German Oceanographic Museum, Katharinenberg 14-20, 18439 Stralsund, Germany.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2013 Sep;134(3):2462-8. doi: 10.1121/1.4816571.
Timing Porpoise Detectors (T-PODs, Chelonia Ltd.) are autonomous passive acoustic devices for monitoring odontocetes. They register the time of occurrence and duration of high frequency pulsed sounds as possible odontocetes echolocation clicks. Because of evolution, five T-POD versions exist. Although the manufacturer replaced those by a digital successor, the C-POD, T-PODs are still used, and data from many field studies exist. Characterizing the acoustic properties of T-PODs enables the interpretation of data obtained with different devices. Here, the detection thresholds of different T-POD versions for harbor porpoise clicks were determined. While thresholds among devices were quite variable in the first T-POD generations, they became more standardized in newer versions. Furthermore, the influence of user-controlled settings on the threshold was investigated. From version 3 on, the detection threshold was found to be easily adjustable with version-dependent setting options "minimum intensity" and "sensitivity," enabling the presetting of standard thresholds. In version 4, the setting "click bandwidth" had a strong influence on the detection threshold, while "selectivity" in version 3 and "noise adaptation = ON" or "OFF" in version 4 hardly influenced thresholds obtained in the tank tests. Nevertheless, the latter setting may influence thresholds in a complex acoustic environment like the sea.
定时海豚探测器（T-POD，Chelonia Ltd.）是一种自主式被动声学设备，用于监测齿鲸类动物。它们记录高频脉冲声的发生时间和持续时间，作为可能的齿鲸回声定位声纳点击。由于进化的原因，存在五种 T-POD 版本。尽管制造商已经用数字继任者 C-POD 取代了那些 T-POD，但 T-POD 仍在使用中，并且存在许多野外研究的数据。描述 T-POD 的声学特性可以帮助解释使用不同设备获得的数据。在这里，确定了不同 T-POD 版本对港湾海豚点击的检测阈值。虽然在第一代 T-POD 中，设备之间的阈值差异很大，但在较新版本中，它们变得更加标准化。此外，还研究了用户控制设置对阈值的影响。从版本 3 开始，检测阈值可以通过版本相关的设置选项“最小强度”和“灵敏度”轻松调节，从而可以预设标准阈值。在版本 4 中，设置“点击带宽”对检测阈值有很大影响，而在版本 3 中的设置“选择性”和版本 4 中的“噪声适应= ON”或“OFF”几乎不影响在水箱测试中获得的阈值。然而，后者的设置可能会影响像海洋这样复杂的声学环境中的阈值。
