Sending digital pictures and/or video with RF

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212

Senior Member
I searched and came up blank? Maybe I missed it, or maybe nobody has discussed it on here yet. I'm curious about using the new found Hope RF units to send and receive digital pictures and/or video. Sending data about something, and having an alarm go off is nice, but a picture is worth what...1000 words...so goes the saying :) There are already commercially made units that do this, but for $$$. I sure would like to have one, but me...-$$$
 
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manuka

Senior Member
It's possible BUT those Hope units are still pretty slow! As even modest .jpg images run to 10k-100k bytes,those still lumbered with dial up modems will verify V E R Y tedious transfer rates result. I recall my first digital camera in 1997 had only serial output, & it was a PAIN to transfer images to a PC.

Many clever "bit by bit" image transfer techniques have evolved in the past, with SSTV (Slow Scan TV) perhaps the most appealing for any investigations =>http://www.hamuniverse.com/sstv.html Radio hams have long been at the forefront of this. A recent digital version (DSSTV) is particularly nifty. I'd be interested in taking this further. Stan ( Radio ham since 1966)
 
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Brietech

Senior Member
I was actually able to successfully capture a 128x123 pixel, gray-scale picture with a 28x1 wired directly up to a camera sensor, and then relay it back via serial at 19200, and it took about a minute to transmit.
 
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212

Senior Member
I am one with the dial-up...I thought it was fast ??? Kidding, but if that's all you have ever had it is not too bad. I have read a lot of your posts and I figured you would be the first to reply :) I had one of those cameras too, I wish I still had it now, I bet it would be simple to use for this...You could even tell it to take a picture with the serial connection. I know you have a lot of things going, I just wanted to know if it was even possible. Now I have a lot to read up on huh.

Here is what I have in mind, but a homebrew version. They recently updated the site with videos where they used to just tell you in print. I have not seen them...dial-up again.

http://www.buckeyecam.com/main/index.php


Brietech, I blame my connection speed for missing your post. (but I'm just slow)
That is very encouraging!
 
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Brietech

Senior Member
That's a pretty neat system (and from athens, OH, no less! My girlfriend went to school there). I was able to transmit data ~5 miles or so with a pair of these: http://www.digi.com/products/wireless/xtend.jsp, although they still cost $$ (although not $$$!).

Lowest cost system - get a pair of those wireless walky-talkies they sell at places like radioshack...somewhere on this forum, I think, there is a thread about sending data using FSK or something very similar. The gameboy camera I got on ebay for about $5, i'm sure you can probably still get them. It would definitely work, it would just be slow and have bad quality (like most picaxe projects! *I kid*) =)
 
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manuka

Senior Member
Colour SSTV over cheapie UHF walkie talkies is a breeze- lots of free PC software about. Legalities however emerge (here in Aus/NZ anyway) as most channels are STRICTLY designated VOICE ONLY, with the 2 data chs. having a RIGID " 3 seconds an hour" usage restriction.
 
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moxhamj

New Member
There are 5W 2.4Ghz video transmitters on ebay and I've certainly got many hundreds of metres with a simple antenna. And yagis are pretty easy to build at these frequencies and I've found they do extend the range markedly.

But the resolution is still limited to webcam resolution. I'd like to use a proper digital camera, save the data to a SD ram card then use a picaxe driven device to read that SD card and transmit the data in packets using something like the Hope modules.
 
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stocky

Senior Member
manuka said:
with the 2 data chs. having a RIGID " 3 seconds an hour" usage restriction.
Click to expand...
we are working on this - we have a bit of a lobby group going to get this relaxed (at least in ACMA designated "medium" & "low" density zones)
There was a major oversight in that law and many of us suspect the HOUR was supposed to be MINUTE

Talking to ACMA they say "3 seconds is plenty of time" and it is for POINT TO POINT - but for any sort of SCADA or other POINT TO MULTIPOINT it is unworkable as the central radio or concentrator needs much more airtime to talk to all the remotes

BUT - we do have a product that is capable of sending a colour digital still image or up to 640x480 over UHF CB in a reasonable time - fast enough to be useful in a cattle/sheep remote monitoring sense - not cheap (mainly the camera is the exy bit) but thats being worked on too...


stocky
 
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stocky

Senior Member
Dr_Acula said:
There are 5W 2.4Ghz video transmitters on ebay and I've certainly got many hundreds of metres with a simple antenna. And yagis are pretty easy to build at these frequencies and I've found they do extend the range markedly.

But the resolution is still limited to webcam resolution. I'd like to use a proper digital camera, save the data to a SD ram card then use a picaxe driven device to read that SD card and transmit the data in packets using something like the Hope modules.
Click to expand...

Product reffered to above uses a commercially available IP camera with a firmware *cough* "hack" *cough* to allow the camera to start automatically on power-up, take pic, send data out via serial interface to RTU device which then formats data into pages to be sent back over link.

Also I have heard of a devices from Canadia that you can plug a composite camera into and talk to the board via serial to take images, download "sections" of image, specify alarm zones etc etc

Stocky
 
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manuka

Senior Member
Stocky: Give me a yell if you want a Kiwi perspective on that UHF CB data usage. I've put in quite a bit of effort myself about this crazy "3 seconds " ( & yes- also view it as a typo blunder!), but to no avail....
 
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