Looking to get into a thermal handheld with a budget of about $2000. I was really interested in the Thor Hd line but i'm not spending my money on a unit that hasn't worked out the bugs yet. Does anyone have the Pulsar? Any other suggestions? Thanks in advance!

I've been researching this mess for a while now and soon as we get a house sold I'm gettin an HD19a.
From what I've read it simply can't be beat in that price range. I even looked up one of UNV's customers
who was from around here and talked with him directly. Super nice fella. He was very impressed with both
the unit and UNV's service. d:^)  Jake..

The really cool thing about UNV's try before you buy program is 100% of the rental fee goes toward the purchase price of a new unit. I don't know why anyone wouldn't take advantage of that. Try before you buy helps eliminate buyers remorse too.

This...UNV is good follks, I bought a 19a a little while back, first night out testing spotted two yotes running down a fence line about 300 yards out,  no caller, no gun with me ..it is a nifty little unit, a good bang for your bucks.

I have already bought 3 thermal units and 1 digital unit from UNV. Great place to buy from.

I've sold a ton of pulsar units with zero issues.

Well, we don't have anywhere near the volume of you guys.

Had mine going on two years now and it goes on every hunt with me, day or night. Its great to scan for critters while stalking with rifle slung, or just in a stand. Very satisfied.

I use mine nearly every weekend.  Awesome unit!  "Detection" range is great.  "ID" range... Takes some practice.  Using lithium batteries, I get about 6-8 hours of run time leaving it on constantly.  I scan with mine and if I see something questionable, I use my IRD hunter mk II to identify.    Where abouts in Tx are you?

Sorry about the hijack but ccreyeder can you give a general detection range for hogs?
I'm thinking on going this route myself.

Seriously? I can detect a squirrel at 100 yards no problem. I can detect a deer at 800 yards. Hell, you can look up in the ski at night and see a little pin point white dot moving across the sky at 30,000 ft. If it can pick up a jet liner that distance it surely can see a hog from a lot farther that 300 yards.

Maybe we can get Rich at Ultimate Night Vision to do a video, since he seams to be one of the few to take the time to make videos. Maybe walk away from the camera, stop and waive his hands every 100 yards . But then I am sure somebody would accuse him of waiving his hands every 75 yards instead.

You don't know if it's a hog past 300, he wasn't asking for ID distances. He wanted to know how far out he could pick up heat from a hog. Any why do you gotta get all defensive like someone just kicked your puppy or something?

You can "detect" something several hundred yards away. I say "detect" in quotes, because as others have said you really can't tell WHAT it is, only that there is something out there that is emiting heat.  That is where practice and experience comes in.  I have stalked many a hog only to discover it was a large rock lol...

One key is movement.  Sit and watch for a while.  If it is not moving then it is highly unlikely to be a hog or coyote.  They way I use mine is to scan an area that I am moving into. If nothing, then I don't have to move as slowly and quietly.  If I see "something" then I will try to move closer, use movement clues, check it out with my IR Defense unit... Etc.  Then, when I get to the area I am going to set up, I'll use it to periodically scan my surroundings.   I will say, inside of a 100 yards, when a hog shows up, there is absolutely no doubt at what you are looking at.  

Hope that helps.

I own a HD19A and am happy. It does what I need it to do and has not let me down. Performance is good for what the unit costs. The eye cup sucks but I adapted a PVS-14 cup to mine. Easy to do

Thanks all for the info, didn't mean to start a spat
I guess I was unclear, what I should have asked is at what range can you detect a hog sized animal?
Positive ID is always the requirement before even flipping the safety.
I'm just trying to justify a handheld thermal so I don't have to look at everything thru the weapon mount thermal.
I would like to be able to see at least a white hot blob out to 800 yds for a 100 lb hog sized animal.

Thanks for the vids UNV and TNVC, very helpful.




eta;   Damn, coulda owned page two.

I tried the HD19 and then tried the HD38.  I much preferred the HD38.  It is the most used piece of seeing in the dark equipment I have.

so let's say a hunter were to go on a hog hunt at night. Let's say the hunter raises his pulsar up to see a bright white spot or two in the middle of a jet black field about 800 yards away. At the moment he can't "identify" the white hot spots, is he just supposed to walk away?? Hell no! Lol you move closer to see what it is!
I've walked a half a mile just to smell a stinking ass skunk before haha! Nobody in their right mind is gonna say "ahh I don't know what it is let's just keep going".


And for the people looking for things that shoot back.....

