While I don’t need no stinkin’ badgers, I apparently have one:
(Note, thats a badger…not the Badger.)
Just rolled in the door from the Beta Site. Did a redeployment of Starlink, Jackery/panels, wireless cams, and a few other things. Biggest lesson learned was that Im never as smart as I think I am. But…gotta cook dinner and get ready for work tomorrow, so details about this trip will be tomorrow, most likely.
Hope you all had a happy Paratus!
So its been a week since I left the Jackery and panels set up at the Beta Site and left Starlink running off it so I can get live camera feeds from up there. How has that worked out, you ask?
TL;DR: awesome.
The first three days of the week were rainy and virtually sunless. As a result, the Jackery hit a low of 51% charge. After that, the sun came out and that brought it up into the mid-70% range, then 80%, and for the last two days its beein in the 93-100% range. So, for that entire length of time, Starlink was consistently running 24/7. Because there was active internet there the whole time, I could check the battery charge as often as I wanted and get real-time metrics. Here’s a few screenshots from the Jackery app:
As you can, at this particular moment in time the Starlink was drawing 17 watts. It’s draw fluctuates anywhere from 10 to 35 watts depending on how much data is going as opposed to just ‘standing by’ with the cameras off. However, what this seems to indicate, and Im an idiot in regard to electricity so perhaps Im being naive, is that for about every one hour of sunlight I’m getting about ten hours of internet.
In addition to the information shown above, it also tracks historical energy input from the panels. Observe:
SO, long story short, this was enough to let me remotely access the two remote wireless cameras I had set up. Each individual camera came with a small solar panel to power it’s internal battery. I replaced the came-with-it panel with something a little larger becase nothing kills like overkill. At one point during the three days of rain the cameras got down to about 60% charge but once the sun started doing its thing theyve been in the high 90%’s ever since.
Because I’m concerned about battery conservation, I havent left these cameras running 24/7. I just check them a couple times a day to see how the weather is up there. Because they are not running 24/7, the individual cameras seem to be doing a good job of staying ‘topped off’.
One issue I’ve had is that as I was placing a second camera, I was limited by the range of the wifi connection from the Starlink. If I’m going to continue this project, I need to move the Starlink to a location that is withing range of both cameras.
Speaking of cameras. It turns out that CostCo sells the same brand of camera but the next higher grade for only $20 more than the ‘entry’ camera from this brand that I picked up. DIfference? Separate zoom lens, remote control floodlight, and a bunch of other nice features. Absolutely worth the $20 difference, hands down. CostCo is selling it at $119, and Amazon has it currently for $139.
Unfortunately, as much fun as I am having with this, it’s going to have to come to an end soon. It appears that the Jackery battery is of the type that does not do well with being recharged when it is below freezing. What this means is that if I want to continue this fun over the winter, I need to put together a battery/charging system that uses batteries that are indifferent to being discharged/charged at temperatures below freezing.
This isn’t a flaw with the Jackery…it’s not marketed as an all-season outdoor product. Its marketed as a camping and blackout sort of gear. In those capacities, it seems to be excellent. For my purposes, its great for use during the summer months but for winter use I’m going to have to come up with something else. And, yes, the make self-heating lithium batteries but heating via electricity is incredibly inefficient and high draw.
Over the winter the batteries would be sitting in the unheated conex, so any battery solution must be predicated on that kind of environment. More research awaits.
But, in the meantime, I’m really enjoying how this is working out so far. If I lived in a place where freezing temps were not an issue, like the southern states, I’d totally have this setup going all the time.
I’ll be heading up to the Beta Site tomomrrow to install a third webcam over the area where the bears have been munching that dead mule deer. I’m exceited to see if I can get some live-action bear cam.
I had mentioned that the wireless camera I had set up was running on its own internal battery that was recharged using a Goal Zero panel I plugged it into. The weather has been absolute crap since Saturday when I set it up, however there have been sporadic moments of sun. Camera is reporting back that it is at 67% charge.
The Jacekry, which has been running 24/7 since Saturday, is showing 86% charge, although it has been up and down from that over the last couple days as patches of sunlight show up. I’ll be heading up there Wednesday to do some camera adjustments, but I’m curious to see how long things can go unattended. Worst case, I can run the generator Wednesday to recharge the Jackery but I suspect as the weather improves there will be enough sunlight to keep things going.
Obviously, all bets are off when the snow gets here, although I suspect with a large enough array of panels, setting them at a steep angle to prevent snow buildup will work as long as the loss of sunlight from the steep angle is offset by simply having more panels. We’ll see.
