Canopy Hoist in the Works
Friday, August 5th, 2022 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudioAnother less than stellar dusk recording today, which is par for the course... but it did have one little glimmering ray of hope in it.
Again I had the S8 nine feet off the ground on the fully extended monopod/tripod, and at one point caught a nearby cicada that was louder and more crystal clear than anything I've ever recorded before.
That take was destroyed by barking dogs, of course, but it did show that even at an elevation of ten feet, the closer ones are much louder and cleaner.
--<>--
After sunset, I went down into my basement workshop to get started on my canopy hoist. Below are the pics of what I came up with...
Here you can see my spool of wire rope... a very thin gauge, but it is plasti-coated. The wooden bit is a weight.
I wanted a decent weight on the end to keep a bit of tension on the line when it's not in use, so that it doesn't just flop off the tree limb and fall to the ground. But the weight will also make sure it comes down to me, when I feed slack up to it.
In this case, I used the pillar of a small table lamp that had been stashed in a drawer for five years. I cut off one end with my chop saw, to make it a bit shorter, and then fed two eye bolts into it.
The eye bolts are joined together, on the interior, by a threaded coupler. I just had the coupler threaded to one bolt as it went inside, then fed in the other bolt... got it to thread to the other end of the coupler, and then twisted the two eyes until they were both super tight.
They automatically self-centered in the central hole of the weight. It was almost too easy!
The cable, still on the spool, was simply looped around the top eye bolt and fastened with two crimp connectors. One probably would've been enough, but I went with two, just to be safe.
I attached an S-hook to the bottom eye bolt, and then bent the shit out of it with a couple of channel locks, to make sure the weight-end can't let go, and the hook end has just enough room for the basket ring to get through, but is also deep enough that there's no way the basket can come detached while deployed into the canopy.
This is the chicken-wire basket I made back in June, to hang the S8 over the grass. The chicken wire doesn't reflect or block any sound. That's leather cord holding it together, and it's got a keyring at the top to hang from the lower hook of a tripod...
Or in this case... the hook of the cannopy hoist.
How it will be, if you can picture the S8 in the basket. I just lower the weight down to my level, hook on the basket, then hoist it high up into the canopy! An hour or two later, I lower it down again and collect the basket!
------------{=0=}------------
The next step is to get that weighted end up and over the highest limb I can possibly reach, up on a ladder, with a fully extended tree trimmer pole.
I've already picked out the limb on the mulberry where I need it to go, and no... I can't just stand on the ground trying to throw it up there like a dumb ass, because there are too many branches around it to get snagged on, or deflect it back down into my face!
--<>--
Once it's over the limb, I can feed out enough cable from the spool to get the weight close to the ground, and also over to the SCOP.
And from there, the final problem is just fastening some hardware to the scop. Something to hold the end of the cable. Something to wind the cable around. And maybe, if I have a spare pulley, I can use it to guide and stablize the cable a little better on it's way down from the limb to that hardware.
That'll be my weekend project.
But if all goes as planned, I should be able to get the S8, safely some 25 to 30 feet off the ground!
From that height, cicadas, wing tappers, and check tails should all sound louder and cleaner than anybody's ever heard them from the ground. Especially if I'm lucky enough to catch ones who actually inhabit the canopy of the Mulberry tree itself!
And who knows what other odd discoveries could be made from recording way up there?
------------{=0=}------------
What I love best about this solution is that it's so low profile!
Just one thin line coming off the SCOP, and going up at a steep angle. No need to duck under it. Nothing to trip over in the grass or snag the mower.
It'll be completely invisible to the neighbors... unlike my giant tripod in the middle of the back yard at sunset. And I'm pretty sure the impact on the wildlife, and the tree itself will be next to nothing.
The line's too thin and lightweight to damage the thick bark of a main mulberry limb.
Yet it's not gonna rust, and can't be chewed through.
------------{=0=}------------
Okay, before I sign off, I need to do a bit of an update about how things are sounding out there, on Friday, the 5th of August...
I am now hearing so many nymphs out there, that the adults are getting lost in the mix. So it does seem like there's a population boom happening... but it's in the juvenilles, and not the adults.
Also, while the field crickets do seem to be closing in on my back yard, it's still only on the periphery, and the core of the yard... within 30 feet of the SCOP, remains unpopulated.
Adult field crickets can be heard in little patches on that periphery... as though they are forming cliques together... and in those cliques, they do sound quite lively!
I continue to hear a very few wing tappers up there, after dark, but it's still just one here and one there, every twenty minutes or so.
The bush crickets, so far, remain at a low level. They're not drowning out anything else Which is a good sign.
I've been hearing a lot of juvenille mole crickets at dusk... which seems like a good sign that they might be present in big numbers later on as adults, later at night.
It feels like all the ingredients are there for a well balanced symphony, later this summer... heavier on the percussion, bass, and lead... lighter on the chorus.
But they're taking their sweet time tuning up, and growing up!
