Speakers

[Rocky Top]

Where should I place my speaker? On the very top of my PM pole running speaker wires from it to my house? Ten to twenty ft from the PM house?
Help!

Dale

[bwenger]

Hi Dale,

I have my speaker at the base of my pole, pointing straight up. The speaker will attract the birds and bring them in for a 2nd look. After that, it's all up to the housing, location and location.

The male will usually bring in a female for a look, but in most cases, it seems that the female makes the choice of the location.

Some people have had the speaker at the top of the pole or clamped to the house, and that works as well.

Good luck with drawing in your birds. Keep asking questions on the Forum, and also put a decoy or two up, that also helps.

Bill

[parkerdes]

I originally had mine right under my housing but was warned that a predator could climb the wire (especially snakes) & could get into my housing so I moved it to the base under my guard & netting like Bill mentioned. We have lots of rat snakes here in North Texas as well as coons, etc. I didn't want to take any chances!!!
I attracted my first 2 pair in 2009 using my Radio Shack Power Horn speaker connected to a programmable CD player inside my house. I also put up decoys & a few mirrors. Once I attracted them...I had to take the mirrors down...the males kept attacking their reflection!
Good luck & hope you attract your first martins this season!

[Becky]

I mounted my Radio Shack power horn about 10 plus feet away from my poles, on the top of a 6 foot fence. Plenty close enough to draw the Martins to my site which isn't as open as the martins might prefer, but is becoming more popular each year (3rd season). Barely had to play the dawn song this spring to get some residents who now light up the sky with their voices.

[Bill Hyde]

Over the years I have put so much time thinking, planning and doing into making the dawnsong work effectively that, had this project carried college credit, I believe I'd have a PhD in audio engineering by now.

Like so many of you, I have cleaned bird fecal matter off a boom box placed strategically where inquisitive subbies would find it, fly to it, peck at it and, yes, poop on it! I remember the hours I wasted having to rewind a cassette, restarting a cd, and setting the alarm clock to wake up way too early.

Finally, in 2003 I found a set of instructions by Joe D. Bryant of Greenwood, IN that explained in a step-by-step manner how to play the dawnsong on a Windows-based computer, using something called "Scheduled Tasks." That method might still be in the PMCA Archives. Set it and forget it. Hurrah! Now I could sleep in if I wanted.

The coup de grace was to put the power horn in a 5-gal. bucket with lots of dense memory foam (scraps from a mattress factory) packed around it, to keep the sound waves projecting in an upward direction only. The bucket stays hidden in some bushes and the martins hear the sound but cannot zero in on its place of origin. My neighbors cannot hear it but the birds can.

[Wetterdale]

I mounted two speakers on my old TV antenna over my house. They are about 30' off the ground and one points east and one west. I figured this would create the largest "sound footprint". They are about 60 feet from my martin house. Last year when I witnessed it draw in visitors, they did circle the speakers but they always found the martin house too. The closer to your martin house the better but I really don't think the location is that critical. I believe the important thing is to get them on your property.