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CAMERAS ON DOGS

CAMERAS ON DOGS

Postby Gil » Tue Mar 19, 2013 9:03 pm

Many years ago I designed a miniature microwave camera to fit Police dogs after the Hungerford Massacre.
From that, and after 5 years of trials on head harnesses I learnt an incredible amount about the dog and its muscle groups, as did many experts. The head fitted with a simple harness carrying a lightweight camera, stayed absolutely still when the dog ran at a target. It was like a giro stabilised platform, and produced fantastic footage in all conditions.
I tried it much later, on a gun dog as camera technology got greatly reduced, and was amazed to record and watch the habits of my dog.
Try it, worth watching as a brilliant training aid for gun dogs ;)
Suggestion would be if you want to try this find a good HD camera that the freefall guys use and be amazed what your little fella gets up to with his nose!!
'Tonight my men and I have been through hell and back again, but the look on your faces when we let you out of the hall - we'd do it all again tomorrow.'
Major Chris Keeble's words to Goose Green villagers on 29th May 1982
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Re: CAMERAS ON DOGS

Postby Shaun A. » Tue Mar 19, 2013 9:07 pm

I've watched a few on YouTube, great seeing it from a dogs perspective :thup:
Is it the GoPro you use?

Shaun.
Go fetch to me a pint o wine,
And fill it in a silver tassie;

Robert Burns, 1789.
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Re: CAMERAS ON DOGS

Postby Gil » Tue Mar 19, 2013 9:32 pm

Shaun,
No mate, but that would do it OK albeit, a tad larger than I would use as they are quite heavy. The hardest part was designing a head harness for several breeds at the time with slippable Velcro loops on the harness so they could be adjusted for each dogs sized head, without them being disillusioned from the task at hand and continually pawing at their ear area.The camera sat perfectly between the ears without touching them on the flat part of the skull.
As I said above that one area of work took five years to iron out in amongst all the other work I was doing at the time, but it was a warm feeling to have achieved it, and now I see various copies on the same theme, and I hear new dog handlers inquire that it should be designed.....just shows the wheel has come 360 quicker than I thought on that one. My original system was to microwave the monochrome images out of a location in a reliable unbroken format, so that we could see what the dog was indicating at.
Best fun was rigging up a trained Eagle with batteries and microwave TX and camera assisting the BBC History programme many years ago, so it could swoop down and catch a rabbit, 5 seconds of brilliant video recorded, but hours in the waiting with a very pissed off Eagle :lol: :lol:
This was one I worked on for a muzzle camera system for sniffer dogs, this one was a bugger for eating the evidence :lol: :lol:
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WOLVES MUZZLE CAMERA 2007 001.jpg
'Tonight my men and I have been through hell and back again, but the look on your faces when we let you out of the hall - we'd do it all again tomorrow.'
Major Chris Keeble's words to Goose Green villagers on 29th May 1982
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Re: CAMERAS ON DOGS

Postby stumpyb » Wed Mar 20, 2013 5:48 pm

All the videos of gundogs working I have seen have been mounted on the collar, below the head. It makes for a very bouncy video! Is the system you worked on available to buy, and if so is it at a cost the general public could afford?
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Re: CAMERAS ON DOGS

Postby Fenrir » Wed Mar 20, 2013 8:28 pm

I think you will see this with pretty much any carnivore which relies on running down its prey.
For the avoidance of doubt, there is no such thing as "American English". There is the English language and there are mistakes.
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Re: CAMERAS ON DOGS

Postby Gil » Thu Mar 21, 2013 6:38 pm

Stumpy,
Due primarily to greedy people who copied my original designs in manufacturing, I would always advocate buying the cheapest option available now as technology has come on leaps and bounds over the years, and unless used in really life threatening situations, you can waste a lot of money.
A new produced dog camera kit as used by Police and Military will cost you over £8K............absolutely ridiculous as it still uses the same microwave technology and the same frequency, with better antennaes I grant you, which are produced at either end of the price barrier.

By using a four channel 2.4Ghz pinhole camera the size of your small finger lasting for 5 hours on an internal rechargeable Li-ion battery as shown on my picture above, reporting to a microwave receiver handheld recorder with SD card, normally found in baby monitoring and a head or collar harness you have achieved an effective system that works well in open areas away from built up areas up to 200-300 metres on a good day.
It provides you with what the dog is doing which is the aim afterall
Cost £150 for both
'Tonight my men and I have been through hell and back again, but the look on your faces when we let you out of the hall - we'd do it all again tomorrow.'
Major Chris Keeble's words to Goose Green villagers on 29th May 1982
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