Sunday 1 June 2014

Let There Be Sound

I've tried all sorts of possibilities to get sound on the computer recordings of birds and Hedgehogs. The bird table camera has sound but cabling it through to the computer picked up more mains hum than bird song.

I had a very cheap wireless microphone which almost worked but the distance was near its limit and the sound wasn't too clean. Luckily I managed to pick up a cheap, unused, UHF wireless microphone working on licence free channels. Setting that up yesterday gave much better results. As usual I modified things a bit. The base receiver is mains powered but the microphone unit uses two AA batteries which is fine for occasional use but no so convenient if it's left on for long periods.

A quick think and a Goole explore session gave me an idea. Cut down two dolly pegs (just the right thickness to replace AA cells), attach wire to contacts screwed to the round head of them and use a 12V gell cell with a bit of electronics to give the 3V needed.


Receiver:

DSCN2767

Microphone listening through hole in Summerhouse:

DSCN2766

Voltage control: (measured output is 2.99V)
Under £4 on Amazon UK.  4-40V in, adjustable 1.25-37V out up to 2A.

DSCN2764

Transmitter set up:

DSCN2763

A short recording, Sparrow chirping and Blackbird singing:



A bit of 'noise' but as I have 80 channels to choose from I'll have to do a bit more experimenting. Some background noise was probably local grass mowing.


Dolly peg, a traditional shape of clothes peg (clothes pin) made of wood:
DSCN2783

6 comments:

  1. Bloody hell John I thought I was trying. I used to have a free frequency modulator programme. It let me wipe hum. I'll try and remember who does it. This is great. I think Lightworks has it built in but it will probably come at the £100.00p for the pro version and take a month a two days to work out.
    This is stunning.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Adrian if it was just hum then Audacity should be able to remove it, or better still Goldwave.

      Delete
  2. Replies
    1. Messing with such things has been a hobby since I was about 15 TWG.

      Delete
  3. quite good sound, John. You never cease to amaze me.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ...very cool. It looks complex (and it sounded great)!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Any comment, or correction to any information or identification I get wrong, is most welcome. John

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