The hydrophone node at the Port Townsend Marine Science Center is located beneath the pier in about 10 meters of water. It was deployed in October, 2006, and utilizes a hydrophone fabricated by Lon Brockelhurst. Custom software written in Visual Basic by Val Veirs (Windows XP) assesses average underwater sound levels and automatically detects "unusual" sounds. The stream is distributed by spacialnet.com
Photos: Slide show of installation dive | Port Townsend Flickr set
Each sound file (.mp3 format) is named with year, month, day, start time, end-time, and duration encoded in the file name. The date format is YYMMDD, start/end times are 24-hr format (PDT time zone), and the duration format is HHMMSS. These sounds are presented using a Flash-based player called Wimpy...
File name | Date | Description |
071022_1041_1059_001836-pt-calls.mp3 | Monday October 22 (10:41-10:59 PDT) -- 18 minutes of calls that grow increasingly faint. (moderate background noise). | |
071022_1059_1110_001110_pt_calls+whistle.mp3 | Faint calls and whistles |
Other links:
Port Townsend Marine Science Center
Port Townsend Ferry Camera
Port Townsend - Keystone Ferry Locator
Port Townsend - Towercam
(KX-HCM280A Panasonic Network Camera)
West-East presets: 8 = Keystone; 3 = Point Hudson; 5 = Marrowstone Point;
The real-time streams and the Salish Sea hydrophone network are brought to you by these current Network members: Beam Reach Marine Science and Sustainability School Colorado College Physics and Environmental Science Departments Orca Network Port Townsend Marine Science Center Orca Behavior Institute Cetacean Research Technologies The Network was expanded from 2006-2012 with generous support from the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Other major funding has come from the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), Beam Reach, and Cornell University (Chuck Greene). We are working to diversify our sources of support and build resiliency into the network. If you would like to contribute financially, please consider making a donation: ![]() ![]() |
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Listening guidance
To listen to these links, you must be able to receive ShoutCast streams. iTunes
will do the job (on Mac or Windows computers) for free, though you may need to copy the link and paste it in
"Open Audio Stream" under the "Advanced" menu. Another Windows solution is the free
player from Winamp.
You can also try to record the streams when you hear something that interests you. We recommend Stream Ripper (free, open source, all platforms). If you'd like to explore underwater listening even further (including sound analysis and contributions to citizen science projects), then consider taking on a Beam Reach externship in bioacoustics.
Don't hesitate to contact us if you'd like to make your recording available to the listening community by having us publish it on this web site. In any case, please abide by the Creative Commons license
Contact: Val Veirs | Contact: Scott Veirs |
Check Statistics | Administer Streams