Numb-nuts

Either that or a home plug kit, which uses your mains electricity to connect to your router. I have used these several times in domestic installations and they are very helpful and tidy, no huge runs of cable running around the skirting etc. Between floors they are a must. Devolo make a great product as do many other makes, but steer clear of the Netgear ones, they are absolute garbage.

I consider myself very safety conscious, but I am maybe missing your point here, care to elaborate before I manage to find out the hard way....

As tempting as China sounds, frankly I don't trust them the same way I trust home brew suppliers. Thats the VERY reason I am willing to pay more for home suppliers distributors, they take the responsibility for faulty goods, they speak in plain language and they offer support which you just can't get from an overseas seller. I suppose what I am saying in a nutshell is that you get what you pay for, and all the frustration and time wasted that you've had is not worth the potential saving. and now you are stuck with a load of rubbish you dare not sell. All that effort and for what? To save your customers money? Did any one of them thank you for it? I am willing to bet that NOT ONE of them did... If a customer wants to penny-pinch, let them go to ebay and then simply install the rubbish they supply, that way if it goes wrong you get paid to come out and put it right. We just don't make enough to be supporting rubbish,concentrate your efforts where your biggest earning potential comes from, your labour charges. I used to go out of my way for budget customers, now they get a price and thats it, TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT... The less time I spend on them, the smoother it goes. There just isn't enough money in budget customers to put in a lot of effort selling. offer the deal you have offer, do the best work you can, make your money and move on to the next job would be my advice. Spend your time and invest your money in a wise way and save yourself the stress, nobody will thank you for saving them money.

Excellent point.

These are generally made by Phoenix Contact but make sure they are 3.81 mm pitch and 4 way. They do some of these at Farnell and RS components but don't think they have a 4 way one but you could get a 6 way and cut it down I suppose. I found these on ebay UK and these on ebay.com These are failly standard in the CCTV industry. Before you put your wires into the terminal block crimp wire end ferrules on the ends to stop the wires from fracturing and you will have years of trouble free use. Even coat them in 'Contralube' for even better connection. (not to be confused with silicone grease, which is an insulator and will have the REVERSE effect) [/b]

I like a nice HUNGRY Giant Schnauzer, they are very territorial and posessive of their owner's personal posessions You wanna mess with this guy? Go ahead....

I just did a job this week, the first time I actually installed galvanized wire-rope to carry cables from one building to another and installed the wire rope myself. In the past (2 times) I actually paid a contractor to install these catenary wires but the guy I use has had an accident and can't do them anymore. Fortunately, the distance was just short of 7 meters. I may use 5mm galvanized wire rope since the distance of the next one has doubled and I used 4mm rope on the first one. The wire rope maker was very helpful in advising me. I knew that tensioning the wire rope required a turnbuckle, and that a means of securing the rope at both ends was required. At both ends, I started with a galvanized staple, one was secured to a brick wall with 4 x 2.5 inch no7 screws. The other end was secured to a lamp-post on the site (privately owned) using sticks all adhesive and a 13mm stainless steel band kit. Like a 3m jubilee clip with several buckles that you make your own size band clip. Then I attached the turnbuckle to the staple using a shackle and a few spacing washers to keep the turnbuckle at the center of the shackle. (Actually, most of the washers in the packet ended up on the floor at the base of the ladder.....oh well). I measured the distance to the other shackle shackle ad deducted half the adjustment of the turnbuckle in this case 50mm. You specify length of wore ropes from bearing point to bearing point. I didn't want to buy a swageing tool (crimping) since they are about £60.00 or $100US and I would rarely have need of it. The wire rope arrived and it was tough getting it to tension up enough to hook it onto the turnbuckle, but once I had done this, it was simply a matter of holding the wire rope loop in my right hand and taking a slot type screwdriver through the turnbuckle rotation until the wire is taught enough to support a couple of wires without sagging. I have the first cable up and it's solid as a rock, but it does slope a little. When I measure the height of the staple on the wall, I hadn't noticed that the ground level was slightly higher than that at the base of the post. Fortunately, the post was secured with a stainless steel band which can be undone and slid up the post a little until level. Just looks a bit more professional. The first one I did took me about 4 hours, the second one has only taken 30 minutes but I have yet to install the wire rope as I haven't ordered it yet. I have yet to measure the distance which is more than twice the length of the first one. I have realized I will need to use two turnbuckles or I stand no chance at all of pulling the wire onto the hooks at each end. I only realized this after installing the first wire rope. I will post photos of the various components and setup I used next week as I have been too busy to photograph the work yet. Below is a picture of the stainless steel banding kit I bought and used at the lamp posts. These kits are readily available on ebay but I bought mine fromAbbey Clamps UK. I am welding up special mounting brackets this weekend which I designed myself. They consist of a galvanized steel plate and pieces of 1 inch square box section welded along the long dimension of the plate. The gap between the box sections will be at least 4 inches (100mm) and this is where the junction box and the cameras will mount. There are two cut out slots in the box section to allow me to pass the steel banding through before it goes around the post and is then tensioned up. I will use two bands to hold the plate to the post which is a strange triangular shape and made from reinforced concrete. I was advised NOT to drill into the lamp post as there are live electric cables inside, (high Voltage). JUST A POINT TO MENTION ABOUT HEALTH AND SAFETY, ALWAYS WEAR EYE PROTECTION AND GLOVES WHEN HANDLING WIRE ROPE

