Re: $500 budget - hmmm...

[Moe Szyslak <none@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks,

I will respond to your post when I get to analyze it, thanks.





Matt Ion wrote:

>Moe Szyslak wrote:
>
>> I've been in the bus. for 16 years, but just now for myself.  I've
>> always been the tech.  Now I'm dealing with the other end.
>
>You sound a bit like the guy I work for... spent years doing alarms, got more
>into the CCTV end working for one or two larger outfits, and finally struck out
>on his own several years ago when the constant go-go-go to someone else's beat
>got too much for him.  He's doing pretty well now (well, WE are, I should say),
>but he had to go through that same stage of taking on some of the "petty" jobs
>to help get a customer base going (although he did have the advantage of a lot
>of contacts from his previous positions).
>
>> There are many of them huh?  What do you do, just walk away or try to
>> emphasize the importance of security and hard sell?
>
>It's really getting to the point now that we don't even bother with the smaller
>mom-and-pop businesses, and pretty much avoid residential at all costs... with
>surveillance systems, people see the spiffy little Costco systems they can get
>with a monitor/VCR combo and four B&W cameras for $250, and don't understand why
>they should pay us on the order of $250-$350 *per camera* (installation not
>included).
>
>If a place REALLY wants a quote, one of us will go in, give it a quick
>look-over, tell them how many cameras they should have, and give them a rough
>number right there (use $500 installed per camera, makes the math easy, and add
>on the price of your DVR of choice).  If they even blink at the number, or try
>to talk the price down, we'll just thank them for their time and walk out.
>They're welcome to go to Costco; we know chances are they'll be back when they
>discover it's just not sufficient (usually after the first time they try to look
>at footage of an incident).  Of course, the price goes up significantly at that
>point, and as often as not, they're happy to pay it for something that WORKS.
>
>Case in point: we just finished "upgrading" a gas station that we set up a year
>or so ago with a DVR, two indoor cameras, and prewire for cameras on four of six
>pumps (no, I have no idea why they didn't want to prewire to all six)... a
>friend/relative(??) of the owner owed him some money, so he offered to provide
>and install some cameras: super-cheap-ass B&W/IR bullet cams on four pumps, but
>only two of them the ones we prewired.  The guy strung wires from my original
>drops on two pillars, surface-run across the canopy soffit to the outer trim,
>tucked under the trim to the far end of the canopy, and back across the surface
>to THOSE pillars.  A piece of 3/4" PVC pipe down the pillar to get the wires to
>the cameras... cameras screwed into the steel posts with nylon inserts... WTF???
>
>Needless to say, the cameras were virtually useless, between the non-adjustable
>too-tight view (looked like about 8-9mm on 1/3", although I expect the cameras
>were actually 1/4") and the fuzzy picture from the cheap CCDs and no doubt
>plastic lenses.  We sold them three used 1/3" cameras in environmental housings
>for the pumps, a couple of 1.3MP IP cameras off the building for plate views,
>and a couple more 1/3" cameras in the store, including one to replace the
>"covert" PIR/pinhole cam the friend/relative put behind the paypoint - the
>camera only turned on when the *functioning* PIR sensed motion!
>
>I spent two and a half days on the job, with the boss putting in a good
>half-a-day helping out, to redo all the canopy wiring (including replacing the
>solder-type BNCs that they used WITHOUT soldering to the RG-58(!!) cable they
>added).  The part that REALLY pissed me off though, was that they used the
>original four RG-59 cables I had run between the back room where the pump wires
>came in, and the office, as a pullstring... to pull in four RG-58s, and four
>power wires so they could power all four pump cameras off a single wall-wart in
>the office (I'd left the pump-cam power runs terminated in the back room
>planning to power them from there).
>
>Moral of the story: when he asked me why it was taking so long, I told the owner
>it was because of the nasty NASTY wiring his "friend" had done... all he could
>do was shake his head and respond, "Live and learn..."
>
>Indeed.