scorpion

There is an audio Icon. It will be "greyed" out, or it will be Blue, or it will be Yellow. You will have to activate the icon for remote audio. If the power goes out then the audio has to be set up again at the DVR for remote audio.

I would not have a PI look for it. He is not trained in TSCM. You will need someone trained in TSCM (Technical Services, and Counter Measures). There are PI's that specialize in TSCM, but these are very few. I would take the car to your dealership. A long term employee can look at the car in under an hour. He will find anything that is out of the ordinary. I am willing to bet that if you are electronically oriented that you can find it if you look. I am willng to bet that you do not have anything. If the alarm shop did not find it then you should be clear. If you think you still have a device then you are pushed up in to a higher threat situation, and you will have to spend good money on real TSCM Professionals! http://www.tscm.com/ Tell them Scopion Theater sent you. Do not call them if you are not seeking true professional help. These guys go after the CIA type spies, and real corporate theft spies.

$15.00 a month??? That is a great deal! Do they do third party banner to make it look a business named website? Do you have to buy their tracker, and do they have good tech support? What is the URL?

This cannot be done by a DIY (Do It Yourself). The cellphone device is treated the same as a GPS tracker in my book. Note how long your cellphone lasts with your battery, and how long you have to charge it. I would not be afraid of a cell phone with software that is used to listen in on you. It would die with in 2 days? I would be afraid more of your smart cellphone / PDA that has software downloaded in to it. Note: They cannot download this into your phone by remote! They have to have access to your phone, and they have to go to a URL, and then they have to enter their user name, and password, and then download their software, and then they have to test your phone. If you are keeping track of your phone then you should be safe. If someone tells you that they can remote download software in to your phone then they are full of it. It can be done but this is beyond the simple person on the street, and you are really going to have to work with an engineer of the phone provider, and you are going to have to work with a person on the inside of the phone provider to push the software into the smart phone / PDA. If they can prove it for real with a cellphone, then tell them to call me, and I will buy it. There is not one software on the internet that does this. Most of the software in the cheap range is a ripoff, and you have to be carefull. RF DETECTOR: If yours has the knob to increase, and decrease sensitivity then you are good to go. It is designed to "find" a signal from a distance. You will then turn the sensitivity down. This will allow you to get closer to the device. You will keep turning the sensitivity down in increments. This will allow you to get right up on the device's location. Here is what we have to do! Why are "they" targeting you. My wife / husband / girlfriend / boyfriend put the device on. If you have fear then turn up the radio real loud. They are not going to be able to hear a thing! You will have to make your calls somewhere else. You can make up a false situation, and make a story, and use a local hotel/motel and then park off to the side of the place to see if they go to the same location. If so then they can "hear" you! ___________________________________________________________ I am going to treat this like a GPS tracking device. I would suspect this also if they are listening in to you. Question: Did they buy it? How much do they earn, or where do they get their money? Answer: They earn $20,000, to $30,000. This tells me that they are not going to spend more then $600 at the most to get the info that they need. (Each situation has to be individually evaluated). They are more apt to buy from a spy store, or from an online "spy store". Solution: Look under the car at the rear. You should find it in five seconds flat with a flashlight. If they have access to an obcene amount of money then anything is possible based on how much they will spend. Question: Will they hire someone rather than install themselves? I will at this time dismiss "techies" "the neighbor who is a cable guy", "ham radio operators", and "electronic engineers". I do so as they do not do this for a living, and they fall automatically in to the NOVICE range (although there may be one in 100 that can do it right). A pro is too expensive for a $20K to $30K unless there is some serious cash, or child custody, or you are about to die when tracked. ____________________________________________________________ Look at online spy shops, and look what they offer for live tracking devices. Memorize what they look like. Look under your car, or under your seat. This is where 95% of the devices will be. There are two types of devices. HISTORICAL, AND LIVE TRACKING. Historical is not a threat. You will have to drive around for 3 to 5 days, and then they will have to remove the device, and hook it up to a USB on a computer, and download all of the waypoints. This will tell them where you have been in "past tense" terms. Live tracking requires a cellular Sim card, and a third party activation. The third party receives the GPS coordinates and places this info on to a website. This person has to go to a computer, and enter their user name, and a password, and they can see a map with the "blue dot" where you are located, or they can enter a starting date / time group to a ending date / time group to see where you have traveled. It will also show other info such as miles per hour, and other info based on