I've not seen those before. I am thinking that installing a galvanized wire rope, to support external grade (or direct burial cable) is sufficient for my purpose. Of course start to use more than two cables across the wire rope and it starts to look a little messy and untidy. In such a case I think I'd run a single cat5 to carry 4 signals and use a local electric spur to provide mains power and then transform to either 24VAC or 12VDC locally. I wouldn't feel comfortable carrying mains power over a wire rope, I think there may be too many dangers to risk it. Yes I know power companies do it all the time but they have years of technical expertise in such things I am just a self taught technician. The cable you show in your pics, does it have a support wire inside to protect the conductors from stretching? It would certainly be a convenient solution if the conductors are UTP. Thanks for your input.

Here are some images of the resulting work. Before any smart-alec comments on the cables, yes I know they are way too short, I made a miscalculation and have now replaced them leaving way more cable to form a drip

The period before the public IP address changes is called the lease-time, Virgin media have a long lease time it's true but they are unusual exception, most ISPs you've only got to hiccup and they change your IP and its proper to use a DNS server rather than your CCTV going down at an inconvenient time. Only an amateur would think this acceptable. I myself have Virgin media and in all the time I've been with them I have never lost my connection. I know my public iP changes about every six months, but there are lease -time rules and exceptions. If there is a loss of service even for 30 second, you IP address will change, there are other circumstances any of which can happen at anytime that will cause your IP address to change. I charge my customers for this service and cannot afford for them to be bothered about IP address changing, all they want to do is see their cameras on their phone or PC remotely. They don't want to learn networking or CCTV. Any interruption in this is a failure to me. Obviously if you want to ignore the dynamic IP thats up to you (and I can appreciate why you might think it's no inconvenience, to you) but please don't advise others to do the same, its not clever and it's not good advice. Members come on here to get good solid advice not amateurish unprofessional held together with sticky tape solutions. (No OFFENCE intended I ASSURE YOU)

canyouseeme.ord was NOT wrong, it reported what your public IP address was on that occasion. Don't confuse LAN address and Public IP address. It reported the ports were closed since it may have changed and that address was assigned to another router, no wonder it reported the ports closed, they probably are.....on the router that has that IP address now. Anyway I am not here to offer networking coaching sessions, but get onto youtube and find out about Dynamic Name Servers. Thats what you need to sort this out. Well done for doing the port forwarding.

