Strange request, Monitoring a bird house

[db-us]

Hello Eveyone,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Anyway, I have a strange request that I am hoping you can help me with. I have a pond in my back yard by which I intend to place a bird house for the wood ducks. In looking on the Internet I noticed that some bird watchers put cameras in them to monitor the eggs hatching. Do any of you have experience in this area. The pond is about 300 ft from the house. I have electricity in the area but not network or video lines to get the video to the house. I was considering wireless but have no experience in this area. Any help is greatly approeciated.

Thanks,
Davin

 

[Digger]

Hello Eveyone,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Anyway, I have a strange request that I am hoping you can help me with. I have a pond in my back yard by which I intend to place a bird house for the wood ducks. In looking on the Internet I noticed that some bird watchers put cameras in them to monitor the eggs hatching. Do any of you have experience in this area. The pond is about 300 ft from the house. I have electricity in the area but not network or video lines to get the video to the house. I was considering wireless but have no experience in this area. Any help is greatly approeciated.

Thanks,
Davin

Do wood ducks really lay eggs?

I have some panasonic ethernet camera's I am playing with. They are really nice and they have wireless versions.

 

[gatchel]

Since it's not security related I would try some of those wireless $50 to $150 cameras that can be found at wal-mart, Home Depot, Micro Center, etc. Ther're not high def by any means but if you consider a dedicated camera and a dedicated transmitter/receiver combo the cost would be worth a try. If they don't work out just return them. You would need a really wide angle lens almost to the point of a macro shot depending on the bird house size. Good luck!

 

[dronning]

Hello Eveyone,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Anyway, I have a strange request that I am hoping you can help me with. I have a pond in my back yard by which I intend to place a bird house for the wood ducks. In looking on the Internet I noticed that some bird watchers put cameras in them to monitor the eggs hatching. Do any of you have experience in this area. The pond is about 300 ft from the house. I have electricity in the area but not network or video lines to get the video to the house. I was considering wireless but have no experience in this area. Any help is greatly approeciated.

Thanks,
Davin

I am interested in this too so I googled "bird house wireless camera" and got quite a few hits, including a solar wireless setup that I am go to try to make. I have a couple of wireless cameras I can try out and a solar panel I use to charge my RV battery.

I would like to be able to turn the camera on and off remotely as well.

Dave

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Maybe use THIS to turn on and off your cameras. Not sure about their range though.

EDIT: Check out this comment in the review section of the above product:

Choose the right battery 09/07/2006

Reviewer: Joe Horvath from WAKE FOREST, NC US
Very nice 12 volt remote control. With fresh batteries in the remote, the transmitter and receiver as a pair have excellent range; at least 300 feet. Extremely easy to install and use. When I received mine, the batteries in the remotes were really weak and I had to replace them. Note that the LED on the remote will still light when the battery is weak, but the remote has absolutely NO range. Make sure you get 27A batteries for the remotes.

 

[huggy59]

In my experience, the ~$70 Walmart cams (1.2GHz or 2.4GHz) are pretty worthless beyond 150 feet or so without modifying the antennas. Also, since they are in the spread-spectrum frequency ranges that are used for wireless home phones and networking gear, they are pretty noisy if there other devices in their range.

Since you have power out there, you might be better off getting an IP camera and putting a wireless network node out there, which is much more powerful than a typical camera transmitter. And you can add directional antennas if necessary to boost signal for the network, and then you have other capabilities via the Ethernet...

 

[AutomatedOutlet]

I think I'd probably consider the solar panel model you mentioned. More money but you'll have the power issue resolved.