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Permanent Sites
A Permanent Recording Site houses a computer fully
automated to record selected data at half-hour intervals. We refer to
these recording systems as SMIs (Sonic Measurement Instruments), and are
developing versions that are entirely field-deployable for an unlimited
timeframe. The basic SMI consists of a computer with a Bird Bug 100-series
microphone system attached. Software in the computer triggers it to record
thirty seconds of sound from the microphone on every half-hour. If conditions
permit, an SMI may also have a camera and/or a weather station attached
to it, thereby allowing us to correlate the sound data to other environmental
measurements. We have five Permanent Recording Sites active in the Muskegon
River Watershed. They are: " Burmeister Residence (Townline Lake) " Trute
Residence (Haymarsh Wetlands) " Cooper Residence (Agriculture) " Spedowski
Residence (Main Channel of the Muskegon River, near Big Rapids) " Mongomery
Residence (Main Channel of the Muskegon River, in Muskegon) Presently,
only the machine at the Trute Residence is transmitting its recordings
back to our server in real time, but we are working on implementing this
satellite system on other sites in the MRW.
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Volunteer Sites
Throughout the course of the project, several concerned
members of the community have volunteered to make regular recordings of
their local soundscapes for us. This has helped increase our data resolution
and frequency, thereby providing us with more information about the features
of the landscapes comprising the Muskegon River Watershed. Volunteers
usually make recordings with our Mini Disk systems several times a week
at dawn and dusk, the two most acoustically active times of day for the
majority of vocal organisms.
We currently have six groups of volunteers actively
making recordings in the MRW. They are:
- Tenneys (Croton Pond)
- Cases (Muskegon River)
- Ivens (Brooks Lake)
- Goebels (Little Sand Lake)
- Meeks (Higgins Lake)
- Wests (Muskegon River)
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