scorpion

I agree with Daryl733 in regards to analog wireless cameras. If you do analog wireless then use a 1 watt system with seperate transmitter / recievers, and not the kind with built in transmitters inside of the camera. These kind of packages only use about 100 milliwatts of power, or so, which is the same as a child's walkie talkie! The package will say 300 feet line of sight. This means that the antennas will have to see each other. If they are blocked by a wall then you need to get the two closer together to keep the same "energy level" up. The more walls that you penetrate the closer you have to put the two together. Here is a trick that I do. If I have a camera that is wireless, and it is attached to an out building, then I will put the receiver inside on the wall so that I am only penetrating one wall. I then run wires from the receiver back to the DVR. What do you think?

Sunday morning was very chilly. Today the weather is beautiful!! For those of you who are laughing at Floridians for wearing sweaters, jackets etc remember that we have a "wet" cold. While I was in Campbellsville Kentucky visiting relatives, I asked what the temp was, and I was told it was 48 degrees, and I was standing there in a short sleeve T shirt, and the "cold" did not bother me at all. Boy was I shocked! I crack up when you "northerners" come to Florida, and I listen to you all complain about how cold it is. That just really cracks me up to hear people from Canada that will say that!! ???? How is the weather in Kentucky??

Do not format the hard drive at all. Just buy a hard drive, and pop it in, and you are good to go!

If security guards are involved then I see a higher precedence for security than just a simple home "surveillance" system. How much more would it add to the final bill to have a device such as a multiplexor that takes the camera's video loop out from the DVR, and show it on a secondary monitor? Would this allow the guard to see what he needs to see yet allow the "owner" to view what he wants to see? If you wanted the employees to see that you interact with the DVR so that they know that you are watching then this becomes a non issue. In what other ways would you wire up a "system" to keep it budget, yet allow it to do things you would not think it could do?

I did not know about this feature! Although this is a problem for you, it is a solution that I can provide to others who may need this option. Thank you PNS for posting this "issue". Thank you Scruit for your "hands on observations". If anyone needs a manual for the DVR, or if they need to see a tutorial on how to do a manual reset then go here.... http://scorpiontheater.com/cpcamtechsupport.aspx

I noticed that nobody seems to be in the contest! Where is everyone? http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10760 I challange everyone to a duel!

With everyone's permission I would like to post the next contest information on my website. I would like to post the links to the contest on the forum, and to the Pegasus website. I get about 1600 hits a month just from Google Search, and I have not counted how much I get from Yahoo, and other search engines. Thanks for the contest Pegasus!!

Welcome to the threads! Where are you from? What do you do for a living? See you on the forum!

Hey Rory! Are you still working on this project from 2005??

This is as warm as your welcome is going to get!! This is right straight from Florida!

I have never set up an AVTech DVR for audio recording. I would imagine that when you go to camera #1 you should be able to hear audio #1, and when you go to camera #2 you should be able to hear audio #2. When using audio I use a different DVR so I am out of the loop on this one. Are you asking to hear the audio in real time over the internet, or are you asking to hear the audio on recorded files that are placed on to your remote computer's desk top, or are you having audio problems after you convert to AVI?

A bad day of lighting fireworks beats a good day of work!!

http://scorpiontheater.com/cpcamtechsupport.aspx You can down load a manual here.

During the first Gulf War I knew we hit a higher plateau when I saw various units with female soldiers where they were plugging in curling irons, blow dryers, and other personal accessories in to field generators!!

How was your New Year Celebration?? See you on the forum!

