SANParks.org Forums

Thank you Danie for all the hard work you and your team are doing in keeping the cams running and the cammers satisfied

It is our pleasure Vinkie! If all goes well, exciting times ahead!

Ooooh exciting times ahead??
How wonderful
Any hints Danie?

Thanks for all the work done to get Orpen back online
Will the cam stay in a static position or resume panning and zoom capabilities at some time?
It's fantastic when we are lucky enough to see the animals up closer

Strange seeing the new timestamp I miss the seconds......

I posted two different pictures with the same one....

With www.SANParks.org added to the images, the length of the text became too long and the seconds field had to be dropped, Vinkie.

Thank you Matthys

Still confusing...but it looks beter with the weblink included

A beeeeg and to the our great people (working behind the scenes) for getting Nossob and Orpen online again. Thanks !
For those missing Satara Cam, message from Foxy, from earlier today :

Thanks for the message and hope you have seen lots since, Foxy Loxy

Hi Timbo!

Thanks for the information! Much appreciated! The link to Satara is unfortunately a big headache for us and it is not easy to fix remotely and must be fixed by the telecom company!

Having given the bad news, something that might make you feel a bit better:
The kill you are referring to actually took place next to the fence opposite the Frankel Guest house (Satara) where there is also a small waterhole (not the one where our webcam is). This is on the north-western corner of Satara Rest Camp (close to the camping area as well). Our webcam is at the waterhole on the south-eastern side of the camp. So despite the fact that there is a kill and some lion activity at the moment next to the fence at Satara, even if the the link to Satara (webcam) was working, you would not have seen the kill as it took place roughly about 300/400 metres (following the fence) from the waterhole where our webcam is!

See the map (not to scale) of Satara Rest Camp here. Note where Frankel Guest House (top right corner) is compared to the reception/shop/cafeteria almost on the other side of the camp (bottom of map). The webcam is around 100 metres south-east from this part of the fence (opposite the reception area/restaurant/cafeteria)

We might have been able to see some of the predators visiting the waterhole on webcam to quench their thirst but that is also very unlikely as the kill took place next to another waterhole a few metres away (not on cam )

The telecom company have almost completed the upgrading of telecoms microwave infrastructure feeding Satara (and other sites in Kruger)....better data services and better bandwidth soon with increased reliability we hope as well!

Happy camming!

Apologies for the Orpen Webcam being 'stuck' at the moment! This is not part of the video stream beta test but we had this issue once before. A normal reboot x 4 did not resolve the issue and we are sending in the forces to physically cycle the power to the webcam which should resolve this issue!

Apologies! Should be fixed soon!

Ok bad news after round 1:
The first round of cycling the power physically to the webcam did NOT have the desired effect and the webcam is persistently 'looking' at reception buildings (west) regardless of how many times I send other commands to it. Now and then it decides to look down into the grass and after a while a reset forces the rest camp angle again which is NOT normal. The pan servos (left and right pan does not seem to be moving a mm) and the tilt servos (up and down) are also doing only abt 70 degrees and it should be at least 4x more than that. Not sure if it is a software glitch or something physical. My colleagues at Orpen will now physically visit the webcam to inspect it. They are at Tamboti rest camp sorting out some other issues and will stop by the webcam soon...

Keep you fingers crossed!

Problem fixed (thanks to my colleagues who paid the webcam a physical visit!)

Thanks Danie... is it me or is the cam still popping out of line?

Hi PJL,

You are 100% correct. It looks like all the presets for the tour are at least about 20 degrees off the normal position (too much to the left. I'll fix that just now...reprogramming all presets again one by one. I think the webcam's orientation to its 'home' position must have moved..grrrr!

Thanks for pointing this out! Fixing it as I type.......

Thanks Danie... I'm sure it can wait til tomorrow

No problem PJL..if it has to be done it must be done!

I think the webcam needed one more last piece of medicine, a normal shutdown and reboot and...all presets back into place. Not sure what caused it. So I did not have to do reprogramming of all the presets

So lets hope it behaves now!