The Gear is Here

Diane’s gear for the field season has arrived. Now it is time to configure everything to make things go. She has two of the Core Sound PDAudio-CF based sound systems — HP H5550 PocketPC, dual PCMCIA expansion pack, 4GB Compact Flash card, PDAudio-CF card, two CF to PCMCiA adapters, Mic2496 pre-amp and AD, and a custom version of Gordon Gidluck’s Live2496 software. The Mic2496 units were modified by Jeff Schmitt at ViAcoustics in Austin, Texas, to provide detented gain control for the preamp. She has the TOSLINK cable and the XLR input cables for the Mic2496 units. There are eight more systems waiting back at the lab. Everyone involved went the extra mile to get the units to Diane in time for her departure next weekend for Wyoming. Thanks to Len Moskowitz at Core Sound, Jeff Schmitt at ViAcoustics, and Gordon Gidluck at Gidluck Mastering for making it possible to go from sudden announcement elsewhere that no data recorders would be provided this year to having an alternate system in hand in just three weeks.

One of the big issues remaining is power, which brings along the concern about temperature. It’s still cold out in those Wyoming nights. Batteries don’t work as well in the cold. We have a chest freezer here that will be employed to test the longevity of batteries to power the gear.