BirdCam - While we wait for some more hardware to extend the network at home so Stoker the Cat can have her webcam back, we will feature in the meantime our bird feeder at home in Saxonburg, PA. We put on quite a feed for the birdies of the area - 50 lb bag of stripped sunflower seeds a week. Sometimes we see some rare ones.

Done! Karim in Cairo has sucessfully installed our new Power over Ethernet unit for the camera and a new UPS now supports the power needs of the network modem/router, switch and PyramidCam power source. Well done! Next comes leveling the camera and a final positioning on the hotel roof.

May 9th - Busy Day! The PyramidCam Team is at work and camera will be off and on today as we install a new UPS for the camera and network at the hotel and add a Power over Ethernet unit for the camera. We hope that this should eliminate the infamous "Pink Screen" that we sometimes get when the city voltage dips very low, or when the back-up generator at the hotel comes on after a power cut. Karim is out there doing the heavy lifting with Rami in support (on their Friday day off) and I'm here in Saxonburg, PA (7 hours behind) shouting encouragement over the Echolink connection that Karim and I have so he can talk to me from the roof of the hotel. Echolink is a means for two ham radio operators to talk to one another using the Internet and VHF radios. Karim is licensed SU1KA and I'm licensed W3BH. Vance (10 hours behind) is standing by in California to provide tech support and remote quality control.

Karim will level the camera itself so we don't a 'tilted Pyramids' image in the frame. And, correct the time on the image. We'll see how it goes...

Rallye des Pyramides - Be a devil! Do something really different and adventurous this year and join Siag Travel in April at the Rallye de Pyramides which they will be sponsoring and hosting. If you live in Egypt or will be visiting Egypt in late April, Siag offers a number of options for watching the rally and for visiting El Alamein, the Oasises, the North Sea Coast, and the Pyramids, of course. Have a look at the interaries and prices offered by Siag Travel for this April 2008 desert event:

One day | Three days | Four days rally | Four days bus
Four days your car | Ten days for residents | Full 11 days rally

 

PyramidCam on Google Earth - Here you should find our placemarks that locate the Pyramids, the Sphinx, the Sound and Light Show and our camera position. You will have to have Google Earth installed to view.

Weather - Go here to have a look at the latest weather activity. The red area over Egypt indicates local instability. This is the time of the year when the Khamasins roll through the area bringing dust and rain storms.

 

 

 

Best Images Slideshow - a Google Image Album of some of our best images captured over the past two years at PyramidCam.

 

 

Friday 29 - Thanks and hats off to Karim and Rami for getting us back on line. Karim has given the enclosure glass a good clean and the images are again sharp and clear. Should be a great Sound and Light Show tonight.

Welcome to PyramidCam. I've carried out a minor redesign to allow the page to load faster and to make it possible to better organize our content. The image gallery needs a total overhaul and I'm working on that. We capture an image every 30 seconds and have been doing so 24/7 for the past 30 months - do the math and you'll see what we're faced with.

The Forum is back up and there you will find a number of friends checking in who are deeply interested in Egypt and the Pyramids. We also have a rolling news feed that ferrets out and posts articles about Egypt, the Pyramids and Egypt archaeology. The Forum is a good place to check in before you begin your plans to visit as many of our members have made more than one trip to Cairo and can help you with most any of your questions about what to expect and what to do after you arrive.

Background - PyramidCam was started in 2005 by Jim Sorenson and Vance Kozik with the indispensable support and assistance of Rami Siag of Siag Hotel and Travel. Our camera is deployed from the top of the Siag Hotel in Giza, the best possible vantage point to view the entire Pyramids Plateau. StarDot Technologies provides our IP webcams, which produce the highest quality images possible - and which are so reliable that we have not had a single minute of down time due to camera failure over the past two and a half years.

Support - Our site is entirely "not for profit" and therefore we very much appreciate it when you check out the ads and the websites of our partners - The ads go some way to support the project, but not nearly far enough to prevent us from going out of pocket from time to time to keep things running. Donations via PayPal are also very much welcome, indeed.

Purpose - PyramidCam was conceived principally to provide a unique high quality view over time of the Pyramids at Giza for those around the world who might never have the opportunity to visit - we meant for it to be the next best thing. We also wish to encourage Egypt tourism and judging from the millions of viewers we are reaching and the many many emails that we have received praising the site, wondering at the unique power and beauty of the Pyramids and (the writers) promising to make a visit at the first opportunity, we know we have succeeded, at least in some small degree.

Weather - the NetCamXL IP webcam that we are running features an external weather station and you can read the real time temperature, humidity and barometric pressure directly from the station's sensors if you check just under the date and time in the upper left hand corner of every live image. Each image will give you the actual date, time and weather conditions in Cairo as well as a live view of those weather conditions.

PyramidCam Items and Features - In the past we have posted images, stories, reviews of local trips, movies and other items of interest concerning Egypt and the Pyramids here on the home page. We will continue to do so, but in brief. The main body of these features will accessible through a link to another page on the site. To see what we have covered over the past six months, go here. This is still very much a work in progress.

Odds and Ends - We try to be "live" on a 24/7 basis, but there will be times when the system goes down. At those times we will substitute a recent static image in the frame until things are working properly again. Like everybody else in Cairo, we were affected by the recent cable cuts. We sometimes have issues with power and have to shut down until power is restored. The Giza Governorate has been upgrading telephone lines and we may temporarily loose our line from time to time. Despite these problems, the camera has reminded live over 98% of the time since it first went on the air in 2005. Also, you may hit the site when it's pitch dark here in Cairo and there does not seem to be a lot happening on our black screen. However, we've had many interesting image captures of meteors, setting planets, the moon, satellites, airplane lights and even fires during the nightime period. Watching the Pyramids Plateau at any hour of the day and night can have its surprises - check out our image galleries to see what I mean.

I'm way behind on emails - I've just recently deployed from Cairo to Saxonburg, PA and am just beginning to catch up with my correspondence. The only difference it will make for PyramidCam is that I'll be living here and visiting there for a change. We've got a great crew at the Siag Hotel, so not a lot will change.

Please support us by bookmarking www.Pyramidcam.com, visiting our Google ads; and by checking out the websites of our partners.... Please also tell friends and family about us. If you want to put us on the 6 O'clock news, that would be great also.....

Many thanks

Jim