the toss

ditto ditto

You dont still have the protective clear film on the lens do you ? Happens a lot.

There are battery powered ,IR motion activated cameras that are used for wildlife monitoring which seem to fullfill all your requirements. The main problem is that the camera is likely to get stolen as well.

what style of camera , dome , bullet or full body ???

You can use that with no problems. It is a bit like wanting to drink 1 pint of water but the bottle you have contains 6 pints of water. You just take what you need

Even the cheapest scabbiest camera will give a passable picture in daylight. Its no light & low light that really sort them out. The "snowy" effect your getting is noise due to the AGC (automatic gain control) winding itself up trying to get an image in adverse light conditions.

Buy for $60 ------- Sell for $300 I'm in the wrong part of the industry

First you need to determine if the cameras are working. If they have been thrown out they are either dead or they are old standard resolution analogue cameras. Determine the voltage requirement (should be marked). It will either be 12Vdc or 24Vac. Get a cable to plug it into your video I/P on your TV , switch the TV source to A/V, apply the required power and you should get picture

Besides the obvious issues with entry level cameras your main issue here is the white light source in the capture area. You want the illumination but NOT the light source in the picture.

I made the same mistake on my first ethernet cable as well. Being an old analogue man I mistakenly thought that as long as each end of each cable was terminated in the same position then all would be well. Point to point - how simple can it be. WRONG . That is ok for DC which is why your IR was working but its not ok for the signal wires. Its a complex topic which I dont fully understand. To do with slew rates & velocity factors and other black magic stuff.

get onto the Austech forum & you will find plenty

how about elaborating on these claims Firstly, because I ran into that problem. Secondly, I've been an Industrial electronics technician for the last 38 years. An extremely long voltage run has a higher resistance. It requires more current. If the IR cut shuts off on that cam, it causes a surge and will take out led's, cut filter coils, etc on the other cameras. Matter of fact, I put a power supply big enough to power 4 cams 2 weeks ago. It wasn't long before it burned out 2 ir cut coils and 2 led boards on the cams that were closest to the power supply. Then it dawned on me what was happening. I put a separate power supply on each cam and the problem is now gone. Without getting into a p!ssing contest about qualifications , I have a few issues with what you have said. I'll take them point by point. * " an extremely long voltage run has a higher resistance" and hence a higher voltage drop over the length of the cable. This results in under voltage at the load (camera). This will not (in itself) cause any damage to the camera or leds. * " it requires more current " There are only two ways to increase current to the load (camera). You can either decrease the load seen by the power supply or you can increase the voltage presented to the load. Power supply current is not something you simply turn up or down. * " it causes a surge ". What are we talking about here? A momentary increase in current caused by a sudden decrease in load which will in turn cause a increase in voltage drop over the length of the power feed. The problems you describe would only ever present themselves if you used a SINGLE power feed supplying all cameras in a daisy-chain configuration AND used an UNREGULATED power supply. This is something that I would hope no industrial electronics technician would ever comtemplate doing.

how about elaborating on these claims

cant see the pic you posted so a verbal description of what you found would be appreciated. BUT - I dont know why you persisted with the screw on BNC

This is the problem with wireless. You can either pay big $$$ and have gear that operates on the licenced part of the spectrum OR use stuff that operates on the public access part of the spectrum the same as EVERY other public access wireless device known to mankind - a tough ask for reliability