Let's say there's a armed and dangerous suspect on the loose in a rural area and a LEO is out there on the hunt for the guy with his pulsar. He spots something hot for a split second on the edge of a tree line approximately 800 yards out. Who here honestly thinks that the officer is going to say " I couldn't tell what that was, must not have been him" and just move on? He will either check out the situation or radio the location to advise fellow officers of the possible threat.

Thermal scanners are just that. Scanners. They are for locating things. Not for identifying a man with a birth mark on his left cheek. If you wish to hunt with a thermal scanner the pulsar is like most people said here, unbeatable at the price. It will show you heat so you can move in for a shot. If your hunting things that shoot back and want to be aware of everything hot within a 800 or so yard radius well it works for that too.

Well said. I think there are egos at play in some of the responses.

^ BINGO - And it gets old after a while....

There are some interesting comments on this thread here:
http://www.predatormastersforums.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2990930#Post2990930

Way to keep it classy Vic

If surgeon shooter is who I think it is he is a farmer from LA (and one hell of an accomplished rifle driver), no?

LOL...

I hope your talking about me lol! I'm not farming anymore but did for sure and I spend most of my extra time either shooting a bolt gun or thinking about shooting my bolt gun. If you are talking about me, thank you for the kind words sir. If not, meh.... the guy you are referring to probably isn't that good of a shooter anyway. Hahaha


And just so everyone knows, <personal attack removed>.

What ever happened to the science about thermals? Seems everyone is an expert on the terminology now based on what they can see on the screen, and anyone who disagrees is just "ego"...




There are some definitions for being able to see something with a thermal - FLIR, one of the undisputed experts in the field, had this to say about it - http://www.flir-direct.com/content/thermal-imaging-how-far-can-you-see-with-it








Based on that, we have a 25 micron sensor, but no lens information. It's a 384 element array, 26.8 degrees, or let's use the vertical since we're talking pig pixels here - 288 elements at 20.8 degrees, 0.07222 degrees per element. Anyway, pixels is specified by the manufacturer, so we'll use that also.




So PULSAR claim around 470m for a MAN sized object. They don't specifically say a man. They say a man sized object. Well, men tend to walk, stand up straight and stand out against the background. let's go back to pigs. A fat pig probably has about 50cm ( 0.5m ) of body that can be relied upon to produce a thermal image - So, given we need 1.5 pixels of thermal angular source, that's 289 yards you can "Detect" a pig at, assuming it's 50cm ( a little over 1/2 a yard ) diameter across the belly. Maybe the pig is going to stand up and try to increase it's thermal signature for us, and it would be nice if they did, but generally, we can only rely on that 0.5m cross section. Because at 289 yards, a 50cm across pig is going to fill 0.10839 degrees of your thermal image. That's 1.5 pixels.




Now, I'm sure everyone is going to chime in and say "But, But But, I can see pigs at 1000 yds at times." Hey, I can't deny the possibility. I get good at spotting rabbits at 100 yds with my thermal which isn't very special - but I'm not sure if I'm looking at a tree, a rabbit, a rock or something else - All I know is I have an unusual pixel that I can investigate, and I do, and by the time I get to about 50 yds, I can tell it's a heat source and is probably a rabbit even though it's still a pixel or so, but hey, the rotten bugger has spotted me too and hops off. What I really want is a thermal that will DETECT that rabbit at 100 yds so I KNOW it's EL CONEJO, that damn furry demon from the pits of hell who only pops up to drag me across fields looking for him, but never, never stays in my sights if I'm the one on trigger. But hey, whether I see anything at the 100 yards I want depends a lot on EL CONEJO, who knows he only has to turn sideways to eliminate his thermal signature until I'm within range.




And sure, there's an element of this too. But based on the generally accepted principles of how far a HD19A can see a pig at, it's 289 YDS against our industry-standard-sized pig.




Anyone who provides a longer range estimate than this is really doing a disservice to both their customers and others who rely on accurate figures to work out how to look for stuff - I mean, if you're scanning for something, whether it shoots back or not, you want to know what range you can rely on the equipment to give you a reliable and accurate result right? 1.5 pixels... Keep it real - :)  This is not identification range - it's detection range.




Regards


David.




Disclaimer: Pig size may vary.






 

Not to mention the image viewer on those Pulsars has 1/3 of the pixels in the image being viewed imaginarily generated by software algorithms!