If you are happy to dig a trench, bury some 35mm water pipe and use that as a duct. Before you install it however, make sure to pull a rope through to pull wires cables through with. It is always a good idea to pull a second pull rope through with your wires so that you can pull more wires through later if required. Blue water pipe is idea since if it can contain water it will certainly keep it out. If you are worried that the power won't be enough for the cameras, simply increas the cross section of the wire to offer less resistance although over 30 m unless you are using pre made cables, you probably won't have a problem 30m is NOTHING but you are right to check out before you do it if you are unsure. For really long runs, I use 4 core 1.5mm squr mains cable and just double up the +ve and -ve. Or you could send 24VAC down to the camera and transform it down to 12Vdc at the camera end, that way you get a nice 12V at the camera and no chance of voltage drop. I doubt you need this solution but it does help with other potential issues. Happy digging...

I know I'm Right LEAVE IT ALONE.

Thanks for that Ilkie it's very helpful. If I do get a few more like this I will indeed buy the wire rope in bulk (100m) and my own swaging tool (like a bolt cropper) and wire cutter. I was NOT keen on the clamps you mentioned but was aware of those, they just seemed too much trouble and a little untidy compared to aluminium (aluminum) ferrules. I was going to order stainless wire but the cable maker advised that I should use galvanized. I thought there might be an issue with the cable moving so I have placed a junction box at both ends (on wall and special mounting plate) and joined the cable with jelly splices remembering to keep the twist as much. as possible. I fully take your point about using stranded conductor cable as it stands more chance where wind moves the cable. Solid cable only has to suffer a single conductor fracture and BAM you've lost your signal or suffer a voltage drop. I have never seen outdoor patch cable but I haven't been looking for it before. I'm certain somebody must make it. as for allowing for temp change and expansion-contraction movement, I installed the wire in really cold weather and will release some tension after loading the cable onto it. Thanks for mentioning that. You obviously have a significant number of this type of job under your bel whereas I have only had a couple, but I think having done a couple I will be significantly more confident about doing them myself. Hand swaging tool and cutters and aluminium (aluminum) (wire rope ferrules) below.

If the cable you wish to remove is the DVR end, then you would need to put a balun either end of the patched line, one where it enters the DVR and one where it connects to your original cable, but I have to say that you would probably be better off leaving it alone. In other words, things will probably get worse not better. For what it's worth, my opinion is this, either replace the entire cable (which you've said is not viable) or leave it alone. Anyone agree or have a better suggestion? remember not everyone has the same level of skill

If you suffer from lower voltage i.e. voltage drop over a long run of cable, then sometimes you need to start with either a higher voltage and a good power rating. This is easier said than done as we cannot always find a reliable economic small variable power supply, so there are other practical solutions. Typically we do this; Start with 24Volt AC and use a drop transformer of the correct rating i.e. 12vDC with a suitable current rating at the camera end. Then you will have a solid 12V supply at the point of delivery. Alternatively, use 24V AV cameras since AC volts suffer far less from voltage drop than DC power.

Use the older power caable to pull the new CAT5 (or Cat6 as you prefer) one through, When doing this with my installas I do the following; For the first four cameras I use the Orange pair for Video for the second four cameras I use the Green Pair for Video for the third four cameras I use the Blue pair for video and the fourth four cameras I use the brown pair for the video. If there are any more cameras I start with a new CAT5 with a different Jacket colour. I always use the white striped conductor as the positive for Video and Power. Now take the remaining pairs and separate out into white stripe and solids twisting all the white striped together, and all the solid colours together tightly. The white striped bundle carries the +ve and the solid colour bundle carries the earth I personally use crimped on ferrules onto the video pair and the power bundles 0.25mm for the video pair, and 0.75mm - 1.00 for the power bundles. Do the above at each end terminate the video pair with balun. NB: CAT 6 is hard to work with (Cat5 is more forgiving) and is for a reason unknown to me as yet, is more susceptible to breakage during handling. There is little or no advantage in terms of transmitting power over the conductors and voltage drop between the two is minimal.

