Is It Possible To Program Sounds Into Caller?

F

Fiddler

New member
Forgive my ignorance, but I know next to nothing about electronic game calls.
I'm interested in buying an electronic caller, but I'm not interested in any of the sounds that come with them, because Southwest Florida isn't exactly a predator hunter's prime destination.
I belong to a local birding club and we do various population surveys. One way to locate hard-to-find birds is to play a recording and listen for a response. I've been using a portable "boom box" with bird calls on CD's which I've downloaded off the internet. This works great until it doesn't. These Portable CD players are terribly fragile and never fail to quit working when you're out in the middle of nowhere.
I'd like to buy an entry-level electronic game caller and program my own "sound cards" (or whatever they're called) off of internet downloads.
Is this even possible?
Any advice would be appreciated.
 
I think you would be well pleased with the FoxPro Hellfire. You can program it to suit yourself with .fxp, mp3, or wav files. FoxPro has a great sound library with a lot of variety.
 
For ease of programming you can't go wrong with Foxpro... It easy for me to spend your money, I would look on Foxpros website for a refurbished Fury or Firestorm.. They both offer a horn and cone speaker built in... If any of the sounds you want to load are owls, having a choice of speakers will make you thank me later. Something to consider if you look at a Hellfire, a lot of song birds sounds are high pitched, a TOA speaker like a Hellfire tops out at 12KHtz. to be truly happy you might want to add either a planar tweeter or a button tweeter to fill in the gap above 12Khtz up to 20Khtz for tweety bird sounds.

On a side note, I have used Johnny Stewarts screech owl sound to good effect for calling song birds along field edges. My grand daughter lost a little enthusiasm for it after a great horned owl buzzed us at too close for comfort range looking for an easy snack one evening at dusk.
 
Hey, thanks for the quick responses!
Are these FoxPros the cheapest models available which can be programmed? I'd rather not spend too much on a gadget that will only be fetched out of the closet once a year for a bird survey.
A used or refurbished unit would be fine.
 
Primos turbo dogg line is programmable also and run about $170 at ol walmart.
Will do the job, although I would not buy one for actual hunting.
 
There is a Foxpro Spitfire for sale in the Classified Section. They only hold 24 sounds but you can always get extra SD Cards to add more sounds. Its pretty easy to change the cards out and reprogram the remote out in the field. This should fit your needs if looking for an inexpensive e-caller.
 
Fiddler,

We have made a lot of units like this in the past for universities and organizations who were doing bird surveys. Depending on the type of birds you are targeting could affect the best unit for your scenario. The speaker is an integral part of these units. We have utilized different speakers in these units to best reproduce the bird sounds that they are targeting. Some might use a cone, while others might need a horn, or a combination. A lot of times, these people do not require a remote control. They use a NX3 or NX4 in these cases, which is a non remote that we have available.
Let me know if I can be of further assistance.
 
Once again, thanks for the great responses! I'm learning a lot.
Loud callers aren't really required on these surveys because the birds we're looking for are usually just a few yards away, hidden in thick brush.
I'll be making my purchase as soon as I make up my mind.
My main concern is programming new downloaded sounds into whatever unit I end up with. I'm not much of a "techie."
Oh edit!
I just thought of another question!
If something goes wrong with the remote control on something, say, like the Spitfire mentioned above, could the unit be used without the remote?
 
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The models like the Firestorm, Crossfire, Fury, and Shockwave can be worked without the remote. Models like the Spitfire and Wildfire don't have the selector/volume knob to operate them without the remote. I really think you would enjoy the Firestorm. The programming is simple with the FoxPro programming utility which is a free download.
 
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