Our Mark 2 Bioacoustic Monitoring System systems were designed and built using Australian government funding administered by the CSIRO and by Parks Australia North

People involved in their design and installation include Gordon Grigg, Les Fletcher (then at Queensland Uni.), David Johnson, Andrew Taylor, Harvey Tuch and Adam Wiggins

In 2001 16 Mark 2 systems were deployed, 10 in the Roper valley and 4 in Kakadu National Park. 14 of these systems replaced the electronics in our Mark 1 systems in their steel towers. Two were deployed in tripods designed by Les Fletcher for deployment in more difficult locations and where human disturbance is unlikely.

These systems use PLEB single board computers. These board are based on StrongArm processors and were designed and built at UNSW by UNSW students and staff. A daughter board with a ATMEL AT90LS8535 AVR processor is used to interface to an LCD display and temperature & rainfall sensors. Also on the daughter board is a MAX146 ADC used to digitize the incoming sound at 16MHz and 12 bits. Both have an interface to the StrongArm.

A small PCB with an SSM2017 is used as a microphone preamp. It also contains a LP2951 voltage regulator used for the SSM2017 and the Pleb power supply.

The identification software, microphone, sensor and power components were unchanged from the Mark 1 systems. The much smaller power consumption of the Mark 2 systems, approximately 1 watt, allowed the number of (12V 7Ahr) batteries to reduced from 4 to 2.

Again 6" PVC (sewer) pipe was used as an enclosure for most Mark 2 systems but only 170mm long - much shorter than the Mark 1 systems.

The Mark 2 systems have been generally left deployed in the dry season. The Pleb-based electronics have been pleasingly reliable contributing only a fraction to the overall system annual failure of 10-20%.