Yeah if you use Android, you have numerous FREE apps you can use on Android and also on Iphone and Ipad. Remote viewing on the QVIS is via CMS or PSS. Although the PSS is more feature rich MOST of my customers prefer the CMS Version 3.0.9. It may be that your QVIS DVR only works with PSS in which case you have no choice. QVIS iZeusHD vers 1 is one that I remember only uses PSS and also Zeus Mk11 I believe CMS is very easy to use, has enough features for a single system. Remember to restrict your DVR password to six digits or CMS won't work. For Blackberry APPS first dowload this comapttibility list and see if your phone is compatible Then check what your DVR model is ONLY apollo and Zeus Models (not LX models) will work with this app One other tip I can offer is that the IP address of your DVR should be static, but with some routers you can set the DNCP then let the router assign a IP address and then turn the DHCP off again. Some routers require the static IP of your device to removed from the DHCP range in the router so look for this. After noting the media port (under Network) and the MObile monitor port (under Netservices) also note the RTSP port (usually 554) and port forward these ports under a single rule or application and assign it to your DVR;s IP address . Personally I always set my DVR's IP address (device identifier, the last number) to 200 -210. i.e. typically 192.168.0.200 If you can tell me what DVR model you have I may be able to recommend a blackberry app as some QVIS DVRs have apps that support Blackberry, but I would agree that you have a better choice of apps with Apple and Android. Here you can download the latest CMS version. Here You can download the PSS if your DVR is a Apollo or Zeusnot to be confused with Apollo LX and Zeus LX (LX range Includes full Discovery Range)

If a consumer looks for a cheap price, they will soon discover a product that is made to a price and "to hell with performance, this idiot doesn't know squat or he/she wouldn't so stupid as to buy this camera" The cheaper you go the more likely you're buying a pup. or should that be poop? Experience tells us that we get what we pay for and the one that buys cheap buys twice....

Just discovered this image on another site, Not sure whats going on here.... Is this someone's idea of covert CCTV?

Good thinking for an amateur. You are doing what all professionals do and what does it matter if the unit is not meant for this? If you are just pointing the cameras with fixed lens then this will do the job for you and make life a LOT easier. You will need adapters for the connections but that's nothing you can't find easily and hey who knows you may even do more for others in the future.... best of luck By the way this is a Y splitter to tap power from the camera supply so no batteries required to power your monitor

Lets face facts, if they wanted you to have the footage you would have it by now. The letter sounds like they are making an excuse that cannot be challenged because it doesn't make sense. Digitally deleted is a made-up term by some official that doesn't know what they are talking about but wants to put you off taking the matter further. I too haven't heard this term before, it makes no sense at all. For something to be treated digitally it must exist before and after treatment. The only way to delete data is to overwrite it with zeros and even then a forensic analysis may still recover it.

You seem to be up the creek without a paddle. Don't waste your time, find the nearest dumpster and place the DVR in it. For the price of a replacement these days, it's more convenient than having an inaccessible piece of generic Chinese Junk Your question is one I regularly get asked by people who have bought DVR equipment cheap under questionable circumstances (under the counter so to speak) Without knowing the manufacturer you haven't a 'snowball's chance in hell' of recovering the DVR from password PROTECTION. Thats rather the point of having a password, to protect from unauthorized users. If you fall into that category..............too bad and if you are simply an unlucky owner then learn from the experience and buy a DVR of known manufacture with support. By the way, that motherboard is used in some Qsee DVRs if that helps

Well by now most of you (in the UK at least) will be aware that KMS the Brand owner of CnM CCTV equipment is in receivership. There is a notice on both their websites stating who the receivers are. I suspect they may well find a buyer since KMS supplied companies like Argos and several chains with budget CCTV kits etc While I didn't buy much from KMS I will miss them as I thought they were very nice people, so to Ben and his team we say thanks and best of luck in whatever you do next.

Check the volts at the camera end where it's important. Check the camera spec sheet and usually it ts voltage is 12v + or- 10% If it's just the one camera giving you issues and it's sharing a PSU with other cameras and they are okay then chances are it's Voltage drop at the camera. Also the longer the run from the PSU to the camera the more volt drop you will suffer. good luck...