We would like to put collar on foxes in the Arctic. T°c can reach -35°c. We need a GPS logger that can resist to those extreme T°c, a drop-off system, and a VHF unit to be able to find the collar again. Foxes are not easily trappable many times. The best, I think would be to have a WiFi tool on the GPS unit that could send the data on an external logger that we could set up on the dens for example, so that most data are safe. Has anyone does that before? If yes what material have you been using?
Thanks for your help
The WIFI won't be usable there because it drains too much power and need powerful CPU to handle the software stack.
For "GPS wildlife tracking", there's mainly 2 upload solutions: ARGOS satellite (http://www.argos-system.org) or GSM phone then you can remotely get your data. But my guess there's not that much GSM availability in Arctic... And check if ARGOS covers it.
There is some systems that make "semi-upload": you'll need to be in an area near the tracker to upload its data by "short-range" radio (short range can be some km, as always it costs power).
Some trackers need to be retrieved to get their data.
Ok. Thanx, the problem with argos is the accuracy of the position, for the questions we're interested in, we need GPS accuracy. And anyway Argos, Globalstar or Iridium: the cost is really too high, that's why we're trying to find a cheaper solution, but still safe enough that we do not loose all data...
As you say, no GSM coverage at all in this region :/ So that's a bit of a challenge. I was thinking in adding solar cells to charge the batteries. At the worse of the winter, we'll still get 4h of sunlight, it's low Arctic. If the collars are on foxes for a year, if we get some gap in the data set we can still deal with that.
What exactly is the semi-upload? Does it work +/- like the Wifi tool but using less power cause it's radio?
Thanx again, for answering!
Thank you!
I'll look into that and let you know how we're doing!
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