Pettersson D500x
The D500X is a "Direct Recording" ultrasound recording unit intended for long-term, unattended recording of bat calls. Designed to be deployed for two weeks, this device detects full-spectrum ultrasound and records in real time. Coupled with sophisticated automatic species identification built into the new SonoBat 3 software, the D500x will become the hardware component of passive acoustic monitoring solutions for the future.

The D500x recorder is equipped with four slots for CF cards. A total capacity of 128 GB can be obtained if four 32 GB cards are used. The triggering system allows the device to start recording as a sound is detected. The recording length can be selected in steps from 0.3 up to 30 seconds. In order not to fill the card too fast at locations with high activity, a minimum time between two recordings can be applied.

The recorder is normally operated in a low-power mode with no pre-trigger (i.e. the recording starts when a sound exceeds the chosen threshold level), but both pre- and post-trigger functions are available in the standard (not low-power) mode.

Battery life depends on the chosen sampling rate, amount of bat activity and the settings (e.g. how long to wait between recordings). It is expected to be up to one week for the internal batteries (but perhaps more realistically, 3-4 days). This assumes the unit "sleeps" during daytime and that it is active for 8-hours each night (but not constantly recording during that time). Using external batteries will allow longer operating times. The current consumption while recording is in the range 150-200 mA. We have run a D500x for one month on the external battery listed below and had over 6v of good charge when recovered.

"Direct Recording" is a relatively new class of bat detectors that is not intended for active monitoring, only passive monitoring where the unit will be deployed unmanned for hours, day, or weeks unattended. This class of detector has no speaker or bat call display and the memory cards must be downloaded into a laptop for analysis.

Features

• Built-in electret microphone
• User-friendly design
• Controls accesed without removing panels with tools and exposing electronics to the elements
• Jack for external microphone
• Samples 300 kHz or 500 kHz in one unit
• Powered either from 4 AA batteries (internal) or external batteries/power supply
• Timer to turn the unit on/off at desired intervals
• Weather-protected housing (built-in microphone requires some protection)
• Storage capacity for 2 weeks under normal conditions, generates *.wav files on CF cards
• Copy .wav files into laptops ready for analysis, no transfer utility needed.
• Low power consumption <200 milliamperes
• No laptop required to launch detector or record files.
• No computer required for formatting cards. CF cards format in the device.
• Size: 165 x 170 x 53 mm, rugged aluminum (not plastic) housing
• Sampling rates: 44.1 kHz, 300 kHz and 500 kHz (optimized for 500 kHz)
• ADC resolution: 16 bits
• Selectable high-pass filter to attenuate undesired low frequency signals
• Optional external trigger input jack
• Optional external microphone input jack, an external mic can be 330' or more away with no signal loss.
• Time/date stamped sound files
• Use any CF card reader to drag and drop .wav files from the memory cards to your computer while in the field.
• Opening CF card cover exposes only the CF slots to the elements
• Files read directly into SonoBat and BatSound
• Sync the D500x time with your existing handheld GPS and record a track on your GPS (or even an iPhone). Then use the inexpensive app from Myotisoft.com to combine your D500x bat files with your GPS track and display your bats on Google Earth. No complicated, expensive connectors required.
• Currently the fastest post processing workflow when using SonoBat.
• The most user-friendly of the direct-recording full spectrum detectors.

- Janet Tyburec, principal bat workshop instructor for BCI, BCM, USFS & others since 1992 and is an expert user of ANABAT and SonoBat software

External Microphone Port Upgrade: Very early units require an internal modification for the external microphone port to function correctly. Units with a serial number (printed on the label next to the CF card slots) of 178 and higher do not need the modification (anything purchased after November 2010). This does not affect the use of the internal microphone, and those early units only need upgraded if you wish to start using the new external microphones. This upgrade is covered by the manufacturer.

Clock Battery Upgrade: If you must reset the clock on every powerup, the internal lithium clock battery needs replaced. On very early units, this unfortunately requires completely disassembling the unit. (In newer units the backup battery is located near the CF cards.) We can modify your early D500x so that the clock battery is user-replaceable. After this upgrade the clock battery is expected to last 5-10 years. This upgrade is covered by the manufacturer.

Port Connectors Replacement: If you have broken the physical connectors on the D500x (ext mic/ext power/ext trigger), the unit must be disassembled. However, often this is not a time critical repair if the port still functions.

For USA D500x Service as described above, please ship with signature confirmation to: Bat Conservation and Management, Attn: David A. Riggs, 463 Oak Street, Morgantown, WV 26505. Note that shipping to our main office in Carlisle will only delay your upgrade; please ship directly to Morgantown. Repair quotes available once the unit arrives and is tested. Units that do not power up will be referred to the manufacturer. Some upgrades may be covered by the manufacturer, shipping is additional.

SanDisk CF cards in 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32 GB sizes have been successfully tested. Kingston and Transcend CF cards were initially unreliable however D500x firmware upgrades seem to have solved this.

