Tower Cams

[beaudodson]

Does anyone know of some decent tower cam companies? Looking for a nice cam to put on a radio antenna tower. Color images and high quality.

Thanks

 

[John Diel]

I don't know of any "Companies" that do this. You might check with your local Security Camera Installers though. Todays Security Camera are very high quality (read: Expensive) and have the ability tolt, pan and zoom. Most of what you see on the local TV station, is usually an older camera that was going out to farm or a small handycam mounted to a panning plate and controlled with one of the old TV antenna rotaters. Getting a Plexi housing for it could be a challenge, but certainly they are available.

Hard wire everything and weatherproof it and your in business. On a system like that, you could easily get away with about $500 or less cash outlay and DIY.

As far as the Security Cameras go, We've got some here at work that have excellent zoom capability and are mounted in weatherproof housings with a 360 degree pan and a 180 degree tilt. I don't know what the cost is, but I would guess between $3K and $4K per camera not including the controller.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Does anyone know of some decent tower cam companies? Looking for a nice cam to put on a radio antenna tower. Color images and high quality.

Thanks
[/b]

You might also look into just using a webcam. It would be much cheaper than going the route of having a camera similar to what TV stations pay for. The tower cam at the TV station I use to work for I think cost about $700 for it. It had the ability to pan, tilt, and all.

Webcams are pretty descent, you can get them from $50-$200. Just enclose it in plexiglass, waterproof the cable and run it to your PC and just get some sort of webcam FTP upload software and you'll be set.

I have a webcam and experimented with this just the other day and worked out quite well.

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

Try:
http://www.axis.com/

Here's an example:

http://www.nwc.ou.edu/webcams.php

Aaron

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Try:
http://www.axis.com/

Here's an example:

http://www.nwc.ou.edu/webcams.php

Aaron
[/b]

Nice cameras but of course, like usual, they fail to put pricing information up on their website. My biggest pet peeve and I stray from companies that will not put their prices up for me to see.

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

Well you could click on the "where to buy" link on top of the page which will lead you to:

http://www.cdw.com/shop/search/results.asp...orm=all&x=0&y=0

 

[beaudodson]

Try:
http://www.axis.com/

Here's an example:

http://www.nwc.ou.edu/webcams.php

Aaron
[/b]

Prices are here as well
http://www.camerasuperstore.com/sonsnnetcolc.html



Those are some nice cameras. Wonder how easy it is to get everything set up like they have it. Those are nice images.

 

[beaudodson]

More here
http://www.webcamproshop.com/category_main.asp?cat_id=39

Sweet camera.

 

[Chris Carlson]

Might wanna look at https://www.earthcam.net/products/

 

[Brett Adair]

www.stratusstation.com

Those are REMARKABLE!

 

[beaudodson]

www.stratusstation.com

Those are REMARKABLE!
[/b]

I think one of our local stations is using that outfit.

Pretty cool. I like the one that the National Weather Center is using. Linked above...