[Saskboy]

I've had this particular issue in the past and it seems to have popped up again. One of my cameras will take pictures with no apparent motion or animal that would of triggered it. With timestamps on the hour or half hour give or take 20 seconds. The last 6 pictures it took did this then it stopped communicating. The pictures are timestamped like this, not the time it was transmitted, and statistically speaking it's pretty near an impossible feat for some animal to check his watch and do a flyby. Has anyone else with a lookout had this happen or their camera stop communicating till they cycle the power again?

[Ridgetec Support]

Hi Saskboy,
We too have been monitoring for others having this issue of stopping and loosing connectivity until a power cycle. It appears fairly isolated and we have been working through the different variables you have reported. We have narrowed it down to a network problem related to potential tower conflicts in your area. We have opened a ticket with the cellular provider. Following some meetings today we have some ideas to help resolve this for you and our technician will reach out to you shortly.
Thanks!
Ridgetec Support

[danno1400]

Please reply on this site as I am having the same issues, thank you.

[Ridgetec Support]

Hi danno1400,
Please PM us your contact details or call our office at 1-888-966-8929 as we would like to review your camera log with you. Thanks!

[Anthony]

Please reply on this site as I am having the same issues, thank you.

Saskboy mentions several issues. which specifically are you referring to?

[Anthony]

I've had this particular issue in the past and it seems to have popped up again. One of my cameras will take pictures with no apparent motion or animal that would of triggered it. With timestamps on the hour or half hour give or take 20 seconds. The last 6 pictures it took did this then it stopped communicating. The pictures are timestamped like this, not the time it was transmitted, and statistically speaking it's pretty near an impossible feat for some animal to check his watch and do a flyby. Has anyone else with a lookout had this happen or their camera stop communicating till they cycle the power again?

Andrew,

I have seen one instance of a camera that randomly sends a photo on heartbeat. I replaced it for the customer, I have tested it here for 2 months and I have not seen the issue. I know it happened because the customer had me look at his account.

On this issue, my suggestion is to get a replacement.

On your network issues, obviously there is along history but you are the only customer that I know of with these issues.

My suggestion is for you to get a Rogers or Telus card (whichever gives you the best service at your cabin). I will setup your camera to accept this sim and have you run the camera with a debug log. I will set the camera up as "free" so the testing does not cost you anything.

We can then observe and determine if the issues are with AT&T or Telus/Rogers. With the combined knowledge we can take this to AT&T for a solution. I feel the issue is a Roger under AT&T or Telus under AT&T issue. Obviously Canadians are the only ones with this network technology.

Which network carrier in Canada gives you the best coverage at your cabin ? do you have an active sim for it? If so, lets begin a test as I have described.

On the heartbeat + photo camera, I am baffled by this but I feel an exchange is the best course of action. I want the returned camera fully tested to see if the issue is repeatable in a test environment.

Your thoughts ?

[Anthony]

Please reply on this site as I am having the same issues, thank you.

Danno, I checked and your camera has a 15% signal at 3G. With a signal this low, it is likely you have intermittent service. I would strongly recommend an external high gain antenna. I believe this could make the difference with reliability. I would be interested to see what improvement you get. I am testing some new antennas if you would like to try one I can send it to you.

[danno1400]

Anthony that would be great, I don't know why the signal is bad all of a sudden, when I turned the camera on it had 3 bars so I thought it would get even better when I placed the camera 14 feet up the tree. You have been most helpful through this whole process and I really appreciate it.

[Saskboy]

Bell seems to be the best signal for me at the cabin but one important thing to note is that my latest new camera from the latest batch built hasnt done this and it's only 15 yards away from the other one. Could it be a hardware issue even? The camera(latest batch) was sent to replace the other defective one hasnt had any of the issues, and sensitivity seems back to what should be expected so I'm very happy with it so far.

[Anthony]

So, you have two cameras. One is working correctly. what about the other one?

[Saskboy]

Yep #2 works awsome, had it maybe a few months as it was a replacement for the one that was crazy sensitive, take pictures on the heartbeat and would keep freezing up and need power to be cycled. #1 is the first original lookout I ever had, works great most times but has this freezing up problem once and a while and taking pictures on the heartbeat, seldom compared to any previous ones but still there at times.

[Anthony]

And we still feel it can be related to the network (Rogers) under AT&T. Can we do the test with a non AT&T Sim ?

[Saskboy]

We can try whatever you like, you think the sim would cause it to take pictures like it did though? I get the network could be causing it to freeze though, but I found once I got the at&t sim the reliability was much higher as well as overall signal strength.

[Anthony]

We can try whatever you like, you think the sim would cause it to take pictures like it did though? I get the network could be causing it to freeze though, but I found once I got the at&t sim the reliability was much higher as well as overall signal strength.

Chase and I will discuss it today. I really would like to compare but we will figure out the best course of action. Thanks for the patience.

[Anthony]

Anthony that would be great, I don't know why the signal is bad all of a sudden, when I turned the camera on it had 3 bars so I thought it would get even better when I placed the camera 14 feet up the tree. You have been most helpful through this whole process and I really appreciate it.

Dan,

The high gain omni directional antenna is shipping out Fedex today. You will get it one day next week. do you know when you can go out there and try it out ?