Yes well Black as black outside but you don't know who's going about. No reports of anyone so far even from my 4 night vision camera's. Except a wandering Otter and a rat who thought it would make its home under the house.

 

So do you have cameras on your house?

 

Yes have 4 Swan Camera's around house videoing continuously in a loop. See Monitor screen as to daytime view. At night time the security lights come on and camera's take note of anything moving. Security lights are separately wired from camera's. They call it night vision but you can't make out field of view like night scopes with their green screens, so lights are required.
The bats flying about often trigger lights as do the rabbits.
Looking to buy a night scope sometime.
So we have to Screens in living room and sometimes its the Camera's its the most interesting.

 

Blimey, you do live in the sticks. I bet you get snowed in a lot during the winter months.
Before I retired I was a director of a CCTV company, monitoring camera systems around the homes of celebrities, footballers etc. I have 13 cameras around my house, a bit of an overkill but we've had a few attempts. This is the company I was a director of: RemGuard Visual Management | Remotely Monitored CCTV

 

Only been here since July 2013 so haven't seen the true snow as yet. Would like one of those turning camera's so can traverse the road outside from north to south. Also interested in vehicle recognising camera as we are in area where farm animals go missing in the night and farmer has asked me if my camera's pickup registration numbers. Any idea's.

 

So you're talking about a high speed dome camera which you can Pan/Tilt/Zoom manually or you can programme it to respond to alarm triggers to make it Pan/Tilt/Zoom to predifined areas or you can programme it to do 'patrols' whereby the camera will repeat a series of commands you programme into it. Unfortunately there is very little chance of picking up a vehicles registration number unless you have a camera dedicated to that task. i.e. mounted close to the area where you expect to see vehicle movement.

Good quality (professional) dome cameras are quite expensive, in excess of £1,000 but you can get cheapo versions on ebay for much less. This is an example for only £135.00 High Speed Outdoor 700TVL SONY 27x Zoom 8pcs IR PTZ DOME CCTV Security Camera | eBay

Dome cameras are much over rated. A lot of people think they are the be-all and end-all of a good CCTV system but in reality, if left to its own devices, the bloody camera is always looking in the wrong direction just when you need it most. Better off spending the same money on 4 or 5 good quality static cameras.

 

Hey F'n hell that's some machine that, 30x mag, would be able to pickup rear number plates as they go up the road at night. But not sure if it will go through my Swan control box, or if controller that operates it with toggle wand is extra. Really interested in it but after Christmas please.

 

Don't be fooled by the 30 x magnification. I doubt that lens is capabale of anything more than 5 x, the rest is probably magnification of the pixels. They also claim "IR Distance = 100M" If the LED's on the front are true IR I doubt they would cover more than 10M.
This camera claims 36 x zoom, which is genuine, but it costs £1,560, that's the difference. Vivotek SD8323E WDR Pro 36x Zoom Exceptional 60 fps PoE Plus Network Camera

 

Err, no, could buy another car for that.

 

Re. weak keyfob transmitters:
As with all battery powered hand-held devices, the battery terminal connectors can get an invisible layer of chemical oxidization or sulphation due to minute amounts of the battery's internal chemicals exuding and corroding the contacts. This puts a resistance in series with the battery, spoiling the performance. The watch-batteries in keyfob transmitters are no different.
Using some fine-grade carborundum paper, remove any oxide from both the battery poles AND the connector springs. This is fiddly work. Also measure the battery voltage with your meter. It should be exactly 1.5volt. for most, like silver oxide, but lithium batteries should be at least 3.5volt. New ones are 3.8volt. Any less with such a light load as your meter, the battery is down. Yes, sometimes semi-flat batteries are sold as new, that is due to being unsold for a long time (shelf life) -- so only buy batteries where sales are fast.

Leedsman.