the account entry level, or premium level. The account will charge a basic fee for x amount of "pings" from your GPS tracker. They will need the large account to receive a ping every three minutes to give live tracking. The cheaper account may only allow you to receive a ping every two hours before you run out of pings, and then pay a premium for each one. PI will have premium accounts, and they get discounts because they will own more then one device. ____________________________________________________________ To find the live tracker you will need to put the car in to a shipping container, and have it grounded. This will block all radio waves from the outside from getting inside the container. You will set up three antennas and you will use a PC to track the freq, and do the radio direction finding. In all honesty I find the devices under the car, or under the under the seat. The under the seat is the wife / girlfriend / husband / boyfriend / friend / business partner / anyone who has a key. ___________________________________________________________ Most devices have to run on batteries. Most will run on 4 AA batteries. Depending on how many pings you have it set for is based on how long the batteries will last. Most should last about 3 weeks before the batteries die. If they tie the device in to the vehicle power then you have a different case all together. You will actually use a device that allows you to enter an FCC list. This list has all of the fast food restaraunt drive through transmitter freqs, local radio stations, contractor radios that are used to dispatch plumbers ect, and all other licensed transmitters. This list goes in to your machine, and it eliminates all of these known freqs from the sweep only leaving "unkown" freqs for you to look at. __________________________________________________________ I scope out the car in advance, and I buy the head rest at a junk yard, or from the dealer. You insert the device in to the head rest, and open the car, and swap the head rest. 99% of the spy shops, and PI who think they do TSCM will not find it. Do not forget that the car itself gives off RF, and you will get false positives. If you are tying in to the vehicle power then most likely you are going to have alligator clips. One to the chassis, and the other to the starter to get straight to the battery. This is assuming no keys are involved, and this is a quick in, and out install. If they have keys then they will install it in the trunk behind panels, or where there is a storage bin that they can open up. They will use those kind of wire taps that you see at rental trailer ompanies where they tap in to your lights, and then the trailer has turn signals, and brake lights. To hide devices under the carriage I will paint them with undercoating to make them black. Look for bumpers that are shaped like a J. In other words is there a well that you can drop the device in to so that you cannot see it? Use double stick tape to make it stay, or use zip strips. Most PI's, and others will use the devices that snap in to a plastic case that has magnets. If you are really looking for these devices then look for hollow places. Does your car have a cardboard glove compartment that can pull out? SUVs, and Vans may have a center console that is hollow underneath, or under the center arm rest there may be a quick hollow spot to get to. ___________________________________________________________ There is no device the size of your fingernail that will track you. The receiving device cannot be that small, and have a battery, and a transmitter. If there is such a device on your car then it will not last very long due to the power source, and you are not in a high threat situation for the long term, but you can be found in the short time, but this will be an assasination attempt in this case. ___________________________________________________________ Why are you the target? Who is targeting you? How much are they willing to spend? Is this an amature situation, or a pro situation? Do they have access to the vehicle? ____________________________________________________________ I use several devices to protect others. A: Paintball landmines. Place this around non concrete areas. If they trip one off they will be painted in color. If they walk down the street then they will be marked when you, or LE (law enforcement) approach them. If you have some serious cash to hire a lawyer then go ahead, and use pepper spray in the land mine. If you cannot afford a night in jail, and the legal fees to get off then do not use the pepper spray. B: Very expensive game cameras, and not the cheapos found at Walmart, and gun shops, and hunting shops. You will need IR flash so that you do not give off a flash, and it has to be a digital camera, and you need a built in LCD screen to see the pictures. The 35mm versions require you to develop the film, and you will have to wait for your evidence. Place several game cameras around in the trees. If someone comes up from wounds, or walking though non fenced housing area then you should catch them. C: Place True Day / Night cameras on the vehicle to catch vehicles that stop in the street at night to get out, and place a device, or to perform maintentance on the batteries. _________________________________________________________ Do you have one of the houses that has the "aluminum foil" in the attic? You can tell because you have to go outside to use your cellphone. Place your car in the garage, and shut the door. This will make it hard to get a GPS location, and / or prevent the cellular signal from getting out to give a location. GPS wiki, and info links http://scorpiontheater.com/gpslab.aspx Here is how you disguise a game camera! http://scorpiontheater.com/game.aspx What do you think?

