"How do the Rye Beach Webcams work?"

It's a very simple, totally indoor setup.  It's just an older desktop running Windows that sat under an ocean-facing window in the corner of a 2nd story room of a location overlooking Jenness Beach.  A small box sat on the window sill of that window.  Inside the box were three inexpensive webcams; one angled north toward the Isles of Shoal, one angled south towards the rocks that are exposed at low tide and a Bushnell "binocam" (a camera built into a pair of binoculars) pointed at Star Island.  (the reason for the box is to screen out reflections from inside the room and to prevent someone in the room from accidentally being captured on a webcam in a reflection.  It worked great). 

The webcams were connected to the PC through a simple USB hub and the PC was connected to an always-on internet connection, sometimes via a wireless network card and sometimes through a network cable.  Each webcam used a different program to schedule and send it's photos to the Internet.  Although as many as six photos were sent over the Internet per minute, the photos were so small in size that they never put any strain on either the connection in the house or the site that hosts the webcams.  While there are certainly fancier ways to set up webcams, if you've enjoyed the Rye Beach webcams you know this setup worked pretty good.

While I had to be sitting at the computer to turn it on if it was off or to physically adjust a webcam, that rarely was necessary.  Every other type of adjustment to Windows or to any of the software could be done via remote control over the Internet using a program called "LogMeIn".  It's incredibly handy.  I'm using it right now to write this web page edit on a computer far from where I'm sitting.

"whisc.com" is just a domain I bought years ago.  It's handy to have your own domain but I don't need it for anything really.  At least my email address never has to change!

"Could I Host The Rye Beach Webcams?"

Maybe.  Do you have a house or other building that has at least one unobstructed view of the Atlantic Ocean?  Does that location have a room in which you'd be willing to put a computer on the floor and a webcam (or two or three) in a box in a window?  Do you have always-on Internet access?  If you do, then you could be the new host of the Rye Beach Webcams either temporarily or, if you want, permanently (either would be fine). 

Anyone could decide to do their own setup with their own equipment, of course.  That'd be great!  But if a good location with a cooperative host was found I'd make my equipment available, I'd continue to host the webcams on my site (whisc.com) and I'd do all the remote control administration.  If you could help host the Rye Beach Webcams, contact me here.