days,,,

Hawthorne is one to watch,,

gorse another,,

Cyclone

Cyclone Dylan,, just made landfall in Aussie,,,

Sumpthin Blowin in tha wind,,

Keep an eye on your envirionment,,

Its going down own the gurgler,,

So fast

....

[meow2222]

Presumably power could be got down there with a single enamelled copper wire, using earth as return, and with an auger and volt reg. That might open your options up.

Maybe you can sell the footage to cover system cost :)

NT

[Capitol]

You may be surprised at how far wifi can reach over open ground. One of mine works over about 30 yards and through 3 brick walls. When desperate, try adding a folded yagi (2.4GHz) slipped over the aerial. This can almost double the signal strength IME and is quite directional.

[Mark]

It might be worth looking at

I don't think they do any wifi models but do GSM/3G.

[Martin Brown]

A decent high gain antenna (or Pringles cantanna if you are feeling brave) will let you work a normal WiFi from 200+m through a few walls.

There are flat panel ones that are quite unobtrusive about 20cm square

3cm thick. USB WiFi adapters with swappable aerial are from Morgan.

[tony sayer]

We've got it to work over 17 miles but there are odd circumstances on that one;)..

But it sure don't carry power;(..

I think for NP it's large buried batteries or cable one way or the other and that if you lay it near a hedge and don't go mad with the trimming will soon be covered up enough.

Might have to send it at a higher voltage to overcome line losses but s decent regulator on the other end....