A VCR based digital data recorder for underwater acoustics multipath measurements

Summary form only given. A family of multichannel underwater acoustic data acquisition systems were deployed to the ocean floor and utilize video cassette recorders. One of these systems, the Acoustic Transient Recording Buoy (ATRB), was used as part of an ocean boundary interaction acoustic measurement program. Explosive SUS charges were used as a source of transient high-energy wideband acoustic signals and the direct, surface, and bottom-interacting multipath arrivals from their detonation were recorded by the bottom-moored ATRB system. Acoustic data obtained from the first two deployments are of very high quality, with wider bandwidth and dynamic range than data sets acquired during earlier experiments using analog recording methods.<>