If you're here you are probably already familiar with the "fun-for-the-whole-family" pastime known as Wardriving. The term Wardriving grew from the early days when Wardialing was a common practice. In keeping with tradition there is now a new WarXing pastime.
Enter the world of WarViewing or WarSpying as its sometimes known. With WarViewing participants drive, walk, bike, fly, or in any other way move around in search of analog wireless video signals.
As we have witnessed over the last several years, more and more people are taking the plunge into the wireless realm. Whether its with cellular telephones, wireless internet, and now even wireless video. One of the most well known companies is the X10 company which sells a wide variety of 2.4 GHz wireless video cameras for use in the home and office. Several other companies also market consumer 2.4 GHz video products for sending video around the home. Most of these products allow the user to select from a variety of (often 4) channels. While the channels are not always identical between different brands of products, several users began to discover that they could quickly scan the channels to see if anyone was transmitting in the area. Low and behold they began to find things, from Nannycams to security, and traffic cameras.
The next step was to start modifying the receivers to allow for more sensitive antennas and channel scanning for those receivers that did not support it off the shelf.
More recently Icom released a receiver with a built in LCD screen that could allow users to view FM video in the 2.4 GHz band. While this is a small convenient package it has two major downfalls. First of all, the receiver has incredibly poor sensitivity in the 2.4 GHz range. Also it has an upper limit frequency of 2.45 GHz, and there is plenty of video to be found above that frequency including some of the channels on the X10 cameras and similar products.
AOR also has an external video demodulator that plugs into the 10.7 MHz IF output of their receivers. There are unfortunately problems with this solution as well. First off, its expensive...well over $1,000 for the receiver and demodulator, which is well out of the range of the casual hobbyist. Secondly the bandwidth of the IF output is too narrow to provide optimal demodulation of the video. Some users have reported that side by side, the el cheapo receiver that comes with the camera still outperforms the $1000 super set up in both clarity and sensitivity.
However, AOR has a new TV demodulator module that installs INSIDE the AR8600MKIIB, its called the TV8600. This new demodulator taps at a point with 10 MHz of bandwidth (more than sufficient for video) and then routes the composite video out the old 10.7 MHz IF jack. This is very likely be the best WarViewing receiver available. However it too is around $1000. It should also be mentioned that this receiver can be controlled by computer and the software allows for interfacing with a GPS for location logging. See where I'm going with this...starting to sound like Wardriving?
So, if the off the shelf receivers don't get all the channels, and the commercial scanners suffer from design flaws or are just too expensive then what's the best way to WarView? Simple...A hearty serving of DIY!
If you are inclined to put in a small amount of work and build your own receiver check out www.TVHAM.com. They offer a wide variety of products for Ham Radio ATV use. Of interest to the WarViewer however is their ENG line of receivers and LCD controllers. By combining the receiver and the LCD controller you have a fully tunable microwave video receiver that tunes from 2.2 to 2.7 GHz. What can you find in this frequency range? Lots! Aside from what I mentioned above many other users transmit analog video in these ranges. This includes, remote news vans and helicopters, law enforcement helicopters, bomb squad robots, the space shuttle, HAM radio ATV, the Goodyear Blimp, the cameras inside racecars, NFL Referee Hat Cam and more! The LCD controller can also be used to control many other types of video receivers like the Wavecom receivers or any other receiver that uses the SP5055 Tuner IC. But more on this later.
If you'd like more information about how to modify your existing receiver or how to build your own setup check this page often as I will be updating and expanding it to provide you with the information you need to be a first-class WarViewer.
