Greetings All,
Below, I've copied/pasted an announcement from the American Radio
Relay League, a respected amateur ("ham") radio organization. This
announcement has inspired a few thoughts on how I might combine my
nature recording with my amateur radio hobby. I'm posting it here
hoping that others may also be interested.
If you're new to radio tracking and would like more information on
how it can benefit your nature recording, please email me. I'll do
my best to help.
Ray Barley, WO2C
Pittsburgh, PA
==>HAMS, MONITORING ENTHUSIASTS INVITED TO AID WILDLIFE RESEARCHERS
Wildlife researchers are asking radio amateurs and VHF monitoring
enthusiasts to help listen for radio tag signals from migrating
birds. A non-profit organization in New Mexico wants to find the
wintering grounds of the burrowing owl, which summers in the
grasslands of Kirtland Air Force Base.
"Twenty-eight of the birds have been fitted with pulsing radio-tags
near 172 MHz, and attempts will be made to track them by aircraft to
see if they go east toward Texas, west to California, or south to
Mexico," says ARRL Amateur Radio Direction Finding (ARDF)
Coordinator Joe Moell, K0OV. "It's likely that aircraft will lose
contact with most of the owls, so volunteers throughout southwestern
states and northern Mexico are being asked to listen for them."
Moell said July 25 that the birds "will start moving any day now."
Meanwhile, researchers at two Toronto universities are radiotagging
20 young purple martins at a breeding colony in Edinboro,
Pennsylvania.
"These beautiful birds are expected to start flying south in mid-
August, probably to winter grounds in South America," Moell
says. "Hams in southern states from Texas through Florida are asked
to be listening and possibly detect the flyovers."
He says those living in the migration zones and can receive 172 MHz
signals can help. "If you have radio-direction finding equipment for
VHF, so much the better," he adds.
Moell's "Homing In" Web site <http://www.homingin.com> has much more
information on these projects. The site includes frequencies and
equipment suggestions as well as a descriptions of the unique
characteristics of wildlife tags to help listeners distinguish them
from other signals they may encounter at 172 MHz. The site also
tells how to join the BIOTRACKERS mailing list for the latest
updates and discussions of wildlife-tracking topics.
"Microphones are not ears,
Loudspeakers are not birds,
A listening room is not nature."
Klas Strandberg
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