Products and consultancy

The C-POD and DeepC-POD use digital waveform characterisation to select cetacean clicks and log the time, centre frequency, sound pressure level, duration and bandwidth of each click. The DeepC-POD has a 10 mm aluminium housing designed for deployments to at least 2 km.

Over 2000 C-PODs, monitoring cetacean echo-location, have been deployed.

These instruments:

• detect all toothed cetaceans except sperm whales
• store compressed data on each detected click
• give high sensitivity with very low false positive rates
• monitor 20-160kHz continuously
• run for 4+ months on 10 alkaline D-cells
• store data on a single SD card to allow rapid servicing at sea

C-POD specification - for more information.

Publications - for published papers from C-PODs and earlier T-POD data.

C-POD downloads - to download the C-POD data analysis software and manuals.

Ordering - to enquire about or order C-PODs.

C-POD standardisation - to learn how PODs are standardised and calibrated.

Custom software used for analysing C-POD data.

To achieve low error rates combined with high sensitivity, CPOD.exe recognizes the trains of echo-location clicks made by cetaceans to detect their prey, orientate and interact.

CPOD.exe:

• includes the KERNO classifier, which automatically detects and classifies cetacean click trains in C-POD data.
• displays POD data at time scales ranging from 0.01 seconds to 3 years per 1000 screen pixels (zoom ratio = 3 billion).
• allows you to view synchronised data files from 3 different PODs.
• allows you to export usable statistics in a wide range of formats and time units.
• provides useful tools for rapidly handling data from large projects.

C-POD downloads - to download the software.

We offer a range of consultancy services to help you plan and implement your project and analyse your data:

Data analysis and interpretation

Analysing data, even with the benefit of our fully automated software and tutorials, may be a challenge for less experienced users. To assist, we provide a choice of services:

Data analysis service

We will analyse your data for you and provide a full report to include:

• File checks.
• Data validation.
• Statistical validation.
• Analysis of data.
• Tabulation of appropriate statistics on detection rates at different sites.
• Graphical representation of any behavioural measures of interest in the data.
• An informal assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the data set against possible uses.
• An informal comment on how these data compare with other static acoustic monitoring studies of the same species elsewhere.

Data analysis training

For those who prefer to analyse their own data, we can provide on-site or remote training in the use of our products. Please contact us for more information on this service.

The most cost-effective fishery pinger for the reduction of cetacean by-catch, designed and tested in association with Fishtek Consulting:

• Low cost
• Cost to fishers over 5 years < 15% of cost of current pingers
• Replaceable alkaline C-cell runs for 1 year at 50% soak time
• High Output
• Durable Rubber Carrier
• Easy to fit
• Easy battery change without removing carrier from net
• LED Battery Check
• Automatic Activation
• 200 metre spacing
• Patented Technology

Fishtek Consulting website for more information.

• Image noise analyzer - calculates sets of noise values from images of the sea. These provide a more powerful explanatory co-variate for visual sighting performance than Beaufort sea states.

• Lat Long to Decimal batch converter - Paste in a column of values in any format, and it converts them to decimal degrees and reports format errors or ambiguities.

• Bycatch study power analysis - Takes data from previous studies or estimates.

• Collision risk calculator - Calculates the likely maximum possible hit rate for ships moving through an area with a known density of whales of known size. A 2D model.