BUSTED!! by lake surveilance.

[meatfish]

I have a chance to buy some wireless video cameras with night vision very cheap with a transmit range of about 300 ft and thinking of placing them at landings on green lake, spicer,due to the thefts on the lake the last two winters.(I have had it)Does anyone know if a guy can hook these up to timed motion sensors to cut down on footage.Also would you hook them up to a vcr or a dvd?If this costs me a couple hundred and I assist in busting some of these SOB's I will be happy!! I know that these cameras will not have the capability to pick up activities way out on the lake.but the comings and goings at the landings may help. thanks Big Phat Phief.

[chris63]

Green is a very large lake with many points of access you may want to put your "set up"by your house.On second thought they just my steal it too!Ps if I remember correctly some guys followed snowmobile tracks from some houses that were broken into and they exited the lake on private property!c63

[LoonASea]

Wireless cameras dont seem to transmit at a very hi IPS but would still work well in your situation,,,data storage would be the higher cost of this project but then you would get the motion detection you want ,,,the DVRS we use run about $12,000 apiece ,,,running 16 cameras at 15 ips 4cif will get you about 42 days of storage,,, more if you set up motion detection

LAS

[meatfish]

chris63,thanks for the response,you are right about the points of access and if they see the cameras they will most likely take them as well.But last year on one occasion I followed some atv tracks from a fish house with the door torn off to the landing where they loaded it in a truck(but may have been DNR).On another occasion I watched a white dodge truck that I saw in the daylight fishing drive up to a few houses late after dark with their lights off.As soon as I started my truck and turned my lights on they bolted off the lake.In both cases video may have given a lead.

[meatfish]

loonasea,thanks,I found some wireless motion detectors for $19 a piece,could a guy just hook those up to a switch that runs a vcr and tape that way.I thought maybe wire the record switch so it is on as soon as the vcr turns on.I have some old vcr's that I no longer use.All I am looking to capture is vehicle description and license.Thanks

[slurpie]

Its great your trying to do something about this. You could try it on a smaller lake with only an access or two would be easier. And if you caught someone they would get blame for any others in the area. After i had my house broke into twice i got wiser and take everything out door unlocked, or take it home. Inconvience yes but i still got my gear.

[meatfish]

I do not lock mine either and take everything with me.If you lock them they will tear the door off anyway.I have one landing covered running to my house and another landing covered out of a cabin on the lake.(That is if the vcr thing works)I know folks near almost all the landings that I am sure would assist but will not approach them until I test a unit.

[LoonASea]

Are you technology proficient???,,,,I work with cameras every day and this would challenge me,,, but I believe it could be done ,,In regard to the VCR ,,, interupting the power using the motion detector would probably just bring the vcr up but not place it in the record operation ,,,bypassing the pause button would help if you had a wiring diagram of the vcr,,,also using longer tapes other then the 120s would extend the recording time ,,,you could talk to some local casinos and see if they have extended run vcrs and tapes ,,,thats if they have recently gone all digital ,,unfortunatly we gave all our old technology away

LAS

[DTro]

I bet anything can be done for a price. Very good idea.

You should try and pool the cost with some others that would like to help out on that lake. I know I would if I lived there.

[pulsar_nx]

Wouldn't a trail camera be perfect for this?

[meatfish]

loonasea and dtro.after many phone calls and a lot of questions I found out that this is doable,the only trick will be hard wiring the vcr record switch but I think one should be able to find wiring diagrams for most vcr's,Might have to sacrifice a couple vcr's to attain this.If I can make these work,I also thought that folks could wire a stop switch to a cheap battery clock so if your door gets ripped open you would know the exact time and watch who comes off the lake at that time.If this works I will post here and breakins can be posted for me to check video.Thanks phat phief

[meatfish]

good point on the trail cam but I did not think they made a night vision trail cam,or do they?The flash would tell them right where to come and steal the cam.

[Tom7227]

Maybe the issue will be the quality of the images. Cheap cameras produce cheap results.

The next problem will be ID. If you get a great picture of my truck but not of me driving it there will not be much of a consequence. I'm a retired prosecutor and so I know that there will be problems without good ID of the miscreant.

A suggestion would be to contact the local law enforcement and see what they recommend and whether they will allocate any resources/help for your effort. You can have all the video in the workd and if the LEO's won't take up the cause and look at it to see if they can run the plates, question the owner, and present cases to the local prosecutors you are PITW.

I wish you well but there's a lot of downstream work that needs to be done for your effort to produce results.

Good luck.

Tom

[NEANGLER]

Some of the trail cams out there have Ifra red technology and will not flash when taking pics. Also you can have them in video mode as well as long as you have a large enough media card. That i think would be your cheapest bet and you can lock them down.

[LakeDocktor]

Google Buckeye Cam. It is an infared trail camera that takes video without a flash and send them straight to your computer. In a sense, it is the same as a DVR unit, but you will have the video even if some scum decides to steal the unit. They are rather spendy, but this would work great for this project. Another thing that you could do is go to a lake association meeting and present your idea. They may contribute some funding for your efforts to help protect "their" lake.

[broken_line]

PS dont list any locaations of the camera, lake on here.. there are some nutty visitors to this site.. best be safe than sorry..