I have any electronic box that plays dawnsong. It is a small box and I don't know if it is loud enough for Martin's at a distance to hear. I thought about getting an outside speaker and placing close to my houses.
My question is what do you hook the loud speaker to, a portable CD player or a computer? It would be more convenient for me to use a portable CD player. Do any of you know if the loud speaker will provide a more distant sound than the electronic box I have. The box would do fine if I had martin's in the surrounding yard area but I don't (other than a distant neighbors house and I think they must already be nesting because they don't even fly over our way anymore.)
I also have another question. Does anyone know is the gourd racks that attach to the poles under the aluminum houses or wooden houses will attach to the telescoping poles that come from Lowes? Will the gourd racks adjust to fit any pole?
Terri
Question about setting up outside speaker for dawnsong
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flyin-lowe
- Posts: 3789
- Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2006 8:49 am
- Location: Indiana/Henry Co.
I just got my dawn song CD and here is what I did, I went to Wal Mart and they had a small CD playing alarm clock that has two different alarms. MY CD is 80 minutes so I set the first alarm for 4 AM and then the second alarm for 5:30 AM. Thats keeps it playing until I get ready for work then I just turn the CD on normal play one more time so I have it playing from until about 8:30 AM without much effort on my part. The radio was only $17 and I have it sitting off of the ground and its in a trash bag incase it rains.
As for the second part of your question I think but I am not sure that may of the gourd racks are specific to a certain pole. I know the S&K poles are triangle shape. Is the pole you are seeing at Lowes made for PM's or some other purpose. My local Lowes store quit selling PM houses four years ago (i used to work there). If the pole is similar in diameter to the pole made for you gourd rack you could probably make it work.
As for the second part of your question I think but I am not sure that may of the gourd racks are specific to a certain pole. I know the S&K poles are triangle shape. Is the pole you are seeing at Lowes made for PM's or some other purpose. My local Lowes store quit selling PM houses four years ago (i used to work there). If the pole is similar in diameter to the pole made for you gourd rack you could probably make it work.
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birdy girl
- Posts: 1179
- Joined: Wed Apr 19, 2006 9:09 am
- Location: Mississippi/Dumas
I am not for sure where we got the two round telescoping poles that we have had for 3 years. We bought another one at Scruggs two weeks ago. It was located with the martin aluminum martin houses so I assume it is for martin houses. Did you get your pole at S & K? If so, is it telescoping or does it has a pulley system or wench for raising and lowering?
Do you have gourds or regular housing units? Is any type gourds better than others in your opinion? I am desperate to attract martins and am looking for any information that will help.
Terri
Do you have gourds or regular housing units? Is any type gourds better than others in your opinion? I am desperate to attract martins and am looking for any information that will help.
Terri
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flyin-lowe
- Posts: 3789
- Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2006 8:49 am
- Location: Indiana/Henry Co.
This is my first year but I have an S&K 12 unit house. I modified the housing to have 6 6x12 rooms instead of the 6x6 rooms. I just purchased some gourds to hang underneath of my housing. Several people have said that the gourds "attract" better then houses. I have the S&K pole that is a triangular pole and it telescopes. Keep reading on here and you will learn a lot. I went with the Big Bo gourd from S&K they seemed to be good price for what you get. SREH entry, a porch, and a large port to reach in and clean out the gourd.
How is you housing set up. It is important to be a certain distance from trees and your house etc. to be successful.
How is you housing set up. It is important to be a certain distance from trees and your house etc. to be successful.
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Guest
Here is what I did last year, and it was VERY effective at attracting visiting martins!
I purchased an outdoor horn speaker from our local electronics store. I think you can get them from Radio Shack as well. I mounted the horn speaker directly to my pm housing and then I ran 100 feet of cat5 wire (computer ethernet wire that you can buy from home depot or most hardware stores now pretty cheap) from the outdoor speaker into my basement office where my computer is and plugged it into my computer speaker amplifier.
I then purchased both the Dawnsong CD and the Purple Martin Chatter CD and converted them to MP3 format on my computer. If you would like to know how to do this, I would be happy to post the information here. Once they were converted to MP3 format, I then created an automated task using the built in Microsoft Scheduler. The scheduler starts to play the dawnsong mp3 from 4am in the morning until about 9am. Then at 12:30pm the daytime chatter mp3 starts to play and continues on until about 4pm. At 5:30 pm the dawnsong mp3 starts once again and is played until 8:00pm.
This has proven to be very successful for me last year, as I said before, it attracted several martins who would actually perch on the horn speaker attached to the house for long periods of time and would sing back to the recording. It was really fun to watch! We even taped it and burned it to a DVD and have shown it to other people who wanted to know if the dawnsong recording really worked. You can see what my setup looks like here if you would like: http://www.fros.com/webcam/index.html .
The only thing you have to be careful about is the volume at which you play the recording. With a horn speaker mounted to your housing and facing skyward at a 45 degree angle you will not hear anywhere as good as the birds will who are flying in it's path. I have angered several neighbors by accidently turning this thing on too loud, the speaker is rated at over 100db and is VERY loudl!
Also at the elevated volume it would probably do 2 things:
1 - attract predators to the location that you really don't want
2 - scare away martins that may have stopped for a look
1 more thing, if you decide to use this method, make sure you turn off your windows sound's and alerts or the sound/music it makes on startup/shutdown will be broadcasted all over your neighborhood. Very embarrassing!!
Good luck!
Fordude
I purchased an outdoor horn speaker from our local electronics store. I think you can get them from Radio Shack as well. I mounted the horn speaker directly to my pm housing and then I ran 100 feet of cat5 wire (computer ethernet wire that you can buy from home depot or most hardware stores now pretty cheap) from the outdoor speaker into my basement office where my computer is and plugged it into my computer speaker amplifier.
I then purchased both the Dawnsong CD and the Purple Martin Chatter CD and converted them to MP3 format on my computer. If you would like to know how to do this, I would be happy to post the information here. Once they were converted to MP3 format, I then created an automated task using the built in Microsoft Scheduler. The scheduler starts to play the dawnsong mp3 from 4am in the morning until about 9am. Then at 12:30pm the daytime chatter mp3 starts to play and continues on until about 4pm. At 5:30 pm the dawnsong mp3 starts once again and is played until 8:00pm.
This has proven to be very successful for me last year, as I said before, it attracted several martins who would actually perch on the horn speaker attached to the house for long periods of time and would sing back to the recording. It was really fun to watch! We even taped it and burned it to a DVD and have shown it to other people who wanted to know if the dawnsong recording really worked. You can see what my setup looks like here if you would like: http://www.fros.com/webcam/index.html .
The only thing you have to be careful about is the volume at which you play the recording. With a horn speaker mounted to your housing and facing skyward at a 45 degree angle you will not hear anywhere as good as the birds will who are flying in it's path. I have angered several neighbors by accidently turning this thing on too loud, the speaker is rated at over 100db and is VERY loudl!
Also at the elevated volume it would probably do 2 things:
1 - attract predators to the location that you really don't want
2 - scare away martins that may have stopped for a look
1 more thing, if you decide to use this method, make sure you turn off your windows sound's and alerts or the sound/music it makes on startup/shutdown will be broadcasted all over your neighborhood. Very embarrassing!!
Good luck!
Fordude