Billy's Journal

We started to have complaints about the web cam on Sunday. I took at look at the camera (from the computer) which made me think it was a humidity problem. On Monday, it started to rain. Late that morning I pulled up the Company's email account to find various notes from others around the country asking about the web cam being down. Indeed, I could not pull the camera up in-house. So I walked out on the roof to physically look at the camera.

The camera is located in a waterproof aluminum rectangular container with a gasketed top. The top is spring loaded at the front with a hinge. On the back is a stainless steel latch that locks the top in place. So when you un-latch the back, the top flips up and stays up and out of the way.

When I approached the camera, the top was standing right up with the camera totally exposed to the rain. My first thought was; "Who was up here that would forget to close the top?" In fact, that wasn't the case. The rivets that held the stainless latch in place had rotted out. The latch had fallen on the shingles just below the camera. The waterproof box was full of rain water. The camera was dead.

I would never have thought that the salt air would have rotted the rivets out at the fitting. The box had seemed so weather proof and strong. But you know what they say, a system is only as good as it's weakest link. In this case it was the less noble metal in the rivets!

So today we had Digital Sky over to replace the camera, replace the waterproof box and bring the whole system back on line again. The job was finished and the image of Perkins Cove on line before noon. Miles, the proprietor of DS, was good at getting his techs down first thing after the rain had passed.

I want to thank all of you who emailed me about the web cam. I should have walked out on the roof when the first one came to my attention. Because I didn't it will cost us about $4,500.00. But I do appreciate the emails. Thanks again!