And now for the bad news

[Rusty2]

I'll get straight to the point .

ALL the impact charts are wrong !


Yes I know , how could that be ?
I recently collected a piece of audio that looked very interesting . I could see that it was much heavier than any other wallaby audio that I'd collected . When I went through the timelapse and cctv all I could see was a wallaby .

To my complete horror , It was only then that I realised that my trailcam audio may have been incorrect although , when I checked a year or two ago , the audio from the recorders and trailcams were both 44.100khz . I checked all the trailcams and audio recorders together and found that it was out by a whopping 76% . It never dawned on me that there would be a difference between 44.100khz from an audio recorder and 44.100khz from another device .

I've spent the last 2 weeks collecting and checking audio of wallabies from the actual audio recorders and found that things weren't as bad as I thought until this morning around 10 am .
I collected one wallaby on audio very close to the audio recorder that had an impact of 96Hz . This impact is heavier than my own AVERAGE impacts .

I was wrong , there is absolutely nothing I can do about it and I can only offer my sincere apologies to anyone who feels they've been misled especially Dave R on here who I was helping .

Feeling gutted about the whole thing I found this piece .

The business of gaining understanding of the world about us rarely follows a simple path from A to B. False starts, dead ends and U-turns are part of the journey. Science's ability to accept those setbacks with aplomb - to say "we got it wrong", to modify and abandon cherished notions and find new ideas and explanations that better fit the emerging facts - is what gives it incomparable power to make sense of our surroundings.

[yowiedan]

Rusty, it's better to know than not mate. We all know you put so much effort into your research so keep ya chin up.

[Yowie bait]

Thats great you picked it up Rusty. Gotta miscalculate sometimes before you can get things perfect. Your on the right track with the weight measurement and comparisons. Still an excellent idea/method.

[Rusty2]

Thanks for understanding guys , no one is more disappointed then me , sorry for any confusion .

[Shazzoir]

Devastating as this discovery may be, it doesn't discount your other finds, and unlike many, you opted to come clean and tell us of your disappointment, when many others would not have.

That is why I consider you one of the best in this area of research, because you continue to be honest and open about your methods and thoughts.

Never be ashamed of telling the truth, even though doing so is terrifically hard and risks ridicule, but nobody here, I'd warrant, would tar you with the brush of 'faker' or doing it for any other nefarious reason.

Massive kudos to you, Rusty.

[ChrisV]

Not the end of the world.
You've captured other things that outweigh ( no pun intended ) this oversight.

[Wolf]

Thanks for understanding guys , no one is more disappointed then me , sorry for any confusion .

No worries mate. Good to see there are still men around with the integrity, sincerity and honour to admit a mistake.


Was it this finding that triggered your decision to stop lugging heavy batteries around the bush?

[Rusty2]

Thanks Shazzoir , your a legend ! The most devasting part is the amount of work I put into it . This isn't the end of audio identification , Ill be trying a different approach .

Thanks Chris , yeah I know , I've learn't to switch off . Thanks for understanding mate .

Thanks Wolf , I know you weren't in agreement with these charts and to reply as you have is very gracious . It wasn't this finding that made me stop but it helped .

I took my gear out on the last day , I was in an area I'd been before which I don't like doing . I hopped out of the car and the thought of carrying all that gear down into the forest with the probability of not catching anything again was just too much . My body had a physical reaction , like I was about to vomit or someone was forcing something down my throat . Never had that before . I knew at that point that it was over .

[Wolf]

Don't they say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results?

You tried to nut it out. Your creative thinking and determination to out-wit the supreme being in its own house is to be admired. Your designs and engineering are very good. But heavy. I remember reading about you carrying car batteries into the bush and thought, no way. I know how heavy those suckers are and when I am in the bush I travel as light as possible, often even barefoot because it makes me lighter.

As to the sound recordings, I have not heard them all but yes, my perception/visual image was always of wallabies for those few I heard. Your graphing intrigued me but I was convinced what I heard was wallaby simply because I have been hearing them all my life, always living in the bush.

As a disclaimer I have never knowingly heard a Yowie stomping away from me either so...

[Rusty2]

Yeah , I tried everything I could think of and failed although I think we were close .
The impact charts failed but the piece of text revealing that this is how science goes was a comfort , I don't feel so bad now , I tried .

I still plan to tinker with the weight versus distance thing , there maybe something in there that I can't see at the moment .
I'm looking at getting some pressure sensitive film http://www.pressurex.com/ and re-do the drop tests . If I can roughly determine weight and distance then we might find something but it may be a dead end as well .

[Rusty2]

I forgot to apologise to Trevor who backed me up on these impact charts .

My sincere apologies Trevor !

[Simon M]

Rusty, none of this discredits your work, it only proves you're an honest researcher. Keep on going mate.

[David]

I'll get straight to the point .

ALL the impact charts are wrong !

I was wrong , there is absolutely nothing I can do about it and I can only offer my sincere apologies to anyone who feels they've been misled especially Dave R on here who I was helping .

Feeling gutted about the whole thing I found this piece .

Hello Russell.. I was posting on an account called Dave R. but through an amazing piece of jolted memory I remembered my password to my original account so will answer you from the account where it all started for me 7 years ago and the account that I first established my friendship with you.

Firstly there is absolutely no need to apologise to me as I mentioned in our phone call. I remain grateful for all your help since I started on this insane journey after being captivated by the historical reports from my area and witnessing the efforts you had made ever since being exposed to video 1. of your video diary. I remained captive to each new video of your research as it was methodically and logically carried out.

Even though the disappointment of this audio conundrum is tangible I still believe it is simply a setback on the discoveries that I think will be forthcoming through continued audio research. My own duplication of your methods proved to me personally that I wasn't always recording known fauna.. it is hard to qualify this belief other than to say it is from listening to thousands of hours of recordings and defining the differences vs the similarities of audio recordings. But alas I can't prove it and your calculations seemed to validate what I heard in an expressable way.

We now know, because of your impeccable integrity, that this is not the case and I commend you for your efforts in a feild where you excelled and angels fear to tread. Put simply you have done more for research than many and you remain an inspiration to me.

Cheers Dave

[Rusty2]

Thank you Simon , the impact charts still bug me and I feel I have time to do something about it . The sciencey type person inside me wants an answer . The audio is the part I now want an answer to . Have a great weekend mate !
Your a top bloke Dave . I agree it's a setback and would also suggest there is something in the audio signatures that I've missed . Your audio with the five subjects all passing one side of the recorder is fascinating , is that them ? Don't throw away your audio , it may come in handy in the future if we can break through the wall . Have a great weekend !