linda.reason

Hi. I am looking for a cheap solution to a less usual CCTV application. We have an 80m long driveway, at the bottom of which is an electric gate. The house is at right angles to the drive and approx 15 metres along the house - on the inside of a 0.5 metre granite wall - is the entry phone system which enables us to open the gates from the house. Unfortunately, due to trees and bushes in the garden, we can't see the gates from the entry phone point. The solution we are looking for is to have a camera fixed to the house, looking down the 80m drive, which communicates with a small monitor on the wall by the entry phone - so we can see if the gates are open or shut. My researches so far on the web lead me to believe that we should look for a camera with 100m IR range which would communicate (via co-ax cable and a BNC to RCA adapter) with a small monitor - something between 3.5" and 7". The camera, I suspect, should have a zoom facility and we would stick some high visibility tape to the gates, to help the camera see the gates at night. Can anybody tell me if this solution would actually work and point me in the direction of a camera/monitor/cabling package for less than £100? I'm worried about buying the individual elements without being sure they'll work together, but the cheapest solution I've found so far with one supplier is over £200.

Hi. You may have gathered, from looking at my other posts, that I am a total novice in this area. If I understand what you're saying, CCTV means the camera and the monitor communicate via wires. The other thing is when the camera and the monitor communicate by wireless. The previous chap who was trying to help me gave up when he discovered our budget for solving our problem is about £100. CCTV won't work for that budget because any camera capable of looking 80 metres down a drive at night to see if our gates are open or closed would cost more than £100 before you even look at the cost of the monitor and cabling. The wireless solution I am struggling a bit with for number of reasons: - we don't want to use our mobile phone/computer/TV to display a picture of the gates, we want a small dedicated monitor on the wall - I can't find out if you can extend the aerial on a dedicated monitor - to enable us to put the aerial for it on the outside of the 2.5' stone walls of our house (which would otherwise block the wireless signal) - I'm not sure if we could buy a wireless camera + small monitor + cabling for anything near £100. The other chap I chatted to seemed to be saying "no" What do you say?

I've thought of another (actually quite good) reason for viewing the gate - it will enable us to know when our friends' cars have driven through and are clear of the gates, so we can shut them. We really can't run any more cables down to the gate at this point, but there is a power point down at the gate. There is also a telegraph pole conveniently situated to mount a camera on. That would put the camera about 10 metres from the gate. The distance from the camera to the house (the place where the gate opener is situated) would then be about 100m. Between the camera and the house are lots of bushes (which are stopping us seeing the gates!) AND the 2'6" solid granite front wall of the house!!! I've been trying to look at 2 solutions - the one with a camera pointing down the drive (i.e. positioned about 15m from the gate controller) which could be connected by wire to the viewing screen. The problem with this seems to be the 80m range from the camera to the gates at night. I've found a solution for about £260 which is about £160 more than our budget. This involved a camera costing approx £150 which had both zoom and a 100m IR range. It is worth mentioning that the quality of the picture is not really important - it doesn't matter if it's grainy; if all we can see is the reflective strip stuck to the inside of the gates, that will do. The other solution I've found is to position the camera at the bottom of the drive (on the telegraph pole), with a wireless connection to the monitor. The problem here seems to be getting the wireless signal through the 2' 6" wall to the monitor. Even this solution (without tackling the granite wall issue) cost over £200. I did try asking the potential supplier if we could extend the monitor aerial with a bit of wire (which we could then poke through the door jamb to the outside of the granite wall, but the monitor they sold didn't look as if it could be adapted this way. Also it was a 7" one for nearly £80 when I thought a 3.5" one, much cheaper, night do the job. The answer to who is going to do the installation is: us - my husband, assisted and constantly annoyed by me. Thanks again for your help. Linda

Dear Boogieman Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to me. I've tried Googling magnetic sensor and they seem designed to sound an alarm. There are times, of course, when we would want to deliberately leave the gates open for a while (having first secured the dogs in the house), so something that sounded an alarm when the gates were open could be bad news. If we are able to use a sensor, it would need to be wireless as we can't start running wires 100m through the grounds again (already did that for the driveway lighting, not doing it again!). Are there sensors, do you know, that, in addition to the sensor itself which would be positioned on the gate, also have a unit that we could position by the gate controller in the house that would show us whether the gate was shut or open - maybe by some sort of light? Having said all this, my husband is desperate to have a camera and a little screen (a boy's toy, I think). You're sure, though, are you that even a camera with a zoom wouldn't be able to see 80m down the drive and pick up some high visibility tape? When I say a camera with a zoom, what I actually mean is a CHEAP camera with a zoom and an IR range of 100m!

Sorry to be dumb, but what is a magnetic sensor and how would it help me? The other product you gave me a link to is priced in $, so would be coming from the States. I need a European product for warranty reasons. I'm worried as, since I joined this forum a couple of days ago, I have started to get all sorts of problems with malware on my computer. Is there a connection?

Yes, but we don't want to see if there's someone at the gate - or who they are. We want to see the gate itself. A video intercom wouldn't show us that. The problem is that sometimes, when we've opened the gate - either with a remote when we're coming in up the drive, or from the house with the button - we forget to close it. Then the dogs escape and go on the road. We need to see whether the gate is shut or open.