How old is this machine? It sounds more like you have a hard drive problem, or a power supply problem to the hard drive. Is this the hard drive that came with the machine, or is this one that you installed yourself? This is a very rare event that you are having.

Resetting the DVR did not change the front panel password?

Well said! The 3.6mm lens will give you distance distortion, but it will "gain" extra peripheral vision. The 8mm lens will not have distance distortion, and it will gain a little bit of zoom in to the distance. You will not have as much peripheral vision. A balance between the two would be 6mm. The 8mm would be my choice depending on the above statement. How far is the viewing area from the camera? What are you watching? There is a big difference between the amount of IR LEDs. We as installers cannot go by the paperwork. The reason being is the environment dictates the amount of LEDs you will need. Once you work with a set of cameras, then you know which one to use. If we order a new camera that we have never worked with then we have to put it in to the environment, and see how it does. A wide angle lens camera with a long throw of IR is a waste due to the distance distortion. The face is going to be so far away that you cannot tell who it is. The long range will allow you to see the background. A long throw lens (8mm is not a long throw) with a short distance IR is not effective. The design of the LED is a factor as well. Some LEDs are designed to throw a distance, and some are designed to spread it wide. Some cameras may have a combination of both. I am willing to bet that you are buying these cameras because they are in a budget price range. If you are basing your buying decision on a budget then it truely does not matter. It would be better off finding someone who has actually used the camera, and find out their experience. If you must have "best overall picture" then buy a camera designed for the spec.

First I would go in to your router, and I would see what port was forwarded for your DVR. Pressing Enter 4 times (0000) should get you in to the menu on the front panel. You will not have remote access. I believe it will default the DVR network address to 192.168.1.10, ( or is it 192.168.0.10). Can you press MENU > ADVANCED > NETWORK ?? I am going to assume the reason why you could not change the date, and time via Video Server E is that you had a low user account, and not the Supervisor Account.

The covisec price is retail, and if you are a business, then call them for wholesale pricing. You will need to know the pinout for the camera, or the all in one monitor that you are working with. Here is the pinout of the old Samsung cameras (also used by Lorex, and Panasonic) RJ 11 PINOUT 1 SPEAKER (+) 2 VIDEO_OUT 3 GND 4 SPEAKER (-) 5 AUDIO_OUT/ALARM_OUT 6 12V DC Back of Camera Clip up, contacts down 123456 If you need a manual to the old SCC14WEB: http://scorpiontheater.com/samsung.aspx

There should not be as much of a voltage drop compared to DC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents With 24 volt AC, and using dual voltage cameras should work. If at 500 feet the AC 24V drops to (what ever number) Volts AC then the camera should work. If it is as low as 14 volts the AC will be rectified, and it will act as a 12 volt camera. What do you think?

It would only work if there was a way to have the vehicle stopped from traveling such as at a gate, or a red light. Moving cars with that type of lens would not work. Are these parked cars, and you are doing Private Eye work?

