Had anyone had success with a DIY call?  I built one about 5 years ago, but never had any success with it.  After looking at some $300  FoxPro's I'm thinking about revisiting the project.

I was thinking about seeing if I could upload the calls to a small mp3 player or my phone then use a battery powered stereo with a line in jack. I have to see if I can find the sounds or a video since I already have the stuff.

I have used FoxPro's for years, currently have a FX5 & love it, very well made & great customer service. Should not be too hard to build somthing that willl work.

Yes. For coyotes and snow geese. There is a looooong running thread on Nodakoutdoors.com with a bunch of info. I have used both cds and mp3 with success.

Ordered conespeakers online and got a small amp from radio shack. I was planning on digging out my stuff this weekend to start prepping for free time in a couple weeks. Will post some pictures and detail then.

I found the website called varmint Al. Followed all the step minus the mp3 player which I used my phone. My only problem was I had so much feed back when I would try to change sounds. Or in the playlist (which you can download from his site for  free)it should be quite there was still some small sounds. Soooo I bought a FoxPro and still have the stuff sitting in the garage.

I tried the DIY caller route about 5 years ago - hard to get enough volume without reducing the quality of the sound, and no remote capability, both of which removed the advantage of an e-caller over mouth calls. When I priced out better components, I found that I could just buy a FoxPro and skip the hassle, and so I did just that and never looked back.

YMMV.

The distortion is the biggest problem I've had so far.  I might look into a different amplifier.

I have had this stuff set up a bunch of different ways. Cone speaker cut into the bottom of a big coffee cup, dual speakers mounted on a box, sling bag, and this one.

Amp is radio shack part #277-1008c

Cone speaker is a Speco Spc-5P

I need new speakers as these have ALOT of hours on them. When its cold the CD player or mp3 needs to be kept close to the body for heat so I run extended lines.

It has problems as far as convenience goes, but the setup shown costs about $30. If money is tight it is a realistic option.

I have the same RadioShack amp.  I think that might be the limiting factor.

I know that if I turn it up too high I get distortion. Honestly though, that is plenty loud. I marked on my amp with a sharpie where the sweet spot is. Did the same on my CD/mp3 players.

What speakers? How loud are you trying to get? Our best success has been to pick a sound, turn it on, let it run. Brings them in from waaay out there. I'm certainly no pro, but this has worked for us numerous times. Where we screwed up was switching over to night hunting. That is tough. Snow cover and a full moon are legal here. No lights.

i made one.  awesome.

A while ago i clicked on a link posted here containing both squirrel, rabbit, turkey and a few other animal calls in mp3 format.





All I did was take the rabbit and the squirrel calls and literally just drop them onto a playlist on my ipod and than attach failry small and cheap speaker to the headset jack.





Heres the thing though. I can tell you with absolutely 100 percent certainty, that you are able to call in sqirells using these .mp3 squirrel calls played through an iPod. Its one of the wildest things i've ever seen as this was my frist real attempt to try to call in an animal, and I had no doubt at all that it was going to be a giant waste of time to even try.

I built one like that.  Only tried it once and was in some pretty thick stuff near where I deer hunt.  Didn't see anything.  But I will say it drives my dogs nuts.

Can someone post a link to any of these calls in mp3 format? The one I have found aren't very good. Specifically which ones you have had success with.

I bought CDs, uploaded to my laptop, transferred the tracks to my mp3.

I put together pretty much the same thing as the pic above but only tried it a couple times.  Distortion is noticeable so I have to turn it down a bit.  I just bought the icotec and mojo decoy from midway for $100 after coupon.   I'm not spending $300+ on a caller but the icotec got decent reviews and will allow me to place it 100m away from my stand.  I'll report back in 2 weeks after I get a chance to use it.

Of course, I may try some homemade decoys as well....

Looking forward to your opinion of the icotec.

I just started looking into this again.  Seeing all the cheap blue tooth speakers got me thinking.   Haven't seen too many people making their own e-callers.
I found this free app.

Android Coyote Call App


Bought two of these for $14 apiece from Ebay. I understand that 10 meters is the longest range for the Blue tooth on these.

3 Watt Bluetooth Speaker

Don't know if it'll be loud enough so I got 2.  If I need more volume I plan on cutting the speaker out of one and wiring the bluetooth part into a portable battery powered PA speaker like this. This one is 50 Watts and rechargable.

Personal PA System

What do you guys think?

After Talking to a buddy about what I wanted to do and what I ordered, he showed me the bluetooth headset he uses on his motorcycle with headphones.

The Jabra BT3030


You could plug the BT3030 directly into the input on the PA speaker and have a 50watt bluetooth speaker. Use the Coyote app and boom, a $60 e-caller.

I played with the Jabra around the office.  Was very pleased with the sound quality from the headphones.

I received the 3 watt bluetooth speakers and the Pyle PA system this week.  

The little blue tooth speakers are pretty nice for $14.  Have good sound, work well, and are heavy.  They seem like quality speakers. As I thought though, they aren't as loud as I was wanting. They also have this voice announcement that tells you whats going on with the speaker.  That's a deal breaker for coyote hunting and annoying because the voice is always at something close to full volume.

The Pyle PA System (p/n PWMA60U) came in nice retail packaging.  Small for what I expected at 4"x5"x1.25".  Makes me wonder how they got 50 watts in there. It says in broken english that it takes 3-4 hours to charge and has 8 hours of usable power.  It came with a headset microphone, some sort of shoulder strap and also has a belt clip attached to the back. There's 3 ports on the unit. 1 for an aux audio input (mp3 player or in my case a Jabra), 1 microphone input, and one USB port. The USB port is for a thumbdrive.  You can play MP3's directly off of a drive with the 3 buttons on the top of the unit.  This was the only way I had to test the unit at my desk, so I loaded up some ac/dc on an empty thumbdrive and plugged it in and hit the play button.  The music started quick and responded quickly to button input.   The only usable volume setting I could use in my small office was barely off of the off position as the sound level escalated very quickly past there.  

The only thing I wish the unit had was an external speaker jack.  Just incase the internal speaker doesn't deal well with the calling sounds.  The unit seems to come apart pretty easily with four screws in the back.  The manual mentions that the rechargeable battery is user replaceable but shouldn't be attempted while the unit is under warranty.  I plan on taking it apart and seeing if there is room to add a selector switch and an external jack.  

If anyone is interested let me know and I'll make a separate thread and do a video of the finished unit.

I've had good luck with this. Radio shack amp (tweeked slightly. I'm an electronics tech),igloo cooler from a thrift store and all other parts from eBay.
Called in several. Daylight and dark.