X10 Community Forum

📸Cameras & Camera Software => Legacy non Wi-Fi X10 Cameras => Camera General Discussion => Wireless Cameras(non IP) => Topic started by: blades on March 29, 2006, 07:30:05 AM

Title: Interesting signal cross-up
Post by: blades on March 29, 2006, 07:30:05 AM
Ok...so I have set up some security cameras up at my sister-in-law's house and they "kinda work".  I have most of the glitches worked out now and she has asked me to remote in and just check that it's working each night. 

So I log in last night and I'm looking at her video window (via remote desktop over a VPN on a not so fast line (hers) - so not exactly smooth).  Looks odd.  I ask my wife to look.  She thinks it's odd as well.  I unlock the screen and ask my sister-in-law "Is that a baby?".  She looks and says - yep, looks like one, in a crib.

So she calls her neighbor, with whom they are (thankfully) good friends, and asks if they have a baby camera, and of course they  do, and her husband goes to the baby room and waves his hand in front of their camera.  Yep, that's it.  Funny, but unfortunate!  ;D or  :'(

Well...I have 3 cameras in the house, all three on outside walls, furthest one away from the video receiver is about 20 feet across and maybe 5 feet down.  The others are probably within about 15 feet and on the same level.  The video receiver is sitting on the floor, with the antenna facing the back of the house, where the cameras are.  It is against the inside wall of a room whose outside wall is the front of the house.  It's hard to get clear images on the cameras.  Sometimes they are fine, other times - not so - and now I guess I know why...

Anyway, the neighbor has to be 100 YARDS and up the hill from here and their camera is trumping all three locally located ones.

So - I have asked them to get a long video cable and drop the receiver into the dropped ceiling below and closer to the house cams.  If that doesn't do enough (these cameras never saw the baby before yesterday and now can't see anything BUT the baby!) we will have to work with them about the frequencies that the two systems are using - obviously both in the 2.4Ghz someplace - and theirs MUST have a heck-of-a-transmitter on it.

Makes me wonder whose baby monitor I'm going to get at my house when my stuff comes in tonight!  Also, begs the question "Is someone's baby monitor what's making my wireless network so flaky?"

Tune in next time...
Title: Re: Interesting signal cross-up
Post by: RockinDolphin on August 06, 2006, 01:47:43 AM
Why dontcha' just switch the frequencies from the default 'A'?
Title: Re: Interesting signal cross-up
Post by: Brian H on August 06, 2006, 07:00:02 AM
Wireless computer networks; some microwave ovens and 2.4Ghz phones can also mess up wireless cameras. Since many devices share a designated frequency band from the FCC. Interferences can happen.
Unfortunately there are also hackers plans for antennas and receivers to roam neiborhoods to peep on people.
Title: Re: Interesting signal cross-up
Post by: steven r on August 06, 2006, 10:03:10 AM
...Anyway, the neighbor has to be 100 YARDS and up the hill from here and their camera is trumping all three locally located ones....
Can I mount one of those baby cameras outside my house? It seems to have a stronger signal than any X10 camera I've seen.  ;)
As RockinDolphin said try switching your cameras to a different frequencies.