Revised March 16, 2003

Joe D. Bryant, President CIPMA 
 

Setting up Dawnsong to play on your computer with an outdoor speaker is actually very simple. All you have to do is go to your ‘My Computer’ or ‘Control Panel’ and choose Scheduled Task. When you open Scheduled Task, be sure that no other programs are scheduled; if there are any previously scheduled, delete them. Then click Add Scheduled Task, click ‘Browse" and choose the path to where your Dawnsong program is, such as on your CD-Rom drive (D:\?), or if you've saved it to your hard disk as a .wav or.mp3 file go to that directory in (C:\) and click it, then choose the file in the directory that you want to play.

SPEAKERS: If you are only going a very short distance with your speaker wire, you might be able to use a computer sound card that does not have an amplifier on it; however, you might need to use a separate small, cheap, separate amplifier of some kind if your sound card doesn’t have one. Radio Shack has an inexpensive power horn, but you might have to have a stronger amplifier than the one that might be on your sound card to run it from your computer.

SPEAKERS AND RADIO SHACK PARTS:

WIRE for outdoors: Radio Shack Parts # 2781116 100 feet, #16 speaker wire (white)

PLUG FOR COMPUTER SOUND CARD (preferably one with an amplifier): Radio Shack Parts #42-4234 Plug with six-foot (L82m)-shielded audio cable *

PLUG FOR MOST AMPLIFIERS: Radio Shack Parts # 42-2370A Plug with three-foot (91.4 cm) shielded audio cable *

*Note: Both plugs have cables attached that have wires exposed on the end that are ready to connect to the white wire and be wrapped with electrical tape.

FOR THE 2002 SEASON I bought an Advent AW810 wireless indoor/outdoor speaker that comes with two AC adapters, a transmitter that plugs into your computer, and a wireless, remote speaker for outside (the eight batteries are expensive and didn’t last long, so I ran an outdoor electrical extension cord to run the speaker). The suggested retail price of the Advent AW810 is $135, but the street price is lower. You might find one on Ebay for less.

FOR THE 2003 SEASON I am using a car-radio speaker that Mike Brown, Lewisport, Kentucky, gave to me. Mike attached the car speaker to a Trio martin house round-hole door.

SCHEDULE TASK: I use both Dawnsong and Daytime Chatter. I set up Dawnsong to come on at 4:30 A.M., then I went to Schedule Task and set up Daytime Chatter to come on at 8:00 A.M., but I went to ‘Advanced’ and chose 12 hours (default is set at 72 hours). That way, my computer comes on at 4:30 A.M. with Dawnsong that is turned off at 8 A.M. by Daytime Chatter that shuts itself off at 8 P.M. If you are only using Dawnsong and want it to play from 4:30 A.M. then you will want to use ‘Advanced’ for it and choose 15 hours if you want it to go off at 7:30 P.M.

You will also need to have Windows Media Player so that you can play it. WMP can be downloaded from MS Windows Update for free. After you download it and open the panel, go to ‘Play’ and click Repeat. Be sure that "Repeat" is the only choice with a checkmark when the drop menu comes up.

AUDIO CONVERTER download from:

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