To turn on the detector, you must remove the Cf card cover on the bottom and flip the switch to "INT" for internal batteries, or EXT for external power.

When the display says "waiting"...the detector is waiting for the timer to to turn on the detector. If this was not your intention, go to the timer settings, select the timer, and press the "on/off" key on the face of the detector to turn off the timer.

When the display says "armed", it is now waiting for a bat call and should record when the sound exceeds your threshold settings.

We have used the D500x with a 6v, 14 amp/hr battery for 1 week in the field recording 1,000 - 5 second long files, using 3.2 GB of memory, and the battery still full showing 6.2 volts. No solar panel needed. We have used the internal AA batteries for 1 week recording 1,500- 5 second files with the D500x internal batteries barely still alive when recovered. Others have reported 5 days use on internal batteries, it just depends on how many recordings are made.

D500X Quick Start for Testing the Timer
Format and insert the cards, flip on the power, confirm the settings below. Do not try to make a test recording in manual mode, then flip the setting back to autorecord mode. If so, reformat the first card. 

The D500x "opens" a new file when it is "armed". If you lose power, reboot, or do a hard shutdown of the device, I feel it may corrupt the card. Always "wake up" the device holding the power button on the front panel until the device is in "idle" mode. Even if it was "waiting" and the cables get bumped and the power is lost....I still re-format the first card to be safe. Please confirm the settings:

- correct time and date
- correct timer on/off setting, To monitor day nd night, I have it set to turn on at 00:01 and turn off at 23:59. This 2 minute shutdown allows the detector to write 1 file a day when it starts/stops thereby letting you know it was actually working. During those 2 minutes the display would read "waiting"... it is just waiting until the next "on" session and then it will say "armed". To gain confidence with the D500X, set the "on" time a few minutes from present and set the "off" time to one minute later. This allows you to verify automatic start and stop in your office and become familiar with the display when the unit is working and sleeping.


user profile 0
sample freq: 300
pretrig: off
rec length: 5
hp filter: yes
autorec: yes
tsource: sound
t. sens: high or medium

when pressing the record button, the final recording setting are available:

input gain: 80
Trig lev: 120
interval: 0 (in my experiments having a 5 second delay often causes you to miss the best part of the sequence, therefore I would suggest no delay interval so you are sure to get the best sequence to analyze.)

At this point when hitting the enter key, the detector goes to sleep, the display vanishes and an LED will blink every few seconds. Pressing the power button briefly on the front panel and the display will read "waiting". The D500X is waiting for the clock to match whatever start time you programmed. When the timer condition is met, the detector will say "armed" and should record (the screen will light up and file # will display) when you rub your fingers together. The D500X remains "armed" waiting ultrasound to exceed the trigger threshold and recording (in this case 5 second bursts with no delay between recordings) until the "timer off" condition is met. The D500X then sleeps until the next "timer on" event occurs (four events can be programmed, though most people will be using one timer set for sunset to sunrise). This cycle repeats until someone "wakes up" the detector and puts it back into "idle" mode, power is lost, or all the CF cards fill.

Always "wake up" the device holding the power button on the front panel until the device is in "idle" mode. Turn off the main power switch under the CF card cover only when the D500X is "idle".

Post Processing Data Files
1) Run the SonoBat D500X File Attributer. Drag and drop the folder on the CF card containing your raw WAV files into the File Attributer's top drop box.

2) Select an output folder on your hard drive in the second drop box. SonoBat will COPY all your WAV files off the CF card into your new hard drive folder.

3) The good stuff: Sonobat will rename your files (the new copies, not the originals on the CF card) with a meaningful name, and automatically append the date and time of the recording. This time stamp is pulled from metadata in the WAV file that the D500X encoded during the recording. SonoBat will also unlock the WAV file and add notes if you enter them at this time. When your are satisfied select "process files" and SonoBat will copy and rename/timestamp your files off the card and into your hard drive. Your files are now ready to scrubbed for noise using the SonoBat Batch Scrubber or simply viewed using the main SonoBat program.

Post Processing if you do not own SonoBat
The D500x currently names each file sequentially and stores the actual creation date in metadata within the .wav file itself. David Riggs wrote a short script that resets the file timestamp on all .wav files under directory DIR based on their D500x metadata timestamp. This is useful when you add notes to a file in SonoBat, or simply copy files from one hard drive to another; the file creation dates may change and now cannot be used to sort when recordings were made. Here are the Mac OS X instructions (tested on 10.5 only).

Installation:

1. Download 'set_timestamps.py' script to ~/Applications directory.
2. Start OS X 'Terminal' application
3. Ensure that the script is executable by running `chmod +x
~/Applications/set_timestamps.py`

Running:

1. Start OS X 'Terminal' application
2. Know the location of your D500X .wav files, for example, '~/audio/bat_calls'
3. Run `~/Applications/set_timestamps.py ~/audio/bat_calls` to fix the
.wav file timestamps on all files in the 'bat_calls' directory.