COP Outcome development and evaluation

Obviously it is difficult to trial the transmitters in the field when dealing with international customers. When the transmitter is being designed for a particularly difficult animal or environment the designer may make up a test model to send to the customer on a sale or return basis, depending on how it worked out. The trial model may be sent free of charge if there is the possibility of a big order.

Problems to be Overcome

As well as the challenge of designing appropriate transmitters there have sometimes been problems to overcome as well. Sometimes the design is wrong for the situation or the designer can underestimate what damage a particular animal can do to the product. There can be batch failures where the whole lot of the receivers have failed to completely do the job.

Tracking Lynx in Colorado, United States of America, proved a problem in 2000 when receivers started failing after 3 months instead of the expected 12. Sirtrack had won a contract to supply 50 satellite transmitters for a new lynx release programme. The transmitters would only be transmitting 12 hours a week. It turned out that in this environment the transmitters, which used lithium batteries, weren't running enough to prevent a preservation layer from forming, which resulted in no current coming through to power the units. Sirtrack replaced all the recovered transmitters and the Colorado researchers have since bought another 50 VHF and satellite receivers.

Challenges from the environment

Each contract brings its own challenges in designing the transmitter. In low temperatures the capacity of the batteries is reduced so people working in an arctic environment understand they will only have 50% radio capacity. In the tropics of Northern Queensland the collars can't be made of leather as the hot, wet environment causes them to rot.