I remember one night in December. We are all sitting around in a GP medium tent playing spade (combat spades), or playing chess, reading books, or just chit chating in with a friend, or two. All of a sudden we hear tornado sirens blaring off!! Wait a minute! There are no tornado sirens in Saudi Arabia!! This must be air raid sirens!! Early that day we went through a very severe sand storm! It would sting so bad that you had to cover up with any thing that you could wrap around your head! We buttoned up the tents tight before it got really bad!! When the siren went off we all stopped what we were doing, and we looked at each other in the eyes like deer caught in the headlights! Then it dawns on us that we need to grab our flack jackets, and run to our desinated fox hole. All at once there is a flurry of activity, and everyone is grabing their m16s, and flack jackets, and running for the tent door. Now you have to imagine a tent door that has been sealed shut, and a bunch of guys running at it at full tilt. It was just like a trampoline!! Every guy crashed in to the tent door, and bounced back like a pin ball machine! Oh god that was so funny! I laughed until I had tears in my eyes which hurt like hell because of all of the sand stuck to my face!! We finally get the door undone, and we get out to our fox holes. Thank goodness the sand storm was over! The first thing that I notice is that all of the helicopters many miles away were not taking flight?? None of the C130 were taking off either!! We locked, and loaded every 50 cal, and m16 we could find, and we waited to be mortared. We were so greatful for the ring of concetina wire to keep them at bay for at least a short time!! I knew that it was just a drill after looking around for a few minutes. I did not realize it, but in the commotion I was still carrying my magnetic chess set. I set it up, and starting playing a game with someone. I then jumped out of this deep hole with sandbag walls, and I go, and check with others in their holes to see how they are doing. Sure enough I find out later that we were the only ones not to be warned about the air raid siren testing!! I developed the aura as the dude who keeps his cool under the worst of situations! Everyone had to tell their story about the guy who played chess, and walked around cool as can be during an eminent attack!! LOL!

Since we are at the border, and there is really nothing to do while waiting for the "war" to start so we tried to find things to do to keep us occupied. We took sand bags, and stacked them up to make a bench, and then we made a stack to the left, and to the right of the "bench". We found a steel fence pole, and we duct taped a sand bag to each side of the pole. Now we have a weight bench!! We took turns strapping on as many sand bags as we could to see who could lift the most! Me being a little guy damn near snapped my wrists in two on the last set. I heard the crack, and I do not know to this day what kept my arms together!! We used to play "combat volley ball". Spikes in one's face was the only goal, and saying rude comment to your opponent such as "In your face, and up your _ _ _!!! One day I got a really good idea before I left the USA, and went to "play war". I brought some tubes of silicone sealant with me. I do not know why I bought them, and then brought them. I guess they were on sale at the time, or something. So here I am in Saudi Arabia with tubes of caulking in a war zone!! What to do, what to do!! I got an idea. I made a "deal" with a friend of mine who worked in the "chow hall" which was a tent here on the border. In exchange for some deal, I got to "borrow" an immersion heater. This is used to put in a quanity of water, and it would bring it to a boil. This can be used for boiling bags of MRE meals. I can get water, I have an immersion heater, and I have caulking! I do not have any trailers in our motor pool. We do how ever share an area with another unit, and they have trailers!! I moved a trailer about 10 feet. I wanted to get it closer to a power hook up. I filled all of the holes in the trailer with the caulking, and I sealed the drop gate to the trailer with the caulking. When it dried I filled the trailer up with water, and I lit the immersion heater. I got some plastic wrap used to wrap pallets, and I wrapped the staves with plastic to block the wind (it was really, really cold). That night a few select "friends" were invited to my sauna!! We had some food, and a radio plugged in to the power, and the sauna steamy hot! Oh man did it feel good!! We did not get much of chance to take showers, and when we did you could only turn on the water for a brief second, then you would soap up, and then you would turn on the water back on to rinse off. There was a tank of water over head, and this is why we could not just let the water run continuosly. If it ran out of water then you might get beat up by the other half of the unit that did not get a shower. One day I was helping the tanker truck that showed up to fill the tank. I almost barfed while I was helping him. The tank was full of dead flying insects, and this is what I am taking a shower in!! Yuck! For those of you who do not know me I am somewhat of a "germ" freak. So here we are having a blast of a party in the middle of a war zone 1000 miles away from home. What a great night! Then someone from the other unit reports a trailer is missing from the motor pool, and they come looking for it. Some high ranking "God's gift to the military" shows up to reem us a new one, and demands "his" trailer back. We are all hiding illegal beer, and alchohol bought from Air force Cargo plane pilots who fly back, and forth bringing the latest war goods to the "front". This guy does not even see the beer, but man does he want his trailer back!! We all jump out of the "sauna" (only because we were outnumbered), and the party comes to a stop!! Waaa! Later on I see this "gods gift to the military" in the trailer enjoying our sauna with his buddies. What do I do? I go and call the M.P.s, and I report a stolen immersion heater. If you knew our first sargent then you would not want to be around when he shows up asking questions!! This guy who does not know our 1st says something really stupid, and really ****y. OH! You want to play this way huh? We go, and find our 1st, and we tell him word, for word what this guy said about our unit, about our 1st, and about his wife! Ok we ad libbed a little to get him going. He goes down there, and he asks for the heater back. The guy says no. I cannot tell the rest of the story unless there is a statue of limitations in effect. Anyway we got the heater! Interesting! I wonder what he said to the guy?

