D.I.Y. Turtle Tracker (Hack A Turtle!)

My son Cameron Melih (6yrs) loves animals. This summer he rescued a fresh water turtle. Turtle had a cracked shell.

This is his story... (Scroll down for the transmitter)

We found a turtle in the middle of the street. He was scared and bleeding.

Good people in Wildlife Rehab took good care of our turtle.

They cleaned him, fed him and fixed his shell with Dental Molding.

Two weeks later after school, we took him home...

My father built a solar powered transmitter to track him.

We covered the transmitter with Gorilla Glue to protect the electronics from water.

We used the same Gorilla Glue to attach the transmitter. According to veterinarians at

Wildlife Rehab Gorilla Glue does not hurt the turtle when applied on his shell.

I observed the other turtles for the best angle and placement to attach the transmitter...

After 1 hour I took the tape off. The transmitter was attached.

Carefully attached the transmitter on our turtle with tape.

I inspected the transmitter it was working.

I took him to the lake...

Here he goes to freedom...

Videos

Language: Turkish

dirty (it will get dirty for sure on back of a turtle).

I added 4.5V solar cell. The circuit needs only about 1V to work. In case turtle hiding under water or solar cell gets

It did not work! I tried another trick. Look closely, I took a short wire and wrapped around the antenna and I connected

one end to the collector of the transistor. That made tank circuit unstable. The output frequency started sweeping from

49.145Mhz to 49.155Mhz (about one sweep per second). The mod worked perfectly. Experiment different lengths!

Since my scanner does not have exact 49.152Mhz, I tried a old trick adding serial small trimer capacitor to the Xtal.

First attempt (Right), I tried to fit everything in an inch square. Bad idea! The Xtal did not resonate.

Consider it is 49Mhz. High frequency behaves differently than low frequency or DC.

Second attempt (Left), works very good. The signal can be picked up from 100ft away using a hand scanner.

100ft is the best case. Do not expect more...

(Please note, the tank circuit capacitor should be 15pf instead of 22pf in M15m schematic.)

About the Transmitter

This Turtle Tracker is based on M15m Tracking Transmitter 147.460 Mhz with one small addition.

Transmitter is itself very simple...

Here are the points you need to consider.

Happy turtle tracking...

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