I've heard a number of times about these types of sensors being used to protect military installations.

I cant believe it would be very difficult to make such sensors and place them around a known active location. Maybe using standard 2.4 gz off the shelf tech to gather data at a base station.

Has any one used a seismic sensor or such to record BF data? Or as a switch to turn on a recording device?

Furthermore has anyone looked into using the natural electrical current from a tree to power a sensor?

Interested in opinions and ideas.

Cheers,

IIRC Peter Byrne employed them. It wouldn't be that hard to adapt the types of pressure mats used in nursing homes to activate a sensor or camera. The inherent problem would be anything weighing over X pounds would activate the sensor.

I was more thinking of an enclosed system that can be buried. Software should be able to factor out other critters such as deer or bears as they have a much different means of movement and would have 4 pulses instead of 2. You could also tune them to ignore smaller animals.
I was also pondering how difficult it would be to use them as a triangulation system where you could zero in on a 300-600 pound BF, moving through say a granite valley.
Would you need to dig a deep hole and fill it with cement like seismic sensors? hmmm.. Or just attach them to granite slabs which are very common up in the Strawberry area.


Interesting idea on the mats though. I'll look up the patents on those and see if they can be easily modified.

I'm not familiar with Peter Byrne...I'll look him up.

Geophones have the ability to detect the vibrations and come in many different resonate frequencies. Most are available surplus from many sources like Ebay.

Thanks Willie. I see lots of data online about geophones. Time to do some reading up on them.

I hope this is not off topic.

I am spending a lot of time in campgrounds across the U.S. I have thought about using a motion detector to alert me to anything approaching my vehicle. But I would have to change the wiring so that instead of a 120 db alarm it would be a soft alarm that I could hear inside the car but not scare the intruder away.

Hey Stan.

Yeah I have had the same idea. But doing a lot of research, it seems "probable" that BF can see at least somewhat into the Infrared spectrum. Most motion sensors are IR. If you can find a microwave one or a Uv one that may work.
Or the IR one may work....nobody seems to really know.

As far as the rewire, you can just trow a voltage checker on the alarm portion and check the voltage and then insert something with the same rating....like a switch. Or you can totally change it if you have the electronics know how.

Oh, I forgot about it being IR. Guess I will just have to stay awake. lol

You might want to check into PSID's (Patrol Seismic Intrusion Detector).

Military surplus, Vietnam era, a kit consists of 4 detectors, (you stick them into the ground) and one receiver.
Basically used to set a perimeter around a patrol, you can then sit down with an earphone in your ear and try to sleep, if you open them up you can adjust the sensitivity.

A cheap way would be to get some of those 12 volt sensor lights and just wire them to a light inside your camper or camp so instead of illuminating whatever sets it off you'll get the indicator light.

sasquatchin- PSID's... Sweet this is the type of information I have been hoping this thread would garner.

Geophones and PSID's now I have two other possibilities than having to design and troubleshoot my own Frankenstein creations.

I've always thought the PSID's were a great concept, but we used an updated model offered in the late 80's early 90's that was put out by, I believe TRW.

What we encountered was that the area you were in greatly affected the reliablity. In certain areas of TX, AR, and AZ they pretty darn good. In others such as here in the PNW and Central America, they weren't so hot.

Seems the biggest factor was the rain, when you got the torrential down pours both areas are known for, they were constantly giving false alarms, by the timed you turned up the sensitivity enough to counter the vibration set out by the rain, you could have marched a Division over them with little effect.

I'm sure theres better stuff out there by now, and it sounds like you have the skills to overcome the problem...If you do, good luck!!