WaterSmart / Demonstration / Northern Territory

Northern Territory

Napperby Station

	Owned and operated by Roy and Janet Chisholm, the 445,200 hectare property runs 7000 head of Santa Gertrudis breeders in the mixed arid woodlands, North West of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. Napperby Station is demonstrating a large, multi-purpose remote management network. This remotely monitors and controls 15 water points, including electronic links with solar pumps, water medicators, rain gauges and cameras. The WaterSmart Pastoralism™ project, along with the Desert Knowledge CRC’s 21^st Century Pastoralism™ project, is monitoring the reliability and cost effectiveness of the telemetry network at Napperby.
The expected benefits include significant time and money savings on bore runs, and a higher level of situational awareness across the property. Installing the Observant telemetry at Napperby involved a lot of labour because the water medicators at most sites had to be moved closer to the tanks in order to retain a suitable level of signal strength in the cables connecting the various pieces of equipment. This also meant re-laying pipe networks. Linking the Mono solar pumps and tank level sensors into the network was relatively simple. Station owner Roy Chisholm can now quickly check water levels, as well as pump and medicator performance across the southern half of Napperby, all from the convenience of his office. Some of the remotely monitored water points can also provide rainfall data, and even photographs on demand.
Cawd Enginerring's Tim Driver, Napperby's Roy Chisholm and project officer Adrian James	When holidaying in Brazil last year, Roy Chisholm could also check on his station infrastructure via the internet. “This means you can’t really have a holiday anymore”, joked Mr. Chisholm. Four of the remotely monitored water points have had buried telemetry cables excavated and severed by dingos, but the telemetry network has already caused a substantial reduction in bore runs across the southern half of Napperby. “It means I can check my cattle and bores as often as I want in one day, rather than relying just on weekly bore runs”, said Mr. Chisholm.
Other trials and demonstrations at Napperby, as part of the 21^st Century Pastoralism™ project, include automatic, remote cattle weighing and drafting prototypes, and a remote video monitoring system.	Napperby cow walks through the race and is automatically weighed and drafted.

Old Man Plains Research Station

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The Alice Springs Region DPIFM Research Station covers 50,000 hectares of Sandy Mulga country and open oatgrass plains.

High class Droughtmaster breeders are the focus of the station and they are involved in several research projects.

Because of their location Old Man Plains are field testing the QLD made uSee remote management unit that operates off the NextG network and monitors water points using still photos and video.

Debbie Roberts, Old Man Plains Station manager, is using the uSee telemetry unit to monitor the main bore on the property.

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“The unit arrived from Queensland in a box including solar panel and housing unit. Installation took about 5 minutes literally, after undoing 6 screws on the housing unit, the camera and battery mounted inside were exposed. The instructions on the sticker inside the unit were simple and after scrolling through the menus the video/camera phone was activated. The solar panel was then hooked up to the battery through one two point plug, 6 screws tightened back up and the three clamps were attached to the 2inch pipe. We created an account on the uSee website and were viewing our footage straight away.”

The uSee remote monitoring system is a web based remote camera that utlises the Telstra NextG network and allows you to remotely monitor any number of sites from anywhere in the world, using a standard web browser or a mobile phone.

Each site consists of the uSee module itself, a solar panel to allow continuous operation, a mounting bracket, instructions and an antenna. The unit itself can be easily installed and will operate indefinately.

Features of the uSee system include:

Low cost, simple remote sites (approx $900)
Ability to take images, and short movie clips
Advanced scheduling features that allows the user to schedule an image or a movie to be taken at a specific time and interval.
Ability to access the images and movies using a standard web browser or by using a mobile phone.
24 hour support line to assist with any problems and a one year limited warranty

The system can be used in many different situations including monitoring stock watering points, for security, and in any other situation that requires cost effective and reliable monitoring.

Several antenna’s are available that allows the uSee system to work in areas of low NextG coverage. An extremely small, 240 volt powered site is also available that can be easily concealed in small areas.

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For more information on Qld’s Electronics U-See remote monitoring go to their website at: www.usee.com.au