 
1m wide equates to a heart girth of over 123 inches. Now I'm not from the US and I'm not a pig expert, but I'm going to call bullshit on that - That's not a pig - it's a freaking monster, and I hope you're not shooting anything that large without an anti-material rifle.


Pig size ranges for fully grown pigs typically have a heart girth of between 23 and 48 inches.  ( ref: https://www.asi.k-state.edu/doc/swine-day-2002/heartgirthpg166.pdf )


Now I don't know how big the guys you want to spot in fields are, but that's a more reasonable size. That equates to between 18cm and 39cm  - still way off the 50cm range I used.


A pig of 50cm diameter could have a girth of approximately 61 inches - now that's still a monster, so I was fairly conservative in picking a big porker to begin with. You'd have more luck saying my estimate was over, than under.


Now, when his asshole is facing straight at you, your detection range is 289 yards +/- 1 yard. That's the science of detection range. Just sayin.


Sure, there are circumstances when that pig will be detectable at longer ranges, such as when it's sideways to you, but if you want to go that way, I'll point out that most pigs that people want to detect aren't even that large and I was being conservative.


The given estimation for a maximum effective range to detect pigs at 200 yds to 300 yds tops is accurate, realistic and honest. It's not ego. It's science.


Finding examples under which you may detect a pig at a longer range isn't impossible - but claiming that this increases the detection range is dishonest and does a disservice to the people who come to this forum for it's technical accuracy. There's no point in buying a thermal to detect pigs at 500 yds if under some circumstances it's only realistically going to detect them at 200 ~ 300 yds max, and assuming a large pig at that.


Now, from time to time I am wrong. But that's why I post the technical details behind my claims - it allows others to question me. In this case, however, it looks like science contradicts some of the more imaginative claims made in this thread.


Regards

David

 
Good point - I never stopped to consider that Pulsar's probably aren't up to the same quality level as FLIR, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt -


David

 
 
You know, a rifle like that provides a reasonable basis for size estimation.




I don't know who you're trying to fool here - but that pig is not 18" cross-section diameter across the chest.


Maximum reliable detection range for that pig, with a HD19A, is 213 yards. Looks like the 200~300 yds estimate is holding up pretty well.


Regards

David.

 
Detection ranges are based on the minimum profile you're likely to see and I made that clear in my post - cherry picking profiles to artificially increase the results isn't an honest way to set customer expectations. Even if we could split the difference and say we could detect that sized pig at twice the range when it's standing sideways, then at 300 yds, half the time you'll detect it and half the time you won't - And it still sits within the 200~300 yd estimate.


HD19A seems to be a great thermal - it really does - and damn, I'd love to have one of them - but I think it's important that we all agree to use the correct figures and terms here when discussing night vision - And after that, then mention stuff like you can see a pig a little further away  when it's side on. Of course, it also has less vertical thermal signature side-on, so we can't just multiply detection range by the different in aspect ratio -


So in the end, let's not pretend detection ranges are something they are not, and let's not go around calling people egotistical for simply publishing accurate data in this forum -


It's a technical forum and IMO, the science does need to be respected. And if someone needs to reliably detect pigs at 300 yds, then the HD19A is not the correct model to be looking at.


Regards

David

David,
A predator hunting buddy got a HD19a last winter while his M250 was being worked on. It wasn't picking up the fox coming in to our calls as far out as my LWTS or his MK2, but it was no shit detecting them as far as you're saying that the max is for pretty big pigs. To caveat this, it was about perfect conditions, cut corn fields, low humidity, temps in the teens.
Evidently the algorithms controlling those empty pixels work fairly well...not a single fox that the Pulsar viewed turned out to be fake.

First off cj7hawk I want to say this. I have a ton of respect for you and your knowledge of image intensifiers and microbolometers.

With that said, if you take a 150lb hog, point his ass at you, back up away from it you can just flat out see the hog beyond 213 yards or whatever you said is the technical detection range. I don't know the science behind it. But it works. Can you tell what it is? No sure can't but you can tell something is hot and alive.

Please explain why this is if the unit is not capable.

I'm pretty familiar with Johnson criteria and all, and I've used anot old 160x core unit with a 1x  FOV to detect deer sized targets out to about 600yds. If I do the math on it, that unit should not be detecting anything deer sized at that distance. But I saw a shiny bright glowing pixel one night.... got my CNVD looking in the general area and sure as shit, grazing buck.

That being said Johnson criteria are a pretty good rule of thumb for detection limits in general. And if I didn't see that video I would have agreed with CJ...