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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs. Rev A2, November, 2005
© Copyright Stuart Healy www.aztrogon.com Page 9 of 25
DJ Screens 1-6 show the basic menus and navigation needed to access a specific species within a family.
Getting to a bird
All operations to select a bird are
done with my right thumb; almost
all operations are done with the
scroll-select dial (SSD).
1) The main menu can be reached
instantaneously no matter what
state the DJ is in by pressing the
home button.
2) Accessing the library menu
only requires a single select, i.e.
one push of the SSD (since
“Music Library” is already
highlighted). Accessing the
family listing requires scrolling
down to “Artist” then select.
3-4) Getting to a specific family
requires SSD operations -- scroll
to the family, select, then scroll to
“View Tracks” and select to
display the list of species.
5-6) Getting to a species is the
same as 3-4 above. You can then
play the track directly or add it to
the current play list.
Note: The Find-Artist Find-Track
functions can be used instead of
scrolling through the displayed
names. However, since the lists
are relatively short, I’ve found
that scrolling is much faster.
Minimizing access time
I use captial letters in the family and species name displays to improve readability. I wear glasses for
reading but obviously don’t want to mess around with them in the field. The number sequence to force
families to be displayed in taxonomic order also helps (assuming that you know the order!).
You’ll also note that I’ve prefixed the species names with a letter (or number if more than 26) to force
species to be displayed in taxonomic order. When I first started using the player, I used only the names
which automatically display alphabetically. I’m still undecided about which system is best and to date
I’ve added a prefix to less than half the tracks on the player. The alphabetic system means that you can
definitely find the bird reasonably quickly (unless you suddenly forget the alphabet), whereas the taxomic
system may slow you down if you forget where a bird is located taxonomically in a long list of species
names (such as flycatchers).