Active infrared systems are two-piece systems. An infrared transmitter is placed on one side of the trail and a receiver on the other. Animals which break the infrared beam will be counted or photographed.

Passive infrared systems are one-piece systems which detect the presence of both body heat and motion in an area. Almost any animal activity will cause an event.

To decide which monitor will be best for your purposes, consider the following:

Kind and size of animal you are monitoring
Active monitors are well suited for all species of animals. You can be size selective and count only the animals you want to. For instance, if you want to record deer and not rabbits, the active monitor can be set at a specific height. The sensitivity of the monitor can be adjusted for faster or slower moving creatures.

Active monitors can be used for many purposes other than recording wild animals. Active monitors are widely used for counting people in museums or forest paths, cars in country parks, horses on bridleways and even boats on canals.

Passive monitors by contrast, will record all animals in an area. They may be more suitable if you do not know exactly where the animals you want to count or photograph will appear or if you need to include wide coverage e.g to encompass a forest clearing.

Video monitoring
The TM700v passive infrared monitor connected to a video camera will record everything that moves through an area. The TM700v will wake up the video camera when movement is detected by day or night. Use with a camera which operates at 0 lux for night work or use the TrailMaster video light.

Research tool
The TrailMaster system is widely used by researchers and there is no better confirmation as to why this system is praised than the results obtained by Steve Winter when surveying for snow leopards. Take a look and judge for yourself at Wildlife Photographer of the Year and National Geographic

Budget
The TM550 is a low cost way to get into trail monitoring. It does not allow you to be specific about the animals you are monitoring, but will do a good job of letting you know when something is in the area. If you only want to record activity and not take photographs then the TM300 or TM1050 could be for you.

Many mainstream digital and film SLR cameras are compatible with the Trailmaster system. However, in order for them to work correctly a specially adapted connection cable is required. These are available for many Canon and Nikon SLRs. The TM35-1 Camera Kit comes ready-modified with a special connector to work with the TrailMaster system so this is recommended for users who want the lowest operating costs and also wish to keep the cameras hidden.

Most readily available digital cameras do not fulfil all the required functions. The main problems with digital are:

1. Most digital cameras use a lot of power. To keep them powered on and ready to take a picture, the batteries would go dead very quickly.

2. The relatively weak flash on digital cameras may not produce acceptable nighttime photographs.

3. The delay required to capture a photo means in many cases the animal will be gone before the picture is captured. Any delay over 0.75 seconds is too long for most applications.

All one-piece units are single zone passive infrared monitors. This limits your ability to monitor and photograph a specific type of animal. Also the quality of the photographs is degraded because the camera is shooting through an extra piece of glass or plastic. At night, the quality of the photographs is diminished further because the flash bounces around in the box and often creates a poorly exposed picture. A modular approach is better because it gives you the flexibility to position the monitor well off of the trail and place the camera in the best possible position to get the desired photograph. You can add to or change parts of the system in the future without discarding the entire system and starting over again.

It is possible to attach eyebolts to the metal brackets on the back of the unit and chain the monitors to the tree. However, effective concealment is a much better approach. The long range of TrailMaster monitors means they can easily be hidden well off the trail.

No. Many photographs have been taken with the system which show the same animals in an area during a complete sequence of photographs.

Night photographs are best taken using standard daylight film and built-in flash. The TrailMaster camera control system includes features which will allow you to photograph animals day or night with little disturbance to their patterns of movement. You may also use infrared film with an infrared filter over the flash. This allows you to take photographs at night without drawing attention to the unit.

The two parts of an active trail monitor can be placed up to 45m apart.

The passive monitors emits a 150° arc of infrared that has a range of just short of 20m (65 feet).

The camera can be placed up to 25 feet (approx 7.5m) away from the receiver.

Use a Tm700v passive trail monitor to trigger the camcorder. The camcorder should be a palm-type recorder with night-shot and that adheres to the "control L" remote control protocol. This will have to be placed in a waterproof housing if it is to be used in all weathers. To make the system more animal specific you could use a TM1550 (active monitor) to trigger the TM700v-RT which in turn will activate the video camera. You can not use an active monitor to directly trigger the video camera.

The nightshot facility only illuminates up to about 30m. This is enough to cover the range of the passive monitors but extra illumination may be required depending on the exact position of the camera compared to the monitors.

The beam may be being broken by other objects such as a branch blowing in the wind across the line of the beam. Alternatively the trees to which the transmitter or receiver (or both) is attached could be moving with the wind causing the beam between the two to break which will trigger an event. Make sure the items to which the units are attached cannot move with the wind.