Camera and webcam page technical details:

My camera is an Astak CM-906D wireless color camera, with night vision and weather resistant features, and Astak's model 707 4-channel receiver. Although wireless, this camera requires an A/C (not batteries) power source. My experience with this camera is good, not fantastic. The wireless reception from outdoors to the PC is not as good as, say, a 2.4 gHz cordless telephone handset. The A/C adapter is very bulky, with a 6-foot cord that is too short to reach an outlet from any useful camera location. The camera works OK in very cold weather.

The camera (whether outside or inside) transmits to the receiver (inside), and the receiver uses RCA jacks to connect to a Leadtek WinFast PVR2000 video capture card. The PVR2000 setup process was not simple, and an adapter cable is required because the Leadtek card has only an S-video jack, but overall I am pleased with the Leadtek device. The camera has been jerry-rigged to a metal pole. The overall video system cost (camera, capture card, and associated extras) is about $300 US.

The PC runs Windows XP Pro, with Dorgem open-source webcam capture software. Dorgem is nice for the (free) price. The images are uploaded to my remote web host (HosTek). A new image is captured each minute, overwriting the image from that time on the previous day. Because the webcam PC and the remote server are different computers in different time zones, you might not see what you think should be a current image.

My favorite anecdote that hints at the trials and tribulations of running a webcam comes from the Chautauqua Snowmobilers site (click the bottom left dot on the NYS map) where they comment on interference that causes yellow streaks in their images. They'll try to solve this "by adding a shelf above the refrigerator". :-)