The Development and Testing of a Radio Whale Tag

Abstract

A 200 mwatt, 27 MHz radio whale tag has been developed for tracking whales at sea. It is remotely implanted and will transmit continuously for about 90 hours, equivalent to 16 weeks on a normally behaving finback. The tag has resulted from initial efforts to tag right whales with radios in 1961-1965. The tag and its launching system were tested in whale carcasses at the Icelandic whaling station in 1976 and 1977. One point shape consistently penetrated straighter and better than others we tried. With 1977 modifications, the radio whale tag appears to be ready for field trails on rorquals.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 1977
Accession Number
ADA044807

Entities

People

  • William A. Watkins
  • William E. Schevill

Organizations

  • Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accuracy
  • Animals
  • Circuit Boards
  • Direction Finders
  • Direction Finding
  • Frequency
  • High Pressure
  • Marine Mammals
  • Military Research
  • Odontocetes
  • Orientation (Direction)
  • Photographs
  • Photography
  • Power Supplies
  • Stations
  • Trajectories
  • Transmitters

Readers

  • Aerospace Test and Evaluation
  • Marine Mammal Biology
  • Mathematics or Statistics