calls

[wgr]

what would be a good electronic call  i would love to use mouth calls but with about 70% hearing loss and being tone deaf i have no option

[kevthebassman]

Sort of depends on your price range, really.  Are you looking to do this on a budget or are you looking to spend some bucks?

[wgr]

my wallet is not overly full but i would like good stuff

[kevthebassman]

Well, Foxpro is the best out there.  If you have the dough to drop you can pick up one starting around $400.  You can program your own sounds into them, (either bought from foxpro or download your own) which is nice, plus they have the remote control. 

Johnny Stewart calls are around $100, but the sounds come on cards you have to buy.

Or, you could do what I did and make your own call.  I'll cut/paste some of my old posts from another site so you can read the process I went through.

Here's the finished caller:

 



I took it out today and called one stand with it before dark.  Didn't see anything, but I think I had the volume too low for the stand.  Saw about 7 deer though... too bad I didn't have my deer rifle...

Deer season ends this weekend and all the drunks on the lease next door will be out slinging lead at everything that moves so no calling 'till Monday.  Coyotes will be on the gutpiles for a while after that so calling won't get good for another week or so I'm guessing.

If I didn't have the powerhorn plugged into it, yes sound would come out, but it's shut off when the horn is plugged in.  Honestly though I've never fired it up without the powerhorn, so I couldn't say how it sounds.

I've called a few times now with this call. 

Here's my review: 

The sound is really great out of it.  I can get it really loud without distortion.  The only thing that sort of worries me is that the sound is very directional.  It's really loud where I point it, and not so loud behind it.  I don't know how that would affect calling with it, however.

With the program that came with the mp3 player, it's easy to swap sounds in and out of my selected series playlists, and I have waaaaay more memory (1 gig) than I need, but I wanted some space for music too.

The only real disadvantage that I feel I have with this caller  is the lack of a remote control.  I have bought 50 (or maybe 100) feet of speaker wire, and I'm going to try to splice that in to see if I can turn the mp3 player into a remote control.  I'm not sure if it's going to work or not, I'll let you know.

To boil it down for you:

Pro:

-Cheaper than a Johnny Stewart caller at around $70.

-Able to download calls off the 'net for free, as opposed to paying $15 for the 10 or so calls that come on the little cards that Johnny Stewart sells, so much greater sound variety.

-Crystal clear sound if what you download is of good quality.

-The mp3 player I have gets FM radio and can play music too,  and sounds good out of the big speaker.

Con:

-No remote.  (for now, at least)

-Mp3 player must be hooked up to a USB port to charge.  Fortunately it doesn't suck batteries.  Mini-amp takes 1 9-volt battery.

-Setting the volume to the right level is a bit of an art, since there are two volume adjustments, one on the mp3 and one on the amp.  A remote would solve this problem.

Overall I'm pretty happy with it.  If I can make the remote work, I think it'll take some convincing to make me shell out $400 for a Foxpro.

Little update for anyone who's interested: I spliced in 100 feet of speaker wire between the mp3 player and the amp, and it works perfectly. I now have a digital caller with nearly unlimited sounds and a remote control. Though I will admit that 100 feet of speaker wire on a spool is a bit unwieldy to wind up after a stand.

I'm curious about the caller you made. Can you shoot me a supply list of everything I would need to build one so I could maybe start looking around. Where do you download your sounds from? Have you had success with it? Just kind of curious. How heavy and akward is it to carry around? Thanks for the info.
Mike

These plus an MP3 player are the main components:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2104031&cp=&pg=2&y=7&x=9&kw=speaker&numProdsPerPage=20&parentPage=search

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062620&cp=&kw=mini+amplifier&parentPage=search

The rest of the stuff along with some basic instructions are on this page:

http://www.predatormastersforums.com/homemadeecaller.shtml

If you've got a mind to, you can make it a remote controlled unit by splicing in 100 feet of speaker wire between the mp3 player and the amp, then just have the mp3 in your hand.  I really recommend doing this.

What I did to make a case for mine was to cut out a hole in a plastic container and epoxy the thing in there.  It's really easy to carry with the handle, or you can do what I do and toss it in a 5 gallon bucket that doubles as a chair.

Here are some places where you can download calls for free:

http://www.western-rivers.com/downloads.html

http://www.varmintal.com/ahunt.htm#Calling

I took mine with me to Arizona but only used it for half a day, because everyone there had foxpro callers.  I called in 3 coyotes in 3 stands.  There are a whole lot more coyotes down there than there are around here.  I haven't called one in in Missouri so far, but I've been busy.

If you need to know anything else, feel free to message me.

[Sourdough]

The wife gave our son a ZUNE for his birthday.  His old I-Pod is no longer needed by him so I confiscated it.  I downloaded varmit calls from several sites onto the I-Pod.  I then hooked it up to the CASS CREEK Big Horn Speaker system.  Just press the call I want and it plays on the Speaker 75 feet away.  Am going to try it tomorrow and see what I can call in.