Johann Simoncini

Summary of work

Johann undertook the development construction and testing of a bat detector and a bat simulator circuit. He made a good start with extensive background reading and made good use of several different sources of information. We selected a detector kit that would allow the operation of the simulator to be tested. The detector was successfully built and tested, and the standard of construction was very high.

Johann went on to design and test a series of modules to construct a bat simulator, and although there was not sufficient time to complete the assembly of this unit he has developed a sound basis for future work in this area.

The simulator includes the following blocks:

• square wave generator, (555) with separately variable mark and space times
• stable variable frequency (Wien) sine wave generator 35 - 80kHz approx.
• bipolar double balanced modulator (rejected as unsuitable)
• mixer using 3080 OTA
• 150V switching mode supply and amplifier to drive capacitive transducer.

The bat detector Johann built is now undergoing field trials and is proving very successful, although there is still room for improvement in terms of sensitivity and audio output.

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