Shared by eszpee
Sose bízz egy olyan mérnökben, aki nem bír 22-t százzal beszorozni! :)

The headline is true: I’ve made a long range wireless camera triggering device that works at distances up to 20 miles, sometimes more, depending on radio used. This video shows it firing a remote camera some three miles from the transmitter:

The switch

Seems like there’s some regulations with the FCC though that prevents you from using a radio for any purpose other than talking with it, so you might be violating FCC laws by using this thing. If you end up with this switch from me, you have to use it with a tape recorder, or plug it into your Ipod. Okay?

Here’s how it started: In early 2008 I shot a Red Bull Air Race here in San Diego. Planes raced over San Diego Bay, flying through gate pylons in sideways positions. I wanted to make a cool shot, so I got on a boat, went out to one of the floating docks which had an air gate on it, mounted a camera at the base looking up, with the idea of shooting the planes just feet above as they raced through the gate at 200 miles per hour.

Bad thing was, it didn’t work. The gate where my camera was mounted was only about three football fields away, in the line of site, but they were out of range of my Pocket Wizards (I had a guy with the transmitter ashore).

So my quest to make a long range, reliable, radio camera trigger began. I started by going to a radio controlled airplane hobby shop and asking a lot of questions. I left with an airplane control transmitter and receiver, and Frankensteined together a trigger on the receiver side to fire my camera. Problem was, the range of the thing was still lousy, and there was a lot of interference, setting off my camera at random unwanted times.

So I found a better solution by using walkie-talkies. I made a special switch that works in conjunction with walkie-talkies, any walkie-talkies, the kind of walkie-talkies that sell at Walmart and Target and Radio Shack for $40-$80. Suddenly I had a camera remote trigger with 80 times the range of a Pocket Wizard - 25 miles. Twenty five miles, depending on the radio used and the conditions. In urban areas, the range is NOT that long. Read on!

• Is it legal? NO! Possibly not. The device I make is only a switch, similar to a light switch. It does not emit, receive or transmit radio signals on its own. So yes, on its own, just sitting there on the desk, it is legal. But there are FCC rules which prevent two way radios from being used for anything other than talking. If you use radios to trigger a switch, like this set up, it may violate FCC rules. So I am only making them for people who want to plug the thing into a radio, tape player or Ipod. You can use that kind of a device (ipod, radio, tape recorder) to trigger the camera. But you’d have to be standing right there, next to the ipod or radio and camera, turning it off and on, to trigger the camera.

• How it works. There are three cables coming out of the switch. One connects to a nine volt battery, the other (a mini phono plug) plugs into your walkie-talkie’s headphone jack, the other plugs into your camera’s shutter input. Place remote camera, walkie-talkie and switch together somewhere, and keep the second walkie-talkie with you. To take a picture, just push the walkie talkies Push To Talk (PTT) button. Hold it down for as long as you want the camera to take pictures.

• Range: I have tested the setup with a camera deep inside a building in downtown San Diego, drove two miles away - with multiple buildings in between us - and the camera still fired when I triggered it from that distance. It’s a stupid-simple, long range camera trigger solution, and it works! The video above shows it in action at a distance of about three miles. The camera trigger switch is not dependent on audio quality. It can be crystal clear audio, or faint static and gibberish coming from the radio: the switch will still work. As long as there is some sort of interaction happening between the two radios, even if faint, the switch will fire your camera. The range is determined by the radio used with the switch. Most radios sold at places like Target or Walmart claim 12 miles to 28 mile maximum distances. Price for these radios varies from $29-$80 or more. Average price is about $45 for a pair of walkie-talkies (also called two-way radios).

• Size: I enclosed the switch and nine volt battery in a case used for carrying cell phones. The swith attaches to a walkie-talkie’s headphone jack on one end, and the camera on the other end. The switch has an on/off switch.

• Interference: None! None to date at least. Today’s walkie-talkies (two way radios) aren’t the same AM type things you used as a kid, or even a couple years ago. The technology has greatly improved, preventing bleedover and other interference, by incorporating things like Interference Eliminator Codes (121 per channel on my Motorola radios) which offer superior interference protection. Radios also have QT noise filtering, which filters out unwanted transmissions from other channels or maker’s radios. I live downtown San Diego, next to a train station and shopping mall, and when I put the radio on a certain channel, and select one of the 121 additional interference eliminator code, that channel is all mine, and there’s no interference from taxis, shopping mall employees, shoppers, police, train station employees, security guards, etc. The technology seems to work pretty good. I let it sit on that channel all day, and it stays quiet.

• Compatible cameras: Can be made for any camera with shutter release plugin.

• Delay? There is a very slight delay from the time you push the walkie-talkie’s transmit button until the camera takes a picture. It is about 1/4 to 1/2 second. As a result, you may have to anticipate moments more so than you normally would.

• More about it: If you use a switch like this, you need to have walkie talkies and a nine volt battery. The triggering device plugs into a walkie-talkie’s headphone input, usually a mini phone plug, so make sure your walkie-talkies have a jack for headphones or VOX. You need a nine volt battery to power the switch. The switch has an on and off switch. In the on position, the drain on the battery only takes place while the switch is in use, so as a result, it will have a very long life.

• Is this device patented? I have a patent pending on this camera trigger. A provisional patent application was filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in October 2008. A utility patent may be issued within 12 months.

If you would like one of these switches I can custom make it. Please allow two weeks, since it is made from scratch. Also, if used with a walkie talkie you are possibly violating FCC rules which say that walkie talkies can be used only for talking, and not triggering devices like this. So use as a novelty item instead, with a Ipod or tape recorder. The sound from those devices can also trigger the camera.