Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Bummer!

Well my 'over-night shipping' that was supposed to get here Saturday...finally came. Yes it is Tuesday. No it doesn't work!

I purchased a security camera aka BARN CAM for the ewes so I could watch what was going on. Just to make sure it worked I plugged it in to my TV and the in the next room set up the camera. There were my dogs...napping in their crates :) I took it to the barn and raced back to the house. It said 'no video signal'. So I thought maybe it wasn't plugged in.....so I ran back to the barn (while slopping mud up on myself and slipping all over the slippery stuff) and it was indeed plugged in. I ran back a forth a good six times (great exercise!) and finally took the TV part to my parents house...as their house is closer to the barn. It worked. UGH. So now I will have to sleep on their recliner in the office to watch the tv in there for the girls.

Not so fast.

If I moved it even slightly the focus would come out. UGH! Now I either need to make some sort of contraption to screw it to, as the 'ideal' spot is about 2 feet from the wall, 5 feet up from the floor and 3 feet down from the ceiling.

Ok folks get creative! How can I get this to work? Maybe I should just send it back and continue sleeping in the barn.....

5 comments:

Jen and Rich Johnson said...

What brand is it? Ours is a cheap clover and it works pretty well by just plugging the receiver into our tv. You can also adjust the direction of both the camera and receive antennaes (which helps). It doesn't have the greatest light sensitivity, however. Other than that, it's great. Our barn cam is about 100 foot from the receiver. Not a lot. Again, it's a no frills model, but it's helped tremendously. I'd never be without it again. I'd like to have a better one, but...

Holly said...

I suggest getting on the marestare(dot)com message board and asking the farm owners there about barn cams.

Franna said...

Try moving both camera and receiver around. The signal will come through glass better than walls, and single pane better than double pane. Also move the antenna around. Two people helps - you probably already figured that out.
It's worth it!
- Franna

Becky Utecht said...

Garrett, I had to laugh at the part about running back and forth through the mud five or six times. I had to do that last year too, for the initial set up. Finally Stan and I used our cell phones to get the proper angle and best reception. Franna's right, if you can move the TV and the camera closer to a window, the reception will be better. I'm having a tough time this year because we got a huge entertainment center (free) and our TV is no longer close to the kitchen patio doors.

Claire MW said...

Hmmmm....I think perhaps you should send it to me. I will test it thoroughly and after lambing season, I will send it back to you. :-)

A long time coming!

 It has been a long time. Too long in fact. We lost access to our farm website and ebonwald website when WEBS.COM was closed by VistaPrint. ...