Thermal..... Again!

[Rickfitz]

That is close, was you hand feeding it

[Fox Hunter]

That is close, was you hand feeding it

The only thing I feed them is lead (if I manage to hit em ), there's no such thing as a free feed in my book when it comes to foxes.




Well, not after the second or third night anyway

[fizzbangwhallop]

Nice pics FH! Shit that last one must have got your heart pumping, I guess you could almost have reached out and touched it! .... might have bitten you!

Reminds me of years ago up near Oban with a mate... we were sat up near the top of the wood close to the march fence at different vantage points whilst the stalker came through the wood below with his terriers with the aim of quietly walking any foxes into us... this little 4 pointer buck worked it's way across the clearing, up the bank and stood literally right next to me under the trees. I was wearing a face veil and it didn't suss me turning to watch it as it came up... it stood and looked back towards where the stalker was coming from and I could see every hair, whisker, twitch, wet nose sniff....close enough to reach out and touch it, must have been a good 30 seconds before it turned and quietly carried on. Wonderful!

To continue the story from the other night..... back to the same box around 4.15 on Sunday to see if the dog was around. Pretty murky afternoon/evening and dark half an hour earlier, bit of rain around too (I like boxes with seats and a bit of room to move around ). After the faff with the photon and it's narrow FOV I took the .243'd LRS2 with the Kite on top...... plenty of light reflecting off the clouds from "sunny" Luton to use the 14 without extra IR.

Tried different settings on the 38S and ended up with the Forestry and on white hot still.... picked up something fluttering around in front of the box thinking Shit, this is good it picks up moths! Then I worked out it just had to be a bat Switched to black hot and it got much clearer....... in fact I stayed on BH as it was giving a better, less eye-blinding, picture definition - stuff was definitely a bit clearer.... including the planes taking off from Luton and what I guessed to be a couple of mice running into the wood about 50m away... initially thought the first might have been a weasel but the rabbits didn't react. Could have been rats of course but they didn't end up at the feeders. Very impressed.

Then charlie turned up at the bottom of the field around 6.30, scattering rabbits in all directions... a quick blast of a vixen scream on the foxpro ('kin thing didn't work properly on the Friday) and he came running up the field.... Ha! Gotcha! Picked him up easily in the Kite(6x).... turned on the L808 on top for a better view - he'll stop in a mo when he get's near the call and Bob will be your relative..... Arse! He overran it...and is still going - had to bring the rifle in to get it round the roof support, out the side and realising he was about to disappear round the corner gave him a squeak, cross-hairs on, squeeze the trigger just as the 'pod was slipping over the edge. Merde moment. But, reeesult. (Reeelief!) Dropped on the spot 5 yards from disappearing. Pleased with that... big fat dog to match the big fat vixen. Lol!

Hmmmm.... think I like the picture of the 38 on black hot/forestry/auto-calibrate...... just like looking through a camera as it seems to give you a better view of the lay of the land/field vegetation features etc.... even into the woodland I was picking up and identifying rabbits, hares, muntjac and fallow from their size and movement. I normally wear glasses but ditched these and adjusted the thermal and the 'scope to match.... much better.

Still on the same set of batteries.... that was another 2 hours sat out although it wasn't on all the time and it was showing just bellow half full when I left.

To come back to the external screen for a mo....... it occurred to me that you need to look at these reversing camera screens square on which is probably what I wasn't doing the first night. But I think I'd still prefer something bigger with better definition - I was wondering if there was a way to get it to feed into my Nexus7 tablet thingy but I couldn't find a suitable App on a quick search... unless of course someone knows different??

's me.

atb

fizz

[Fox Hunter]

Nice post Fizz, I enjoyed reading that.
I got bit over 20 years ago, it won't happen again. I was out with the dogs and my Jack Russell had gone to ground but couldn't get on as it was too tight. I dug down further on and like a hard knock (neieive idiot ) stuck my arm up to see which way it went. Wallop, vixen protecting her cubs hanging off the end of my hand. I was displeased to say the least from then on I've had utter respect for foxes teeth and will only grab them when the fecker can't grab hold of me .

