is it possible to set up a surf cam?

hay all.

i live on flinders island and want to try to set up some surf cams. it would be awsom not to have to go for a 40min drive to find the surf is no good. is it possible to set up a surf cam? has anyone done set up a remote cam before? i have no idea how this stuff works but it would be cool to be able to get on the net and have a look of what is going on.

hope you all have a magnificent christmas and get some time on the water.

chris

Hi Cray,

I recently went through this exercise a couple of months ago when trying to set up a Pinnaroo Live Cam.

It's difficult unless you have a premises where you can set it up. Perhaps if there's a house which overlooks your favourite break, you may be able to ask them if they don't mind you setting one up.

You need a cam (of course) which has either a hard wired connection to a server or you need a wireless setup which needs a IP Address, then depending upon your internet speed you can either setup a low quality "live" streaming video or have software which uploads photo's every (x times) you select.

I gave up as I had to have it all remote setup which required 240v and a bunch of money, and too many headaches. I talked to three so called techsperts from big name geek computer stores who all scratched their heads.

I even spoke to Laurie who suggested to call the guys who run coastalcam.com.au and ask them. The whole things is fraut with dificulties and the software or hardware seems unstable as the cameras are frequently down.

I gave up, I wish you more success.

Cheers,

KH

oh hang on, you live on Flinders island....you probably don't have 3G there right?

I overlook Seven Mile Beach at Gerroa and feed the wind data to Seabreeze

I setup an IP streaming webcam takes a photo every 5 minutes with the wind and weather details superimposed on it and display it on my website. I also automatically create a few timelapse videos for the last hour, last day and from yesterday. It will also stream live video with tilt and zoom. You can see when the wind starts to blow from these time-lapse videos as the water surface starts to ripple and whitecaps start to form

wx.theshackbythebeach.com/wx/wxcam-history.php

wx.theshackbythebeach.com/wx/webcam_last_day.php

wx.theshackbythebeach.com/wx/webcam_loop.php

wx.theshackbythebeach.com/wx/webcam_yesterday.php

Download my free toolbar to get access to the live camera stream:

www.ourtoolbar.com/

It was fairly straight forward to do using some free software available on a weather forum site, there are links to it on my webpage.

Setting this up remotely would require a secure location overlooking your break with 240v to connect and house the camera (mine is a Linksys PZT IP Camera) and access to broadband, this can either be via 3G/Edge or a copper hardwired connection. The camera would then send the images to your server running the free weather software which could be either in the same location as the camera or remote.

@ Kitehard, send me a PM if you want some info/help?

wx.theshackbythebeach.com/wx/wxgraphic.php?type=banner_big



Cheers
Ian

A little too much time on your hands Andrew?

Merry Christmas mate,

KH

no wind ay

Merry Christmas Darren , Its been a little sad with the wind of late... least its nice enough to go for a spear fish, although i think i need to stop reading terry pratchett novels its influencing my posts.

this could be a cheeper easy way of being able check out the surf. it was released in 2004 so i imagine prices are a lot cheaper now. it could be set up with a small solar charger.

newatlas.com/go/3274/

here 'tis

www.textually.org



EDIT: All reports say this thing is a piece of garbage, plus you need 3G.