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Re: Homemade parabola UPDATE

Subject: Re: Homemade parabola UPDATE
From: Walter Knapp <>
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 22:55:54 -0500
From: "hydronium88" <>

> I have two major questions that I would appreciate advice on:
> 1) For my recordings, I will be using a Sennheiser ME67. Of course,
> the nature of my study means that I will be working in areas with lots
> of background noise so I'd really like to be able to isolate a song
> for a recording without too much background interference.  I would
> like to make a parabola for it but after much searching haven't had
> much luck finding a how-to page or info on it in this list. Can any
> one give me some advice or point me to such a page?

I've got one, though you might want to use a little higher quality mic.
Especially if you need to do measurement of sound level differences.
That's probably beyond homemade stuff.
http://frogrecordist.home.mindspring.com/docs/quickparabolic.html
A ME 67 is really not the appropriate mic for a parabolic.

A parabolic will give you sharper directionality to help pick things
out. But you probably won't be able to be very far away.

> 2) I need some type of recorder that will provide high-quality
> recordings that I can later analyze on a PC.  I will be lugging it
> around in the field so size is also an issue.  And of course, I'm on a
> limited budget.  If anyone has any suggestions for what I should be
> using, please let me know.  I know that this is a very contentious
> topic!

Here you have to decide how precise the analysis you are working on. And
do you expect to publish it? Bioacoustics can get very picky in peer
review as to equipment used. And their ideas are expensive. If you
expect to publish in their circles get advice from them. And have deep
pockets.

For more informal analysis, it will depend on your budget. For low price
with pretty good quality it's hard to beat a consumer minidisc. For a
good deal more money there is the one I use, the HHb Portadisc. And
there are all kinds of up and coming, mostly unknowns with solid state,
hard disk or other storage mediums.

Walt




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