Deben Mark III System

Deben has a new Mark III locator collar system which is set to replace the poorly received Mark II locator system which is being jettisoned after just one year. The old Mark I system is no longer being made.

The new Mark III system is getting good marks from experienced, no-nonsense ferreters. I have not tried the new Mark III system myself -- most of what I know has come from Simon Whitehead's posts about the new collar and box.

Though the new Mark III collar is listed on the Deben web site (see the ferret side of the web site) no picture is offered. As you can see from the picture above, however, the new Mark III system looks much like the Mark II system (LED lights, water-resistant receiver, nylon collar) but the collar buckle of the Mark III is gray.

Simon Whitehead reports that "The Mark III has every thing the Mark II didn’t" and that includes the fact that the new Mark III box will pick up the old Mark I collar signals (but not vice versa, apparently). This is a big deal in my book.

One of the complaints with the Mark II collars was that the collar batteries drained pretty quickly, but that problem seems to be fixed in the Mark III collar. The new collar is reported to have 300 hours of useful battery life. The battery life for the receiver is said to be 30 continuous hours of "on" time, which is quite a lot if you remember that we generally have the box on for not much more than 10 minutes at a hole.

One of the nice things about the new receiver box is that it can track more than one collar underground at a time -- a big use to ferreters, and not a bad thing to have with the dogs. The locating range on the new box is 16 feet -- a bit better than the old Mark I (15 feet), but not as good as the Mark II which claimed 20 feet. While the old Mark I was good at locating to within a foot, the new Mark III is reported to track to within 6 inches.

The new Mark III does away with the dial on the Mark I, and replaces it with LED lights and a very loud clicker which speeds up the closer you are to the dog. With the sound signal and the LED lights combined, finding the dog is said to be pretty intuitive.

So what's the downside? Reportedly locating with the new Mark III rig is a little bit slower than an experienced hand with a Mark I can do. In addition, the new rig is about $180 for a complete collar and box set, as compared to $125 for the previous Mark I incarnation.

In actual use, the new Mark III system operates much like the old Mark I, with slow passes over the top of the ground used to narrow down the location of the dog based on the signals from the LED lights, and the clicking coming from the box.

The new Mark III box receiver is more-or-less waterproof, unlike the old Mark I box, and the new system also produces a louder and more irritating sound. Louder is better as far as I am concerned -- the old Mark I rig was often hard to hear on windy days.

The bottom line is that, with just a few weeks testing to satisfy the skeptics, the new Deben Mark III rig seems to be an improvement over both of its predecessors, and the transmitter remains small enough to use in a tight earth.

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Update: The Mark III system is the kit being used by ferreters, but has proven too flimsy for terrier work. The Deben LRT or the Bellman and Flint collar and box sets are now the only thing recommended. For U.S. work, where pipe size is very tight, I like the Deben LRT, but different strokes for different folks.
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