Scroll down until you see a picture of your DVR http://scorpiontheater.com/cpcamtechsupport.aspx

Sounds Good. I would suggest multiple cameras rather then one super wide angle camera. Are you getting a 4 channel DVR? This can be connected to the internet. Will you be watching this camera (cameras) remotely?

There is bits and pieces of info here: http://scorpiontheater.com/camlab.aspx Here are some online security related magazines. http://scorpiontheater.com/cctvmag.aspx

The 777 beeping can be for many reasons. For those without hard drive problems then it might not be in the overwrite mode. The video has filled up the hard drive, and it has now gone in to alarm. This is to inform you that you need to look at the video, and reset the hard drive, but I would suggest putting it in overwrite mode instead. (Side Note While I Am Here. If you have this DVR in Motion Detection, and you have a lot of cameras hooked up, and seeing alot of activity then to get in to the MENU you will need to push the STOP button a couple of times, and press MENU real fast. Put one finger on one button, and another finger on the other button, and toggle them back and forth. This will get the DVR to stop paying attention to every motion detection it sees, and allows the DVR to "know" that you want to go in to MENU). You do not need to format a hard drive. Open the package, and stick it right in. You cannot use a hard drive that used to be in a computer. WARNING! These DVRs are not hot swappable. In other words you need to unplug the power before pulling, or inserting the drive bays in to the DVR. If you have clicking noise then yes buy a new hard drive, and give it a test. Question: Would now be the time to upgrade to a different DVR? For a 16 channel DVR the AVC 787A (Sata version) would be a much better replacement if you wanted to stay in the AVTech brand. I only say this as the cost of IDE hard drives cost more then they used to. Sata drives are bargain basement prices, and IDE are at "antique" pricing. There may be other issues with you DVR, but we will not know until you have inserted another hard drive. (1) The power supply (internal, or external) may have been bad, and this blew the harddrive, or in the process of blowing the hard drive it may have injured the power supply. If this is a DVR that you have had for a long time then it may well be worth buying a new external power supply to keep your DVR healthy. Yes: The power supply works just fine, but is it leaking AC? If so it might just be putting some nails in the coffin of your DVR. Have someone check it under load with an ocilliscope. Also while you are at it replace the fan / fans in the DVR. This DVR will not work if the fan has stopped. It will over heat something fierce. It will keep working for a while, but it will just kill it without some fan venting it! Need a manual? Download it here: (Scroll Down) http://scorpiontheater.com/cpcamtechsupport.aspx Video Server S http://scorpiontheater.com/videoviewer.aspx What do you think?

