Setting up a mountain webcam...

Hi. I've got great access to put up a webcam stream of Tachquitz and Suicide in CA. I can't find any straight info on how to do this. I just want to mount a cam and have it take pics every few hours or so, so that people can check out conditions or just dream.

Anyone know anything?

Sorry I have no info but that would be rad to have a webcam up there!!!

Alot of ways to do this but you need a few basic things. I recommend finding an IT person to work with to get all this setup.

1) Camera to take pictures (they do make hunting cameras that people put on trees maybe that would work best for what you are trying to do)
2) Way to power the camera (assuming this is in the middle of nowhere so probably solar power)
3) Some kinda way to transmit the photos to a server (I would think maybe some of the hunting ones would have something like this built in and probably a way to view them as well)
4) A website or app to view the pictures on that server

Baby cams probably have all this built in except they probably run off wifi, need to figure out a way to power, and they probably don't take well to rain outside.

Sounds like a fun engineering project!

My 0.02, Not the greatest of engineers, but certainly a hobbyist.

Going on Viperscales list...

1) Easiest I can think of would be a Raspberry Pi + one of those little camera modules you can buy. Probably don't need insanely high resolution? Insanely easy to make a tiny photo grabber / ftp server.
2) Tiny solar panel + little LiPo battery supply would not be to bad of a setup.
3) Either find a spot that has free wifi you can connect to with a USB dongle OR pay for a subscription for a hotspot. Unfortunately you'd need to pay per month to have this thing sit out there... Such is life though?
4) This is where I get shaky, more of a hardware guy myself... Ftp back home and post on MP every day?? Oh yeah.

Best of luck!

I'd probably go with a second hand android phone. Has battery, 5v input, wifi and 3g, a screen, keyboard, camera, and is compact and low power.

It will be easier than that. I have a house with broadband. All I need is a camera plus some kind of software to post to a website.

Tradoholic wrote:It will be easier than that. I have a house with broadband. All I need is a camera plus some kind of software to post to a website.

The admin of neclimbs.com has done this. You can ping him to get the details of his implementation:

neclimbs.com/index.php?Page…

Do a little research with Surfline. They have cameras at almost evey beach in California that has surf. Go on to Surfline and check out a few. You can then go to the beach and see the camera for yourself. If they can withstand salty air, they should do well in the mountains.

I set one up once using a raspberry pi and a webcam to watch a new dog I got while I was away. Setup was similar to this: pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi…

Can't get much cheaper than that.

Tyson Anderson wrote:I set one up once using a raspberry pi and a webcam to watch a new dog I got while I was away. Setup was similar to this: pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi… Can't get much cheaper than that.

Big problem is going to be how you connect it to the rest of the world and weather / power. I don't know exactly where these places are but if they are anything like the crags where I live you aren't going to find wifi and you are lucky to get a cell signal at most walls.

ViperScale wrote: Big problem is going to be how you connect it to the rest of the world and weather / power. I don't know exactly where these places are but if they are anything like the crags where I live you aren't going to find wifi and you are lucky to get a cell signal at most walls.

He said it's on a house with an internet connection.

I found this:

optimal.marketing/blog/how-…

Can't be that easy can it?

Tyson Anderson wrote: He said it's on a house with an internet connection.

I can't read btw!

That makes doing all this pretty easy.