Lincoln Sky Knights Field Camera System and Weather Station

Security camera mounted on a green building under a blue sky.

Livestream video and real-time weather data help boost member engagement at the field

By Cliff Davis | [email protected]| Photos provided by the author

Surveillance camera on a green roof under a blue sky. — **01.**The south-facing camera that is mounted to the Lincoln Sky Knights clubhouse in Lincoln, Neb.

02.The AXIS M2036-LE network camera was purchased from Amazon for $429.

Weather sensor and Ecowitt device with antenna and cable, labeled "03". — **03.**The Ecowitt GW3001 weather station, which includes a GW3000 Wi-Fi and ethernet gateway and a WS90 sensor array with an SD card port, was purchased on Amazon for $209.

Streetlight and weather sensor on a rooftop, numbered 04. — **04.**The weather station mast that is mounted to the Lincoln Sky Knights clubhouse.

Outdoor porch with chairs, white siding, teal trim, and a cloudy sky. Number 05 on wall. — **05.**The northfacing camera that is mounted to the Lincoln Sky Knights clubhouse.

The Lincoln Sky Knights RC Club in Lincoln, Nebraska, was looking for a way to engage with its membership and get more modelers out to the field. When our club members saw the December 2023 Model Aviationarticle about the camera installation at the Omahawks RC Inc. club field right up the road from us in Omaha, Nebraska, we knew that they were onto something big; however, our website provider doesn’t support File Transfer Protocol (FTP) access without a hefty additional fee, so we had to go a different direction—that direction was a live feed.

We knew that because of the challenging Nebraska weather, our camera options were limited to something robust that could handle 100° or more in the summer and well below zero in the winter. So not to reinvent that particular wheel, the AXIS M2036-LE camera was chosen, which ended up being a great choice because AXIS cameras have the ability to run third-party software right on the cameras themselves. This then led us to Camstreamer.

The Camstreamer software allows us to livestream video from both AXIS cameras 24/7 to our club’s YouTube channel. From there, a link to the stream can be placed on the club website and shared with members on Facebook. The stream can then be watched at any time from our phones, computers, and even smart TVs that have the YouTube app to see what is going on at the field!

YouTube video titled "Lincoln Sky Knights Field Cam North" with cloudy sky. — **06.**The view from the north-facing camera.

Overcast sky above an empty outdoor field with benches and a shelter. — **07.**The view from the south-facing camera.

We didn’t want to worry about bandwidth since we’d be streaming 24/7, so we went with the new Mint Mobile Home MINTernet service, which came with a free router. While the router isn’t as fully featured as others, it does provide excellent bandwidth at a very low price ($40 a month for unlimited data).

It was important to minimize 2.4 GHz wireless, so the camera system was wired using a simple eightport power over ethernet (POE) switch and a Category 6 enhanced (Cat6e) outdoor-rated cable. The 2.4 GHz radio on the router was also turned off.

Setting up the Camstreamer software was very easy. Buy the one-time license ($299), install the software on your camera with the license key and small software download, and then enter your YouTube channel credentials and start the livestream. Our club liked this so much that we approved a second camera approximately a month later, and now we are livestreaming 24/7 while looking north and south from the clubhouse.

Lincoln Sky Knights members have really enjoyed seeing what’s going on at the field. The north camera is angled to give a good view of our flag and windsock. So far, it feels like we’re seeing more fliers at the field. Who can resist a good flying day when they see a friend out flying? The fear of missing out (or FOMO) means more involvement.

Because the club now has internet at the field, we also installed a weather station on-site and linked it to Weather Underground. A simple mast-type station from Amazon, the Ecowitt GW3001, was used. The station transmits data from the mast to the cabled networked hub on 900 MHz wireless. So far, it has run flawlessly and continues to report weather data once per minute to our Weather Underground station, KNEWAVER40, which is listed in "Sources."