But, for now, about 48 hours into this experiment and its working….so far.
The bears have gotten smaller and more colorful.
So yesterday I set up a game camera over the Dead Thing to see what happens. What happens is I have about 40 pictures of a fat bear eating and sleeping:
And I’m not 100% certain, but I believe a different bear decided to check out the conex:
Bear season opens in three weeks. I’m buying a tag ‘just in case’.
I just installed the new game camera Thursday. Between then and this morning this is whats taken place on that one camera:
Bobcat?
Why so busy?????
When I was up there Thursday I noticed a weird smell near the cargo container area. It reminded me of the zoo. My first thought was that one of the container delivery guys had taken a dump in the woods. The more I thought about it, I figured I had rolled through some cow patties on the way up there and thats what I was smelling. Satisfied that was the source, I didnt give it any more brainpower.
Rolled in there early this morning and as I puled up several large birds took to the air. “Somethings not right”, I said. A couple turkey buzzards took off. “Something’s dead”, I said. Got out of the vehicle and caught that smell again. Now I knew what it was. Somewhere around there was a dead…thing. An animal, most likely although I wouldnt be too surprised to find a dead human. Stuff happens.
Donned my 10mm, grabbed the AK and descended into the brush. I followed the smell and it got way stronger. I flipped the safety off the AK just in case, and found this poor bastard:
That upper jaw I’m poking with the AK had all sortsa fresh blood around it…grass was still red with the vibrancy. And more than a few mounds of what was quite obviously bear poop. I think I figured out why the sudden influx of predators. So, now that I know theres a dead animal there that the bears and lions are munching on, what should my course of action be?
Mount a game camera over it, of course! Should be some very interesting pics coming from that!
So one mystery solved. Fall bear season opens in three weeks. I was on the fence about whether to ruin a bruin or let them be. Might buy a tag ‘just in case’.
Enjoy the pics, guys. And, for those curious, container leveling went okay but it was a bit of work. I’ll have a post about that at some point
So, went up to the Beta Site after work to check out the new cargo container. They did a good job and even levelled it as best they could. However, I still need to jack it up and get some concrete blocks under it because I want it higher off the ground. That’ll be something to do tomorrow. While I was up there, I also wanted to put in some more game cameras for security for the new container and to record the increased traffic of predators up there.
This morning, I was awoken to my phone alerting me that there was activity and pictures were available. Allow me to sum it up with this:
Yeah, it was a bear-centric 24 hours. First of all, this morning gave me this bruin:
That light in the background is the flash going off from the other game cam I set up there yesterday. The bear in the picture? Did not come alone:
That’s right, guys. Its a family affair up there. Whats that you say? You wish there were better pictures? No problem, man…here you go:
Mom and cub? That moves the needle a little bit on the threat-o-meter. It’s a veritable Wild Kingdom up there.
Its looking like my larger security threat is the bears rather than humans (for now). Wasn’t expecting that. I have a couple game cam pics here that show me in the truck putting up the game cams….and the previous pic shows the bears walking through seven minutes earlier.
I’m not going to call it a bear problem, but its certainly a ‘bear diverse’ area.
An interesting side note…on the way back from dinner last night I managed to get pulled over by some young buck on the police department. (Failure to signal for the right turn at the light, I am told.) Mind you, at the moment I had a Winchester 1200 and an AK sitting behind my seat, and the big Glock 10mm sitting on the dashboard. He asks for my license and proof of insurance. No problem, I say, and hand over the license. Insurance, he asks? Thats gonna take a sec, I gotta dig around for it, I reply. He says “Yeah, theres a lot of guns here I don’t think I want you digging around in there.”. My response? “Dude, there is a shitload of guns in this truck.” Got off with a warning. I wonder if he’ll mention the interaction to some of the older officers there who will say “Oh him? He’s always like that.” Good times.
You guys are gonna love this…….
Ya ready?
Yea?
You sure, now?
Ok…behold:
Lions, no tigers, and bears..oh my!
I appear to have bought a zoo.
Yogi showed up 90 minutes after I was standing in that same spot. My two greatest threats up there are humans and griz, in that order. Black bears bears of color aren’t exactly harmless but I put the risk of going mano-a-bearo way down on the list. Sure, I won’t turn my back on one but I’d bet if I yelled and waved my arms at him he’d run like the wind. And if not….:::shrug:::…things happen.
The antlerless short-legged elk have returned…….
But wait…theres more…..
