Question:
My area looks as if we're in for another wave of thefts, vandalism,
breakins. When I searched google.com for security advice, this website showed
up so often, I decided it might be the best place to ask directly: if
you had to watch out for car thefts/vandalism in a carport, with
access from a residence on the far wall of the carport, what equipment
would you get? It's a small carport, single car width, really.
Electricity is available to run cameras, VCR, that type of thing. I'd
have to drill a hole in that wall for a camera lens.
I'm not sure what to buy and reluctant to find out by inviting a flood
of spam or door-to-door closers to camp out in my living room until I
buy their Belchfire V-8 gizmo with the 24-hour rent-a-cop surveillance
service for a zillion dollars a month. Design and execution help or
pointers to legitimate information gratefully requested. DIY preferred
by a wide margin. Which can be the best advice for Security Camera
Surveillance Equipment usage?
Answer:My mom has been using this system for a couple years:
http://www.smarthome.com/xmasproject6.html. It controls up to 4 cameras with motion-detectors. Normally it cycles
between the cameras until one of it's motion detectors triggers the
controller to switch to that camera and trigger an ordinary VCR to start
recording (using remote control type IR signals) for a selected number
of seconds/minutes, then sends the VCR a signal to stop.
The drawbacks of this unit are: the see in the dark doesn't work (the
built in IR luminators don't work), each camera has a microphone but
records at low volume, old VCRs won't likely work, the controller makes
a beep-beep-beep when triggered, but you can turn this volume down or
off, pets and wind blowing trash or wind chimes :o/ can trigger it, the
cameras can't be hidden without disabling the motion detectors. Also,
when the tape runs to the end it tends to record the last 20 minutes
over and over, unless you've got one of the new VCRs with really fast
rewind (rewind a tape in about 20 seconds). But overall, it's a good
system and we're happy with it. But since the cameras aren't hidden, it's mostly a thing to see what's
going on around the house because it's so obvious it's there.
IF YOU REALLY WANT TO CATCH WHOSE DOING IT then you need to use hidden
cameras and hidden detectors and keep it an ABSOLUTE SECRET FROM
EVERYBODY you're not fully confident will KEEP THEIR MOUTH SHUT or else
the guilty person will just bribe, blackmail, intimidate, threaten or
trick someone else into your trap!!! :oP (experience talkin here) A lot
of times the culprit is RIGHT UNDER YOUR NOSE pretending to sympathize
with you about the thief/vandel, and the only way to catch him is to
keep him fully confident he's keeping you fooled.
If it were me, i'd use the above system, but use custom hidden cameras,
adapted with hidden motion detectors or a hidden switches, either
something that would constantly trigger while the culprit was there or
set the controller for max record time, 5 min i think.