Back to the desert, and ten miles from the enemy. At night we would lay out in the desert, and face Iraq, and we would watch these "air burst bombs" going off in the distance. It was very interesting to watch, and I was very grateful that I was not there in person!! I had been away from Riyadh for some time, and I had not talked to friends, and family back in the states for some time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riyadh One day I was going down the one, and only road from King Khalid Military City to the border of Iraq. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Khalid_Military_City I noticed that there was military two conductor wire strapped to every light pole going down the road!! Hey! Como Wire!! Whoo Hoo! I stop my vehicle, and I jump out, and I take my Gerber knife, ( the one that I bought in the USA as a last act of defiance should the el toro poo poo hit the reciprocating blades if you know what I mean), and I peel back some of the insulation, and I hook my military field phone, and I give it one hell of a crank. I get a really weird answer like this guy has got a corn cob up his you know what. It must be one of those chair borne ranger wanna be's!! I told him that I wanted such, and such signal battalion, and he say "right away sir". SIR?? I WORK FOR A LIVIN! OK, I did not say that, but that is what I was thinking. I get the signal battalion, and I ask for another Signal group, and then I ask for the USA, and then I ask for Patrick Air Force Base, and so on. I waited for ever as usual for each connection to go through, and finally about the time Patrick AFB would connect me through, then what do I see, but a bunch of Humvees screaming down the road right towards me!! I have a humvee mounted 50 cal pointed right at me. All of these MPs jump out locked, and loaded. I get tossed to the ground ever so gently! Ya right! My face felt concave for a week after that! It appears that the one phone line out of a bundle of 50, or more belong to a very high ranking general's tent. It also appears that I sound nothing like the general which tipped off the operator that there must be some infiltration at the border, and I was the enemy bastard to get my balls kicked in, and squashed like a bug. It took some time for them to figure that I was on the up, and up before they let me go, and of course they would only release me to my company commander. OH! OH! Now I am in a real world of sh*t!! You know? I never did get my field phone back!!

Here is a story that might bring a grin to your face! My specialty was communications. I invented the the Tee Are Double EE for installing antennas in a forest environment! (If you did not get the joke then T R E E). I was "stationed" in Saudi Arabia about 10 miles from the border. I was in support of Army airplanes that flew tracks where they would record radio communications from the Iraqi Army, and they would do radio direction finding. To give you an idea how close to the border we were, then I will tell you that we used to stack our MRE's in to the shape of 2 1/2 ton trucks, and lean spare tires against the stack, and then put the camo net over top. From a distance it would look like a few 2 1/2 ton trucks parked in the desert. There was another group with us, and they drove trucks out in the desert with trailers that were built with tank treads. We did not have all of our tanks in country, and we were waiting for Saddam to figure it out, and attack early. He never did, but he could have won the war if he did. The tanks did not arrive in force until Dec. These guys drove around simulating tank manuver so that the Iraqi's would think there was a division of tanks! I use to find "ways" to talk to my friends back home. I once called a signal unit, and asked for another signal unit, and then I told that operator that I need to make "health, and morale" call. I got to an Army base in the US, and I asked them to patch me through to Patrick Air Force Base (near my home town), and when Patrick AFB picked up I asked them to make a "health, and morale" call to First Sgt Young at 321 ... .... (my father ((who is retired)). How is that for "reaching out, and touching someone"!! LOL! You should have heard my father when he said "you are calling from WHERE"?? I once was in an empty building in riyadh S. A. The US Army moved out, and the Air Force was going to take over the building. The building was being used as barracks. Us Army guys were not pleased that we were getting the boot back to tents in the field! RRRRRR! We went back in to the building, and I carried a "residential" phone so that we could plug in, and make calls. Only a few select were in on this deal. If you pissed me off somewhere in the past then you did not get my "special" invitation to join. This was the very first scud attack in Riyadh! I heard a thoop, thoop, thoop, and I walked out on to a balcony. Just as I stepped out I heard a very loud, and building shaking boom, boom, boom. I was looking down from the balcony, and I could see a half semi circle of orange glow on the ground below. For those of you not in the know that means the fireball is directly above your head, and you are basically burnt toast. I was alive, and then it sunk in that there could be biological stuff in those missiles, and at any moment my skin was going bleed through every pore, and my skin was going to fall off. You really have to live through one of these moments in life!! You do not know how terrified you can truley be until you have gone through an event like that!!! I ran back inside, and I got everyone in to mop 4 (gas mask, and rubber suit, gloves, and boots). So here we sit in a building where noone knows where we are, and we are waiting for blisters to form on our faces, and then keel over, and die. We never heard an "all clear" signal so that we could get out of our hot, sweaty mop 4 gear. Now what do we do?? YOU GUESSED IT! I called Patrick AFB, and gave them my dad's home number, and he was watching this new fangled thing on TV called CNN news where you are watching a "war" live!!! WOW! I asked my dad, "hey have they sounded an all clear for "my home town" (our code for Riyhad) (my "vacation" home was King Khalid Military City). He said yes they sounded an all clear an hour ago!! Whew! I ripped off that mask, and everyone freaked! They thought it was not a good idea. Ok! I am still breathing, and I am alive. Now everyone starts ripping those masks off their faces. Wow! I did not know how refreshing cool air could be on your face, and down your lungs!!!! Thanks DAD! Now take your hand, and cover your mouth, and then talk through your hand. This is what it sounds like talking through a gas mask! See if you can find me in this photo?? http://www.oldspooksandspies.org/methvin/138thd2.jpg This is our hanger at Orlando International Airport. This is where they park the President's Marine Corp Helicopter when "he" is in town. At this time it would have been president Clinton. NOW ON TO THE STORY ABOUT HOW I ALMOST GOT ARRESTED!!!

