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Ensign webcam
Tisdale - Friday, May 3, 2013
by:Timothy W. Shire

Ten long years ago we established a webcam on this web site and it has been sending out a picture about every thirty seconds. Over the years of course it has experienced some hitches as the power goes off occasionally and for most of its life it the power went off when we were not home the webcam would be offline until we got back.

The original camera and its receiver came from company called “X10” and because they were develop before 2003 the cameras (we had three of these) sent out a rather messy radio signal. The system was easily disrupted by the neighbour’s microwave oven and when the family was here visiting on a holiday we would turn off the system because it interfered with my sons iPhones. The original computer handling the work online died and another one was fitted out to replace it and then came the problem with SaskTel’s very poor internet service this year. As we were sorting that out the computer’s interaction with the router failed and we all decided that was it the equipment and the process were overdue for replacement.

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The new camera at the bottom of the page is an off the shelf product made by D-Link, this is their DCS-930L and is designed for the average consumer. Most of our homes have a wireless router and that’s about all you need to have a security system in your house. The camera plugs into an outlet is mounted near a window in this case and using WIFI technology it acts like a WIFI printer and has its own place on the internet. Once installed you go with a browser to the D-Link web site for your camera and set it up the way you want. It can send a continues moving image with sound anywhere there is internet access.

This means with a camera like this you can whip out your iPhone or smart phone, iPad or laptop where ever you are and take a look to see what is going on at home. The price of this camera varies a bit from retailer to retailer but in most cases it will cost you about the same amount as a pair of inexpensive running shoes.

Now our set up is to provide our web page with the scene outside the house so it is set to deliver a picture every twenty seconds with no sound. On our iPad we get an image every second.

If you want to just use this one to see what it’s like in Tisdale just bookmark our webcam page or just get the picture.

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