Surveillance cameras?

[galaxie428]

My wife and I live in the country, the closest neighbor is 1/2 mile a way. This past Monday, I came home after work to find my front door had been kicked in. I keep most of my guns in a safe but we each have a pistol beside our beds. They took both pistols and some money. They left the laptops and anything else that could be carried out easily.

I was wondering if any of you could recommend a good wireless surveillance camera that I could put up and also record to a computer? We thought about an alram system but it would take to sheriff 20 min to get out here. The camera would nto prevent the theft but if it got a plate of a face on it, it might lead to an arrest or a butt kicking.

 

[missingstexas]

Sorry about your loss, I hope they catch those punks. We use one of those DVR setups from Sam's Club. I think I paid $1200 for it. It came with 4 cameras and a monitor/DVR and I set it up on my home network (behind my firewall) so I can remote into it from anywhere. I don't have any experience with wireless setups sorry.

 

[300UGUY]

I am think about the same thing. I recently had a alarm system put in, but video would be nice. A lot of B&E's here. Usually seems to be local young people.

 

[Cat_Driver]

Why wireless? I hear tell there is no wireless camera that is any good.

I would start off by building some sort of "safe room" or area that the bad guys can not get to. Then fill it with hard drive recorders to record the motion cameras throughout your house.

Reason you don't ant them at the recorders so they won't destroy them .

They have morion sensors that have either a dog barking sound, OR you can record your own message saying THE POLICE HAVE BEEN CALLED, LEAVE THE PROPERTY ...etc.etc.

If they drove in I would put electric motion sensors on the drive way that either sounds an alarm or calls your neighbor.

The key is to make enough noise or create enough light via motion sensor that the bad guy will be spooked.

Lastly get a secure front door, steel with steel support. get some wrought iron for all the windows, Sorry to say buy you now have to live in prison as chances are they may be back, and now they have guns.

 

[zzvyb6]

I have a 4 camera system from Costco tha's pretty cool. One camera upsatirs, one downstairs, one looking at the front door from outside and one looking down the driveway peering at the gates. The cameras are wired. I bought a thousand feet of CAT6+power (siamese) and are running the two ourdoor cameras on well over 500' away from the recorder. I have a video cable from the DVR to the HDTV so I can switch to AV1 an instantly see who is at the gate.

I am also running Miltronics sensors and receivers around the property. One at the gate, one at the barn and one at the shed. Receivers are in the house (tone announcer), one in the shed (4 second alarm bell) and one in my golf cart (tone and a vintage revolving police car light) . So no matter where I am on the property, sombody or something comes by, I know it, they know it, and the dogs know it. Amazing how the dogs react: with my typical schedule, the tones announce but the dogs don't bark. If I'm off schedule or something unexpected is going on (Fed Ex, meter reader, trouble maker, lost hunter, deer, (coyotes lately, too) the dogs, the DVR, and the neighbors all know it. I recently just wired an air powered locomotive bell into the system. When someone comes thru one of the gates, the Miltronics sensor picks them up and the 12v air valve opens for 4 seconds. NOW THATS COOL !! I want to get some rail crossing flashing signals next to add some realism to the effect.

The DVR is hooked into the AT&T U-verse router. All 4 camera views as well as the past history can be viewed from any internet connection via DDNS port forwarding (supplied by the kit). Cameras are fair quality. EBay has better ones for improved outdoor detail.

Sorry to hear you had bad luck. You are supposed to do this BEFORE they kick in the door not afterwards. To prevent further problems, haul out the guns on an irregular basis and make some joyfull noises. There is no sense in keeping them secret. Around here, a strange vehicle moving slowly can elicit some target practice episodes behind the house. The sound of a 30-30 or my 50 BMG echoing off the woods is a lasting memory maker.

 

[galaxie428]

Thanks for all the ideas. I guess I should mention that we have somewhat of a buget, I am looking at maybe something for $200 starting out. I would like something that is expandable though so I can add to it as needed.

Wired may be better than wireless but wireless sounds a lot easier!

 

[Gl33kl]

Sorry about your loss. Hope they catch the dirtbags.

Galaxie - check your pm - good luck in the camera search

 

[KTurner]

I guess I should mention that we have somewhat of a buget, I am looking at maybe something for $200 starting out.

For the super budget, just buy a few signs that say "Under 24/7 camera surveillance" and post them in obvious places. You can even get fake cameras that have flashing LEDs on them (to make them look real). And be sure to tell everyone you know that you setup a camera system. Unfortunately, this sounds like an "inside" job. They only took a couple specific things, they knew where they were and they knew when you were at work.

If you're set on a camera, you might want to check on game cameras. There's also some 'webcam' type cameras that will record like a surveillance camera, but require your PC to remain on (both in wired and wireless). Either of these would be cheaper than a full purpose built system, won't have all the features, but could be made to work.

Keith

 

[ShaleniFarm]

missingstexas and zzvyb6,
How is the quality of the systems from costco, sams, etc? Do you have low light capability?

thanks.

 

[merrickvilleguy]

I'm a big fan of game cameras, big card and battery ... can be put anywhere and hidden in a tree where they can't be found easily ... most these days are very high resolution (beyond HD).