Zoom H2N arrives

My Zoom H2 was starting to show it's age and drop a few sessions last year, so I changed to a newer model, a Zoom H2N. Main advantage of this newer model, according to the literature was a much better battery life, and also preserving recordings if the battery dies during the session. Both of these features are of paramount importance to me, but it was two additional features that have made this an excellent recorder for Bat recording..

1. Auto-record: The H2N has a useful autorecord which records a new file each time the sound level exceeds a customised threshold. Having experimented with this feature, I get a lot of false triggers, but these are easily identified by their short file size. The bat files are easily extracted from the list. This could be very useful once I have tuned the recording level to get the best quality signals. This is not easy at the moment as I only have a single Pipistrelle roaming the garden each night!

2. 4 channel recording, The H2N can record from a Bat detector, plus it's own mics. simultaneously. This could be useful for a combined Owl and Bat survey, but I'm not sure if the recording levels can be tuned to optimise this (Bird calls need the recording level to be maximised)

Early days, but the results so far are pleasing.