Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Valkyr]

Equipment involved -

3 X10 wireless cameras
WVR36 Receiver
CR12A remote
TM751 mini tranceiver

Situation -
Camera A2 mounted on shed in back yard. Power from breaker box in garage.
Camera A3 mounted on front of house on brick face wall next to garage door. Power from breaker box in garage.
Mini tranceiver plugged into outlet in kitchen. Power from main house circuit breaker box.

When interior garage lights are turned on, remote control allows switching between camera 2 and 3. When lights are off, remote won't do its thing. Tried plugging a small night light into a garage outlet to see if that did the same thing as the main lights. No such luck. I'm not going to leave my garage lights on all the time so a signal can get to the cameras.   

Moved tranceiver from kitchen to a garage outlet. Remote works just like when the tranceiver was in the kitchen with the garage lights turned on. Wonderful!!! Not true - see update belowJust one problem - I'm going to put camera A4 at the front door which will be powered via main house breaker. I'm going to test A4 near that location to see what happens. Also worried that tranceiver may be getting close to range limits of remote.

Question - camera A3 doesn't transmit a clear signal from it's mounted location on the outside wall. Worked great when inside the garage and sitting on top of my Jeep roof. Can I remove antenna, splice 10" wire and put it inside the garage? I'd run the wire through the same hole the power cord goes through. If I can't do that, what other options do I have (besides chopping out some bricks from the wall). Any suggestions?

Update since initial post.
I took the night light and plugged into the same outlet as the camera outside the garage, put the tranceiver back in the kitchen and everything is working like it's supposed to. Even A2 on the shed still comes on and off. (Should be fine until the bulb in the night light burns out).

Still need to relocate antenna from the outside A3 camera inside the garage.

Another update since last update -
I forgot to turn off the garage lights when I moved the night light and retested tranciever. Doh!!! So back to square one. And here I thought I had it beat. And yes - moving tranciever to garage is at limit of remote's range. Darn it!! 

Thanks
Joe Vlahovic   

[dgarces3]

hi this is danny, im not sure you can extend the antenna from the camera. i though of that but not willing to risk to manipulate the camera since im in a budget but if you can extend the antenna closer to the reciever, what wire would it need to be involved. from what im reading from other posting i read some guys tried using telephone wire since it carries the same 2.4 frequency. dont quote me but im waiting for some one to do this experiment and if it works ill try it as well. cheers

[Brian H]

Phone Wire not a good idea.

[dgarces3]

yep thats what i read. but like i said im not sure if it is possible and if it is... then what type of wire??? you have any suggestions. any electrician around here? thanks

[Puck]

Cat5e, which is much higher rated than basic voice communication phone cable, is 100MHz (yes some are rated higher... but no where near 2.5GHz).

When you get into the microwave spectrum, you need proper impedance matching when dealing with a transmission line. The best cable to use for extending the antenna would be something like RG316. It's shielded, 50 Ohms and small enough to fit into the camera.

[Valkyr]

Cat5e, which is much higher rated than basic voice communication phone cable, is 100MHz (yes some are rated higher... but no where near 2.5GHz).

When you get into the microwave spectrum, you need proper impedance matching when dealing with a transmission line. The best cable to use for extending the antenna would be something like RG316. It's shielded, 50 Ohms and small enough to fit into the camera.

Good information - so I could

1) get about 3 feet of RG316
2) remove the antenna wire soldered onto the circuit board
3) solder on the new RG316
4) splice the new RG316 onto the little pigtail of a wire still attached to the antenna (after feeding the RG316 through the hole in the wall)
5) mount the antenna to a fabricated base inside the garage

 and I'm all set.

Thanks,
Joe V. 

[Puck]

4) splice the new RG316 onto the little pigtail of a wire still attached to the antenna (after feeding the RG316 through the hole in the wall)

If you can, do this part with mating connectors. The pigtail will cause some signal reflections; but give it a try, it may not be that bad.

[Valkyr]

Equipment involved -

3 X10 wireless cameras
WVR36 Receiver
CR12A remote
TM751 mini tranceiver

Situation -
Camera A2 mounted on shed in back yard. Power from breaker box in garage.
Camera A3 mounted on front of house on brick face wall next to garage door. Power from breaker box in garage.
Mini tranceiver plugged into outlet in kitchen. Power from main house circuit breaker box.

When interior garage lights are turned on, remote control allows switching between camera 2 and 3. When lights are off, remote won't do its thing. Tried plugging a small night light into a garage outlet to see if that did the same thing as the main lights. No such luck. I'm not going to leave my garage lights on all the time so a signal can get to the cameras.   

Moved tranceiver from kitchen to a garage outlet. Remote works just like when the tranceiver was in the kitchen with the garage lights turned on. Wonderful!!! Not true - see update belowJust one problem - I'm going to put camera A4 at the front door which will be powered via main house breaker. I'm going to test A4 near that location to see what happens. Also worried that tranceiver may be getting close to range limits of remote.

Update since initial post.
I took the night light and plugged into the same outlet as the camera outside the garage, put the tranceiver back in the kitchen and everything is working like it's supposed to. Even A2 on the shed still comes on and off. (Should be fine until the bulb in the night light burns out).

Another update since last update -
I forgot to turn off the garage lights when I moved the night light and retested tranciever. Doh!!! So back to square one. And here I thought I had it beat. And yes - moving tranciever to garage is at limit of remote's range. Darn it!! 

Thanks
Joe Vlahovic   

Update on my control situation -
Installed 2-wire phase coupling to 2 new breakers in garage breaker box. Tranciever still not sending signals to all cameras. Maybe I should have installed the phase coupling to breakers in the main box? Unfortunately there's no open slots left in that box. What happens if I wire the 2-wire phase coupling to existing 220V pair of breakers already used for appliance?

It's also possible that there's so much noise on the lines that the signal is getting clobbered before it gets to the cameras.

Suggestions?
Joe V. 

[Brian H]

May not be to code; but an existing pair may work better.
You using a coupler or  repeater? One thing to remember with a coupler is. If the signal has been attenuated from it's 4-5 VPP to 1 VPP at the coupler. Only the lower 1 VPP is fed back to the other phase.
Noise or signal sucker can also be a problem.

[Valkyr]

May not be to code; but an existing pair may work better.
You using a coupler or  repeater? One thing to remember with a coupler is. If the signal has been attenuated from it's 4-5 VPP to 1 VPP at the coupler. Only the lower 1 VPP is fed back to the other phase.
Noise or signal sucker can also be a problem.

I'm using passive phase coupling instead of repeater. I read that sometimes the repeater can cause other problems.

Joe V.

[dgarces3]

question??? is the same wire used for the wired cameras is the same for the wireless cameras (i mean the wire from the camera to the base of the camera (the little 2 inch wire that is strapped by the mount on the camera)) is that the same wire or is it a different wire. cuz if it is then all we have to do is find out what type of wire is it and then just clip it and place replacement wire and just tape it and that should answer most of our questions

[win1012]

Are you gentlemen talking about modifying the antenna of an XX20A camera or similar and if so could someone be more specific about what exactly is being changed. Tnx