Young Grasshopper, do not be quick to judge as I have plagurized that pdf from somewhere else, and therefore I cannot take credit for being said teacher. Now close your eyes, and grab this stone from my hand! Psyche! Too slow!

Do you want to hear about the time I almost got arrested at the border of Saudi Arabia, and Iraq where I was surrounded by a sh*t load of MP's during the first "Gulf War"? or how about the time I got in trouble for "stealing" a trailer (the kind that is towed by a 2 1/2 to truck)? Anyone??

If, or when Prince Harry becomes King of England, then I would respect him when as "commander in Chief" he has to send soldiers in to combat then he will have a first hand knowledge of what the military is like. I hope he will leave the war up to the "generals", and not the politicians. I have always felt that they should take every teenager that comes out of high school, and send them in to the military, and send them to a third world country where they can see how others live (and I do not mean to say send them to war, just to another land, and another way of life). I think they will come back with a new found sense of what America is really about, or at least appreciate what they got. I have to say that I respect Prince Harry for getting down in the dirt with the other soldiers. I would imagine it is a "great escape" for him where he can be "just one of the boys". Hey! What is this shirt everyone is talking about?? When I was in the service, and in the reserves I had to buy all of my shirts! My favorite story is the time I was in Korea during the two week war games that they have every year. Our unit was honored with packing up all of our gear, and packing the big stuff on rails, and going to Korea for some "fun". A group of us decided to have some fun. Downtown we found places that could custom make jackets, and hats, and I mean custom right down to a quick made patch. Note that this was in the times before computers would create, and sew, patches, and monograms. We has some "ball" caps make up with CF 88. CF translates to charlie foxtrot, and that means in english Cluster F**K 88! Needless to say some high ranking byrd got lost, and found his way to our area of operation! It appears that he was not to pleased with our CF 88 hats!! LOL! OH Boy did our CO (commanding officer) reem our deriere!! Nothing like being in the doghouse, and not being able to go down town, and raise hell in the bars! I got lucky, and saved a high ranking officer some embarrasment due to equipment failures, and I got him back in to the groove, and saved his behind, and he was not even in my unit, and I did not even know the guy. In return I got my Pass back. Whoo Hoo! Party Time!

Not a problem! I sent you a PM, and now you can PM me back! I also sent you my cell, and email. Have you seen the demo on my website? http://scorpiontheater.com/cpcamtechsupport.aspx Scroll down until you see the picture of the connector. Click on the link, and you will see a pdf on how to do it! What did you think of the tutorial?

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Hope they have a spare bathroom!

Now that was a funny picture!!! LOL!