Recording AM radio on the PC?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Al Puzzuoli
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A

Al Puzzuoli

Hello,

I'm looking to rig up something similar to a PC based tivo for radio.
Ideally what I want is a way to Set my PC and/ or laptop to record talk
radio shows or sports telecasts at specified times. Is there away to do
this? What I'm invisioning is some sort of AM / FM tuner device that can
interface with the sound card of the computer, and software that will
control the tuner, changing the channel as needed, or at the very least,
just stop and start recording at specified times.
Does anyone know of a way to set this up?

Thanks,
 
Greetings...

Hello,

I'm looking to rig up something similar to a PC based tivo for radio.
Ideally what I want is a way to Set my PC and/ or laptop to record talk
radio shows or sports telecasts at specified times. Is there away to do
this? What I'm invisioning is some sort of AM / FM tuner device that can
interface with the sound card of the computer, and software that will
control the tuner, changing the channel as needed, or at the very least,
just stop and start recording at specified times.
Does anyone know of a way to set this up?

Thanks,
Click to expand...


For anything that can control the tuner, you would need an add in card. There are any
number of FM tuner cards available off the shelf, but good luck of ever finding an AM
radio card. Too much RF noise inside a computer.
If you are handy with electronics, I've seen kits for USB controlled radios, but they
are the built it yourself variety. Stand alone sets. I suppose it would not be too
terribly difficult to afro-engineer any digital tuner, but trying to build something to
tune a manual tuner would probably be quite expensive....

As for just jacking in a radio to the sound card, a simple stereo patch cord with standard
headphone jacks is sufficient. One end into the line in on the sound card, and the other
into the headphone output on the radio.

A software that records into the MP3 format directly will save you gobs of disk space as
even a low quality 8 bit mono 11khz wav will quickly reach the 2 gb limit of most
recorders... Stay away fro windows inherent sound recorder, it barfs it's guts up after
about a minute or so and doesn't handle large well anyway...

I have heard of a number of good recorder softwares that are capable of timed recordings
and a google search should net you a number of possibilities...
 
Al Puzzuoli said:
Hello,

I'm looking to rig up something similar to a PC based tivo for radio.
Ideally what I want is a way to Set my PC and/ or laptop to record talk
radio shows or sports telecasts at specified times. Is there away to do
this? What I'm invisioning is some sort of AM / FM tuner device that can
interface with the sound card of the computer, and software that will
control the tuner, changing the channel as needed, or at the very least,
just stop and start recording at specified times.
Does anyone know of a way to set this up?

Thanks,
Click to expand...

I agree with Adam try a couple of radios with the output jacked into your
soundcard's line-in jack. I've done that with the output jack of one pc
into the line-in jack of another pc to use the same speaker system with both
pcs. I was also able to record the feed from the line-in and like Adam
posted find a recorder for continous recording or capture. You might be
able to use jscript or MS Task Scheduler to start/stop recordings otherwise
google search for a programmable recorder. External radio sources requires
preset stations.

Have you looked into internet radio stations? Some networks like NPR, CBS
have broadcasts available for play some time after the original broadcast.
 
Net radio stations
are not an option as the lions contract with Infinity broadcasting. For
some screwed up reason, Infinity won't stream any of their content. OH
well.
Click to expand...

Infinity is about to jump into net radio. CNET Radio Direct announced
it last week. A company is selling software now that's highly rated
and is a Tivo type recorder for net radio.

______________
French invasion:
http://www.metrospy.com/boycott_brands.htm
 
Al Puzzuoli said:
Hello,

I'm looking to rig up something similar to a PC based tivo for radio.
Ideally what I want is a way to Set my PC and/ or laptop to record talk
radio shows or sports telecasts at specified times. Is there away to do
this? What I'm invisioning is some sort of AM / FM tuner device that can
interface with the sound card of the computer, and software that will
control the tuner, changing the channel as needed, or at the very least,
just stop and start recording at specified times.
Does anyone know of a way to set this up?
Click to expand...

In addition to Stephen's WinRadio reply, there's another computer
controlled radio peripheral, the ICOM PCR1000 ($270)

It comes with a simple control program, I use a 3rd party software
called TalkPCR. Does AM broadcast, FM broadcast, shortwave, police
channels, etc. Timer records .mp3 or .wav.
 
You can use Cybercorder 2000 to record WAV or MP3 files on the PC. It
does not have the capability change stations. However, you can for
example connect one radio to the Line-In and another radio to the Mic
or Aux jack of the sound card. When you schedule a recording you can
use the mixer settings feature to automatically select the desired
recording source. The software is available at http://skyhawktech.com
 
The software you want is Messer available at:
http://www.dago.pmp.com.pl/messer/
It's like VCR for your computer that will record to wav or encode to
mp3 on the fly. It will even turn your computer off when finished.
I have used it to record off a Kenwood R5000 communications receiver
connected to the line in on my sound card. I mostly use it to record
some streaming audio off Windows Media Player now and it works great.
If you have unlimited funds, try a WinRadio G303i with the optional
Professional Demodulator, it runs around $600us.
http://www.winradio.com/index.htm
I don't have one (yet) but I have read good reviews about it. They
claim it is a very quiet AM receiver (no FM band) considering it's an
internal PCI card. I don't think the software will allow recording,
but my guess is Messer would still work with that setup too.
Once I have the programs recorded as mp3's, I burn them to a CDRW as
an mp3 data cd and play them on my JVC mp3 car stereo on long commutes
to work.
Stephen Spark
Click to expand...

How does messer compare with
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/audio_software/audio_tools/streambox_vcr.c
fm for capturing streaming media? Which is better?
 
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