Wild Sanctuary wrote:
> For work we're doing with the Nat. Park Service, we're in the process
> of assembling a prototype data storage package made up entirely of a
> series flash cards. The problem for the NPS was how to record for
> long periods of time, under variable weather and climates, using
> little power, with a system durable and inexpensive enough to do the
> job required with greatly reduced budgets. This system allows long
> periods (up to a week) of continuous recording stereo data at 16
> bit/44.1kHz. while using very little energy to drive the system since
> there are no moving parts. There have been many questions over the
> past several weeks regarding long periods of recording.
Is this similar to Cornell's system? And, almost more crucial, will it,
or plans, etc. be available publicly? So far, Cornell does not seem to
be inclined to share.
> Of course, the problem will be what to do with it once it's stored on
> the cards...
Many fields of science have run into this problem. Our ability to gather
data far exceeds our ability to analyze it. It's really sad to see large
amounts of recording that will only be analyzed by some computer system
looking for some specific thing. As is true for most automated loggers.
The problem is that the very best and most accurate analysis tool is
someone's ears. And what with having to go back an recheck, sleep, eat
and so on, it takes far more than a week to analyze a weeks recording.
I turned in 37 CD's of audio, well less than a weeks worth of continuos
audio, for the Georgia Herp Atlas. It was a year and a half after the
end of the study before the last of that was listened to and confirmed,
even though over half of it had been confirmed before the study ended.
And all the way to the end even more new stuff was being found. (The
bird folks got a bunch of night bird sounds off it, I only reported the
frogs)
Walt
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