Ok, so a few days ago I asked here about ways to record a voice mail
to my computer (or any reocrding device). Someone kindly pointed out
that I could get an adapter, use the phone's headphone jack, and do
it no problem.
Well, it worked. I figure I'd post my situaiton for others to learn from:
* My phone is a Motorola V180 using Cingular's service.
* I purchased a 3/32" to 1/8" adapter from Radio Shack ($4)
* This connects to a 1/8" male -- to -- RCA splitter (I already had this,
no cost)
This adapter splits the "stereo" coming form the
phone into two components. One chanel is the microphone
(not used in this application) and the other is the headphone.
* Then I use a cable with two RCA ends (one red, one black) -- to -- 1/8"
stereo jack.
I connect the RED RCA jack to the BLACK RCA jack on the above
adapter.
This tells me that the BLACK channel of the RCA splitter is the
headphone
but the RED portion of the cable puts the sound on the channel that
is recorded in the comptuer.
* I plug the 1/8" end of the above cable into the MIC jack of my compter.
* In my computer the "Recording Source" had been set to some software.
At first I was confused that no matter what combination I tried it got
nothing to record.
I had to change the "Recording Source" to Sound Board and "Microphone"
* I call voice mail and after it's connected (and I can hear it through the
phones speaker)
I plug in the cable to the phone. At this point the sound is still
coming out of the
phones speaker and is ALSO on the cable to the comptuer. This makes it
easy to
listen and get to what I want to record -- they press record on Windows
"Sound
Recorder" software.
* I haven't tried yet, but there appears no reason this would not work to
record
conversations too. (Of course, there are laws about doing and diclosing
such
things to the pepople you are speaking with. Anyway, that's not what my
intent
is, it's only to record funny or interesting voice mails.)
At Radio Shack they had a $25 device to make this connections. If I didn't
already
one the splitter and cable it would probably have cost me $15 or so for the
cables
and the device is simplier and has a "pause" type button. But for $4 I'm
very happy
with this way of doing it.
The guy at Radio Shack also cautioned me that useing just the cables may
produce
and "impedance" problem - which could mean a poor recording and/or damaged
equipment. But that does not appear to be a problem.
Anyway, hope this helps someone or is interesting...
Linear Mode