I know what you mean about the black hot giving more detail with less strain on the eyes. I'm guessing you are shooting over pretty clean ground? I find I can't rely on black hot to spot as there's lot's of darker areas in the view and quite often find I miss things. If you're just sat there scanning though you obviously know what's what and anything new has to be an animal.
Sounds like the different settings are useful on the Pulsar. I wondered how much difference they'd make out in the field. How are you finding navigating the menus? Are the buttons noisy? Does it stay on your preferred forestry, auto cal and black hot setting or does it revert back to standard settings when you switch off?

I can't say I feel I want a anything bigger than my 5 inch screen but it's always pretty close to my face. I wonder how good/clear the picture would be on something bigger with loads of pixel things like a nexus/ ipad jobbie For sitting in a truck something along those lines would be ideal but I haven't got a clue what lead you would need.

Night out with the good old fashioned lamp for me tonight.




...but obviously the thermal will be coming along tucked into my bino pack just in case

[Darren24]

I have a 518ec one of the first to have it serial no.5 but originally had no. 2 but had issues with the unit working in auto mode so returned no. 2 . No.5 exactly the same. Cannot see a thing 9 times out of ten in auto. When unit powers up I have to go into the menu and then to semi auto and then ramp the gain up to at least 100 on a good night but most of the time around the 190 mark.just wondering if other owners have this problem if not try it and let me no. Cheers

[PESCA]

I've a 518C and use mine in auto 100% and have done since I first got it.

I'm thinking that you should return yours to the seller if you can't see anything with it, especially as you had problems with the previous one.

Maybe it's near enough for them to demo your own unit to you, if they think it isn't faulty?

George

[phoenix]

I agree with George. I leave mine in Auto and it works just fine.

Cheers

Bruce

[Fox Hunter]

I have a 518ec one of the first to have it serial no.5 but originally had no. 2 but had issues with the unit working in auto mode so returned no. 2 . No.5 exactly the same. Cannot see a thing 9 times out of ten in auto. When unit powers up I have to go into the menu and then to semi auto and then ramp the gain up to at least 100 on a good night but most of the time around the 190 mark.just wondering if other owners have this problem if not try it and let me no. Cheers

The only time I get a really bad image on auto is in the rain. My vids earlier in the thread were all on auto, crap pic quality I know but I certainly wouldn't complain about the image through the eye piece. I was hesitant to go with the guide after reading your posts and at first as it was always wet I wasn't blown away by it because of the lack of contrast on the landscape. I tried the semi setting then but it was still a rubbish image however if anything was hot in the image it was clear as a bell. I now just change the colour palette if I need to tweak the image but haven't bothered with the semi setting since I first got it just like the others. Would taking pics help to compare the images between our units? There is another member in Essex with a guide who may even meet up with you to compare them side by side may be..

[PESCA]

I seem to remember that twelve months ago, a chap got in touch with me and was asking about my Guide, which I'd had for fifteen months by then.

After seeking my advice, he went ahead and bought one. Was consequently disappointed and sent me some images from his unit, along with the settings used. I advised him to return the unit. He did so and received another, which ended up being no better, and he decided to take a refund on the unit.

Trouble is, we can't always know if a unit should have failed QC, has simply developed a fault, or, was maybe a demo unit. Who's to tell?

In an ideal scenario, you should seek out another user of the same unit and compare settings and results. Not always practical though.

One things for sure, a reputable dealer will help you through it, and if poo happens, they'll replace it (so long as you haven't damaged it, of course).

George

[Fox Hunter]

What's different about each unit George? I can understand the differences with tubed nv units with blemishes etc but what's different with digi type devices to make them perform differently? Is it the germanium lens and not the processing thingamie bits inside regarding the thermal?