Wait. What?
I suppose this sounds like an April Fools post. I wish it was! To be honest, I had considered a gag post for April 1st but couldn’t round up the gumption to do it. So here I was, minding my own business when I noticed that for the past hour or so, Clary_cam1 had not been uploading pictures. Rebooting didn’t help and I couldn’t connect to it with my phone. So I went to look it over and found that a critter, most likely a squirrel, chipmunk, or maybe even a mouse (given the size of the tooth marks), had chewed the end of the wireless antenna off (picture at left) allowing rain to get inside and shorting it out. Harrumph. Well it turns out the manufacturer used essentially the same antenna on this camera as on the old cameras, so I was able to swap out the antenna with a working one. Problem solved. You’re welcome!
To keep the critters from chewing on it again, I did what I’ve done to keep racoons from eating my corn: I sprinkled it with cayenne pepper. To get it to stick to the antenna I first smeared it with petroleum jelly. Should work. I’ll have to renew it from time to time.
Well done George. Hope the pepper does the trick.
It’s been suggested that squirrels *like* cayenne pepper so I may need to find another solution. Perhaps the petroleum jelly will be unpalatable enough to keep the squirrels, or mice, from chewing on the antenna!
Turns out you can buy replacement antenna pretty cheaply.