2009 Season Problems   

A Difficult Start

After verifying that the new camera worked at the end of September when the camera struck by lightning in April was taken down, it was assumed that the startup of the 2009 was going to be routine. Unfortunately, it was not.

As the season was approaching in February, it was time to checkout the computer and configure it for the new season. The computer would not come up. It turned out that the harsh environment that the computer was in during the season had covered the components in enough dirt to short out the memory. The usual vacuuming of the machine was not enough this time and the machine had to be completely disassembled and thoroughly cleaned with a brush before it would boot. The actual configuration of the machine after it came up was straightforward and uneventful.

The next problem cropped up when the camera was being setup. While trying to set the back focus of the camera, the controller for the lens failed. It was determined that a simple battery connected between the focus or zoom leads would allow for the focus or zoom to be changed, but without the controller box, computer control of the focus and zoom was lost. In order to zoom in or out, we will have to go to the barn and put a battery across the leads.

With the computer and camera finally in an acceptable state, the weather did not cooperate and the camera was not installed until March 14. The installation went smooth until an attempt was made to activate the network connection to the camera. The analog video signal was working, and the audio signal was working (though not as well as in the past), but there was no network connection.

The first thought was that the network cable running up the pole and exposed to the elements had failed. Some trouble shooting determined that the cable going up he pole was fine, but that the underground cable had failed. This was a severe blow. It meant that we could not control the camera settings and we could not capture the higher resolution still pictures from the camera. When the first evening arrived, the camera did not switch to its low light setting. In the past, we would just have connected to the camera and changed the setting, but we could not so this any more. A couple of days later, an attempt was made to change the setting by connecting a computer to the camera network cable at the base of the pole. The setting was changed, but there is no feedback as to what state the camera is in. Normally, this change is done in the evening so it is obvious when the camera is in its night mode, but this time it was done during the day. When evening arrived, the camera again did not go into its low light mode.

Unfortunately, at this point in time, I became rather ill and could not get back to working on the camera. So, as of this writing, the camera will still not go into low light mode and I have not been able to put in any reat time working on the setup or website.