--<>--
Canopy hoist testing should keep me occupied until they're ready, and give me another Dial or two to upload, while we're waiting next week.
It's only the 5th. It'll probably be five or six more days until it's really go time.
°¦}
Again I had the S8 nine feet off the ground on the fully extended monopod/tripod, and at one point caught a nearby cicada that was louder and more crystal clear than anything I've ever recorded before.
That take was destroyed by barking dogs, of course, but it did show that even at an elevation of ten feet, the closer ones are much louder and cleaner.
After sunset, I went down into my basement workshop to get started on my canopy hoist. Below are the pics of what I came up with...
Here you can see my spool of wire rope... a very thin gauge, but it is plasti-coated. The wooden bit is a weight.
I wanted a decent weight on the end to keep a bit of tension on the line when it's not in use, so that it doesn't just flop off the tree limb and fall to the ground. But the weight will also make sure it comes down to me, when I feed slack up to it.
In this case, I used the pillar of a small table lamp that had been stashed in a drawer for five years. I cut off one end with my chop saw, to make it a bit shorter, and then fed two eye bolts into it.
The eye bolts are joined together, on the interior, by a threaded coupler. I just had the coupler threaded to one bolt as it went inside, then fed in the other bolt... got it to thread to the other end of the coupler, and then twisted the two eyes until they were both super tight.
They automatically self-centered in the central hole of the weight. It was almost too easy!
The cable, still on the spool, was simply looped around the top eye bolt and fastened with two crimp connectors. One probably would've been enough, but I went with two, just to be safe.
I attached an S-hook to the bottom eye bolt, and then bent the shit out of it with a couple of channel locks, to make sure the weight-end can't let go, and the hook end has just enough room for the basket ring to get through, but is also deep enough that there's no way the basket can come detached while deployed into the canopy.
This is the chicken-wire basket I made back in June, to hang the S8 over the grass. The chicken wire doesn't reflect or block any sound. That's leather cord holding it together, and it's got a keyring at the top to hang from the lower hook of a tripod...
Or in this case... the hook of the cannopy hoist.
How it will be, if you can picture the S8 in the basket. I just lower the weight down to my level, hook on the basket, then hoist it high up into the canopy! An hour or two later, I lower it down again and collect the basket!
The next step is to get that weighted end up and over the highest limb I can possibly reach, up on a ladder, with a fully extended tree trimmer pole.
I've already picked out the limb on the mulberry where I need it to go, and no... I can't just stand on the ground trying to throw it up there like a dumb ass, because there are too many branches around it to get snagged on, or deflect it back down into my face!
Once it's over the limb, I can feed out enough cable from the spool to get the weight close to the ground, and also over to the SCOP.
And from there, the final problem is just fastening some hardware to the scop. Something to hold the end of the cable. Something to wind the cable around. And maybe, if I have a spare pulley, I can use it to guide and stablize the cable a little better on it's way down from the limb to that hardware.
That'll be my weekend project.
But if all goes as planned, I should be able to get the S8, safely some 25 to 30 feet off the ground!
From that height, cicadas, wing tappers, and check tails should all sound louder and cleaner than anybody's ever heard them from the ground. Especially if I'm lucky enough to catch ones who actually inhabit the canopy of the Mulberry tree itself!
And who knows what other odd discoveries could be made from recording way up there?
What I love best about this solution is that it's so low profile!
Just one thin line coming off the SCOP, and going up at a steep angle. No need to duck under it. Nothing to trip over in the grass or snag the mower.
It'll be completely invisible to the neighbors... unlike my giant tripod in the middle of the back yard at sunset. And I'm pretty sure the impact on the wildlife, and the tree itself will be next to nothing.
The line's too thin and lightweight to damage the thick bark of a main mulberry limb.
Yet it's not gonna rust, and can't be chewed through.
Okay, before I sign off, I need to do a bit of an update about how things are sounding out there, on Friday, the 5th of August...
I am now hearing so many nymphs out there, that the adults are getting lost in the mix. So it does seem like there's a population boom happening... but it's in the juvenilles, and not the adults.
Also, while the field crickets do seem to be closing in on my back yard, it's still only on the periphery, and the core of the yard... within 30 feet of the SCOP, remains unpopulated.
Adult field crickets can be heard in little patches on that periphery... as though they are forming cliques together... and in those cliques, they do sound quite lively!
I continue to hear a very few wing tappers up there, after dark, but it's still just one here and one there, every twenty minutes or so.
The bush crickets, so far, remain at a low level. They're not drowning out anything else Which is a good sign.
I've been hearing a lot of juvenille mole crickets at dusk... which seems like a good sign that they might be present in big numbers later on as adults, later at night.
It feels like all the ingredients are there for a well balanced symphony, later this summer... heavier on the percussion, bass, and lead... lighter on the chorus.
But they're taking their sweet time tuning up, and growing up!
Canopy hoist testing should keep me occupied until they're ready, and give me another Dial or two to upload, while we're waiting next week.
It's only the 5th. It'll probably be five or six more days until it's really go time.
°¦}
