Difference between revisions of "(Research Tactic) Audio Drop Boxes"
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Latest revision as of 15:43, 25 March 2026
Audio Drop Boxes
An article written by D.W. "Darkwing" Lee, Executive Director, MABRC.
(Special thanks to Dave "Therealsuperdave" Jett for creating this unique drop box, without him, I don't think I would have ever come up with this great idea.)
About 9 (2006) years ago, I happen to talk to the guys from Texlaresearch about their dropboxes they used to place their audio recorders out in the field.
They have used these dropboxes to obtain some really great audio, and I learned a lot from these guys, one of the main things I learned, is to just walk along through the woods and just drop off the box and continue going on, not dwelling on the fact you are putting this recorder in place.
The MABRC uses this approach on our audio recorders and guys like Randy "Rebelistic" Savig, Mark "Sawdustt" Newbill, Dave "Therealsuperdave" Jett and Mike "CompresserMike" Hartsell have taken these to a new level with the numbers of dropboxes and the design of them.
One design in particular caught my attention, and with good reason. On an expedition about a year ago, I took Dave Jett out on a four wheeler to place his new dropbox, and I was very impressed. It was a PVC pipe sealed on one end, with the other end filled with foam rubber to keep the recorder in and a very ingenious hook system that allowed Dave to place his recorder up high above the eye level of even the tallest Bigfoot.
Placing bark around the entire rig, once placed high up into the tree, unless you knew it was there, you would never know it was hanging there above you.
So lets fast forward to January 2017, I had deployed some of my dropboxes out during the MABRC expedition. These were made out of small tupperware bowls with lids, easily seen at long distances. Upon reviewing the audio, I was shocked to hear 4 wheelers approach my recorder, stop, and the people dismounted. They approached the box and you could hear them open the box saying "what the heck is this?". Then they realized it was recording, they closed the box back. I came so close to loosing my recorder.
SO D.W., what next? You may ask?
I took Dave Jett's idea and built two prototypes to use in my areas. To do this, I needed to buy some items. While I used a different capping system because my local hardware stores didn't carry what I needed, I have found everything I would require since on Lowes.com, I will be building newer models within the next month.