You have to many failures that this venture may not be worth your expense. (1) Budget dictates quality. I am surprised that the QSee system was in the $1000 price range for 4 cameras. If it was long ago then yes that would be about right in those days. (2) Unless you are buying wholesale with a business license you are not going to get much for $200. (3) System design. System design is 100 times more effective then just "buying a camera". Those kits in a box are automatic failures before you even get started. To those companies that produce these units please forgive me. I too sell those "kits in a box" and I forwarn of the issue prior to someone purchasing these system. An informed customer is a wise customer. Wide Angle Lens: This is where people are caught without a way to catch a criminal. Wide angle lenses are not created to catch a criminal. They are designed as a tool. The tool in the CCTV black bag to solve peripheral problems is to use a wide angle lens. You will actually need two cameras! One zoom lens is needed to get up close to a subject, and the wide angle is to tell you the story. Example: A parking lot. I want to see where someone is going from car to car checking to see if they are unlocked, and to steal valuables. A wide angle camera pulls in left, and right peripheral view, and IT WILL SACRIFICE DISTANCE VIEW as a trade off. A second camera will have a zoom (like a telescope) lens to get up real close. Pick a spot that someone is most likely to stand, or to walk in this area. A sidewalk with bushes on either side is a perfect "trap" zone to get a good look at someone's face! Those of you that have a system with a wide angle lens, have someone stand in front of your camera at about the 20 foot mark. The wider the angle of lens, the farther away they are actually going to appear in the video. Their face is going to be so small in the video, and there are so many dots on your TV screen to recreate that face. If there are only 20 pixals to recreate that face then there is not much detail there for you to determine "who dunnit". If it is a known neighbor then you can "figure out" who it is, but what about the slick defense attorney pounding on the jury railing about "beyond ALL reasonable doubt"? You have to prove to that jury that this was the person! If the above scenerio is not important to you then you are wasting your money no matter what you do, or what you buy. For hobby purposes you can just buy based on your budget. I would suggest that you hire someone local to you, and have them come out, and tell them exactly what you want. I like to bring various lenses, and let the customer see the monitor. What you see is what you get. If you buy the wide angle lens, or if you buy a "kit in the box" now you need to know that you should place the camera closer to what you are looking at. Wide angle cameras do work. If someone is standing 5 feet from your house then they are going to be close enough that it does not matter about the distance distortion that wide angle lens creates. If someone does something out at street side then there is no way to tell exactly who it was, but the camera will tell you the story of what happened, and it will give you a time stamp if you have it hooked up to a DVR. This is much better than just a burglar alarm who sets off a screaming siren. SYSTEM DESIGN: What do you really want the camera to do? SUGGESTION: Spend a little bit more, and buy a vari focal camera. This will make your camera very flexible. When you want to watch a two car driveway to see two cars then set it for wide angle. If you want to watch an area, but you want to avoid the distance distortion then set it for the 6mm range. If you need to really get up close to something then use the full zoom range of your camera. What is great about vari focal is that a situation may come up that you never expected. Instead of having to go out a buy a camera for every "emergency" that comes up, then all you need to do is changed the setting on your camera. Now how is that for spending your money wisely? What do you think?

Not much that we can suggest. Staying inside of the box, and getting plates appears to be doable from what you have outlined. To keep people from feeling uncomfortable with the cameras then move them to the very edge of the red box, and use telephoto lens to get back up on the plates. What are you doing for winter when it gets dark early, and you need to see the plates? You LPR situation is not a problem. Your cars are not in motion. That solves 90% of the problems. Moving vehicles are harder compared to a static (not in motion) vehicle.

Due to summer storms and more so with hurricanes we in Florida cannot mount them to the soffit material. When they get sucked out you will lose the camera too.

Do you have a pdf that you can point me to that does a walk through about resetting a hard drive to factory default? If you have one brand, then that is good, but if know of various vendors then this would be great! Thanks!

You can use regular 2X4. Treated would be better. Mounting technique only matters if you take short cuts. The best way is to mount it to the wall. More secure, and less work. In your case you are not matching dollar's earned verses time expended, vehicle cost, vehicle insurance, business liability, and so on, so you can pretty much do want you want to do. Those who decide to just bolt the cams directly to the plastic soffit will soon realize that those can be "sucked" out during extreme storms. Mounting it to a piece of wood installed above the soffit would create a good mounting point. Only flaws with high mounted cameras is that you lose the higher side of your viewing horizon. In other words you overhang will block the upper part of you view. The more you want to see the lower away from the soffit you will want to install it. If the camera is not of value, and you are not concerned about a solid mount then you can mount the camera to the fascia. http://www.bergerbuildingproducts.com/pdfs/installation_fascia_soffit.pdf What do you think?

Depends on the camera. Can you mount the camera to the wall? Is this a project to mount a box camera with a hole cut in front of the soffit board?

Is there a round trip airline ticket involved?

It is AVTech! http://www.avtech.com.tw/english/cctv_overview.aspx?ID=SATA01

Does your DVR require the hard drive to be formatted to Fat 32? I was only asking because the particular DVR that I use is installed clean right out of the hard drive anti static bag with out any format. I was just curious.

Are you using this with a DVR, or IP cameras? What kind of DVR are you using?