Video Script
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SM4
Quick Start
Welcome to Wildlife Acoustics.
This Quick Start video is designed to get up and recording with the Song Meter SM4 within
minutes.
I’ve just taken delivery of a Song Meter SM4 acoustic recorder. I’ll open the box and I see a
printed manual and Quick Start Checklist. On the reverse side of the checklist is a description of
Kaleidoscope Pro software. Once you’ve made recordings with the
Song Meter, Kaleidoscope
Pro is an excellent way to analyze and manage those recordings.
I’ll take the SM4 out of the box to get it ready for recording. The SM4 can run on internal or
external batteries. I’ll open the security cover and then open the fro
nt panel to expose the
battery compartment. I’ll insert four D
-cell batteries. Make sure the batteries are inserted with
the correct polarity.
I’ll close up the battery compartment and insert an SD memory card. SD memory cards come in
a variety of storage capacities and there are two memory card slots on the SM4 to extend
recording time even further.
I’ll set the power switch to Internal and the SM4 boots up.
It’s not usually a requirement but it’s also not a bad idea to initialize the memory card. I’ll
scroll
to the Utilities menu, press the right arrow button to enter Utilities. I’ll scroll down to Format All
Cards and confirm the operation. This will initialize all memory cards currently inserted into the
SM4.
It’s also not a requirement for basic ope
ration but I am going to set the location of the SM4.
Metadata is written to the recording files describing the date, time, and location of when and
where those recordings were made. Also, if you want to use a recording schedule that
references sunrise and sunset times, you do need to have accurate date and location
information.
Date, time, and location can be manually entered under the Settings menu. For this video I’m
going to use the available GPS Accessory to do the work for me. Before I use the GPS accessory
I’ll scroll down in the Location menu to the Timezone UTC setting. GPS time is based on the
