A Compact Frequency-Synthesized Receiver for Radio-Tracking Fruit Bats

Abstract

For a recently initiated large-scale study of the biology of pferopid fruit bats in eastern Australia to be economically feasible, all radio-tracking equipment had to be designed and constructed as part of the project. A compact and lightweight receiver, operating in the 150-2 MHz frequency range, which combines a simple and radically novel design with high performance, was developed following a thorough re-evaluation of the requirements for radio-tagging and tracking these animals. The receiver uses a frequency synthesiser to provide 200 channels at 10 kHz spacing. Some initial findings obtained from the project are discussed.