I've had tiny wireless CMOS video cameras in some of my tanks for a few years now and it is a lot of fun to drive around looking at the world from a miniature tank commander's viewpoint. It becomes a real blast when you have an opponent with similar kit built into his tank. All of a sudden, stalking your opponent from cover, remaining out of sight until you are ready to fire and skilful use of camouflage are much more involving than the normal RC tank battles where each participant can oversee the battlefield from a helicopter viewpoint.
Up until recently however, anyone wanting to do all this has had a real problem, because wireless video cameras only came in 4 frequencies (channels). Which meant of course, that only four RC tank models could take part at the same time. That's kind of OK, but it would be much better if you could get a hold of a wireless video system with more than 4 frequencies. Well, you can now.
The Chinese electronics industry (don't we just love them!) has come up with a 15 channel audio video transmitter the size of a largish matchbox (see pic). These are about the £40 mark (or were before the pound started dropping through the floorboards!). They come with the miniature transmitter and a receiver to pick up the signals and all the cables you need to connect to just about anything. You can switch between the 15 channels just by pushing a button on the two devices. Of course you need a miniature video camera to connect to your transmitter but these can be bought for less than £10 on e-bay and usually come with a built-in miniature microphone too.
And you'll need some sort of screen to display the wireless video feeds. You can buy small tv/video monitor for this on e-bay (they usually retail at £20+ ). You can even use one of the cheap baby-monitors instead, or a laptop if you have access to one.
Here's a clip I've put together of my Tiger. The camera is fitted into the chest of the loader who is standing in the turret hatch. The reception isn't too good because I recorded the video feed from our computer room (spare bedroom) at the front of the house and the tank was running out in the back garden.
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I've got three of these video transmitters and I'm hoping to add them to more of my RC models. I'm thinking of trying to make at least one into a "universal" module which can be placed on any tank, perhaps disguised as boxes and stowage. I'll post the results on this forum if it works out.
Cheers
Chris
