Camera for surveillance

MPang14

New Member
Joined
Aug 27, 2015
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Country
United States
Hello all,

I'm looking for a small discreet camera that can be set up in a car parked unattended for surveillance. These are the thoughts I had. Please let me know what you think and if you have other suggestions.

1. I will power this off of a portable backup battery (15,600 mAH)
2. I need about 8-10 hours of video at a fairly high resolution

I was going to try my GoPro Hero3+ with a 64gb card ( GoPro says I'll get 9 hours 30 min at 1080p-30. I have a G1WH, but the GoPro video quality is much better. Should I look at other cameras that might work better? What about a mini 0806 with the dual micro sd cards?
 
Welcome Mpang14.

Just as you know, if you use a dashcam or for that matter a action camera, then the action have to be fairly close to the camera.
Not least if you wish to capture a face or the identety of ppl in the footage, this is a common issue with cameras that use wide angle lenses.

As Jokiin say the mobius is a pretty stealthy camera and it support large memory cards, and it have a good image.
The mobius can even be made more stealthy as you can put the lens module on the end of a 4-5 inch extension cable, then you are down to a camera size of 2 Mentos or somthing simmilar.

I would not leave a gopro 3 in plain view in a car, but offcourse if you can conseal the bulk of it and its flashing lights, then by all means as it is a good camera.
 
You know what quality of video you want, so look for that, reliability, then any other features you want and see which cams can do that. From that list, keep chopping away things you don't like till you're down to just a few choices. Now choose the form-factor you prefer best which should leave you with one candidate. A rather simple process of elimination.

When nobody is around to see crooks, they go to work so keep stealth in your outlook because if they see your cam and steal it, your efforts will have been all for naught. Compared to most, the Mobius is downright tiny, is reliable, and a bargain at it's selling price. Plus you have several lens/FOV options so one of them should fit your needs. Give it your consideration.

Phil
 
You can consider the street guardian or mini0806. Both are good for a night parking and road recording. Definitely not blackvue as the video will be blurred after several hours.
However if you demand for long hours recording you may need a 128 gb sd card, it will be costly.
 
I may try the GoPro to see how it works since I have that already.

I do have another situation where I need a camera to transmit the video about 250-300 feet away to a monitor, phone, or any other screen. I was thinking maybe use a 5,8 ghz transmitter and receiver like they use for FPV quadcopters and other r/c. Or possibly an ad-hoc wifi network. Anybody have any experience with this?
 
I have a little experience with FPV transmitters on RC stuff, personally i use a iligal 900 MHZ transmitter, only legal stuff here is the 2.4 and 5.8 GHZ stuff, and only in a reasonably low power
Rule of thumb say the lower the MHZ the longer the range, dedicated long range fliers use 433 mhz for extreme range ( both video feed back signal and control out signal )

2.4 and 5.8 seem better as there is a larger range of antennas, a clover leaf antenna for 900 MHZ is huge compared to a similar in the high MHZ range.

I think most wifi IP cameras allow you to hook up to the camera signal with a APP on a tablet/phone.

Range allso depend on what kind of area you are in, if you are at ground level in downtown it get pretty limited quickly.
 
You're pretty close kamkar1, but lower frequency alone does not guarantee anything regards range and signal propagation. None of these frequencies do well in penetrating vegetation of the earth, but all will reflect off smooth objects, especially metal ones, and in an urban environment it would be close to equal. All these frequencies are essentially 'line of sight' where the signal path being clear of everything except air is the most important factor.

The real issue is in designing a responsive receiver and with that, the higher you go the harder it is to do. There's also interference to deal with (moreso on analog than digital modes but it still matters) and according to what's in the air around you, one frequency range might work a lot better than another. If you really wanted more range, dropping to somewhere around 150MHz would get you that but it also requires a much larger antenna to gain the full benefit available.

Here in the US, being licensed for Ham Radio gives you lots of advantages over the other guys, and it's absurdly easy to do these days over here. A lot of RC plane flyers here got a Ham license just to gain access to better frequencies and higher transmitting power for that hobby. It may be something worth looking into for you there if you're interested.

73 (look it up :D)
Phil
 
Sadly here you have to have a deep knowlege of electronics to get a HAM ( Hf / VHF-UHF ) licence, its to a degree where you can build your own radio, which then reflect when these rules was made.

I been far and wide on my 500 W radio on the 11M band ( SSB ), and i have owned a fjew dualbands with the VFO cracked for a much wider range both Tx & Rx :cool:

Allso been on the Yding repeater here, pretty fun on a small hanheld to be able to talk to most of DK.

But as i said i never got a OZ ???? prefix, pirate all the way here. :D

Even have a fjew radios still lying around here and in long time storage, but no antennas.

Use to be Gulf Tango 39 from the good old 47 div.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top