Technology

[Acoustic]

G'day, been registered here for a little while now, love reading reports, encounters and especially the research being done. I haven't had any encounters with the hairy men myself, but have a keen interest in them, as well as other wildlife. I'm looking at beginning my own research into the yowie, as well as proving and monitoring the presence of feral dogs and foxes in my local area (have only found prints and prey kills from the latter two at this time).

What technology do you guys use out in the field? I've been looking at various trail cams and voice activated recorders on eBay and other sites, but am a little wary of the quality of them. Money isn't a huge issue, although I am currently a student so the bigger the cost the longer it will take me to save.

Thanks guys, hopefully I can begin to contribute my own findings soon

[Rusty2]

Hello Acoustic and welcome aboard !

I use a Sony Note taker . Its a stereo recorder and last time I checked was about $130 from Dick Smith . Cd quality recording , and with lithium batteries ( 2 aaa ) and a 12 gb micro sd card , it will run at the highest quality for 100 hours or 4 days straight . There are higher quality recorders out there but they wont run as long , all depends what you want to do with it . Great recorder , never had any problems with it . I leave mine in the scrub for a week , pick it up on a Saturday and put it back out on a Sunday , this method has served me well .

My personal opinion on trail cameras is they don't work very well . Their not sensitive enough to catch the moment a yowie might peek . I use a Plotwatcher Pro timelapse camera . It can take 10,000 photo's a day and wont miss a thing . $330 from Cabella's last time I checked . All you have to do is point it in the right direction , P.S. , they wont walk or run past your camera , they'll already know where you've left it and will peek at it from the furthest distance possible .

As for other gear , I have a thermal camera , a parabolic ear and video capable IR binoculars . I wouldn't buy them if I had my time over but they do come in very handy for night time walkabout if you have a friend you can go with .

If your not sure , check you tube for bigfoot caught on thermal or infrared or trail camera and see how many real video's are out there , not many considering how many people are doing this .

Good luck !

[Acoustic]

Thanks a lot for your reply Rusty, I follow your videos on Youtube, and really admire the research you're doing. The plotwatchers do seem like the way to go, bit more expensive than your average trail cam though. Might look into getting some audio recording gear to start off with, the Sony Note takers that you mentioned seem perfect for my application. Thanks mate!

[Smokeyr67]

G'day Accoustic,

I recently geared up for an "expedition" trail cams, heaps of photo equipment, hair snares etc and what I forgot was a good set of low powered binoculars - a good set will work well in low light, have a nice wide field of view and be reasonably light.

Smokey