Hi,

A couple of people suggested using a VCR to tape the audio, so I'm
trying to set one up to do that, but I wanted to ask for some help
since I don't know anything about A/V equipment.

My VCR (bought new in 1999) has four RCA plugs on the back: Video Out,
Audio Out, Video In, and Audio In. I went to Radio Shack and got an
RCA-to-1/8-inch converter, so that I could plug the 1/8-inch end into
the headphones jack on the radio, and plug one of the RCA plugs into
the Audio In jack on the VCR. (There are two RCA plugs on one end of
the converter, a red and a white one, presumably for left and right,
but the VCR only has one Audio In jack, so I could only plug in one.)

Before doing that, I tested it out by hooking up one of the RCA plugs
on the converter to the Audio *Out* on the VCR, and plugging the
1/8-inch plug on the other end into a male-to-female converter, so
that I could plug in a set of headphones. When I did that and turned
the VCR on, I could hear the audio of the VCR's current channel, in
the headphones (but only in one ear, as expected, since only one RCA
plug can be plugged in). So far so good.

But when I tried plugging the 1/8-inch plug on the converter into the
radio headphones jack, and plugging the red (or the white) RCA plug
into the Audio In jack on the VCR, turning on the TV just displayed
the picture and sound for whatever channel the VCR was set to. And
recording on a cassette just recorded the picture and sound for that
channel. The audio from the radio was ignored.

So I thought maybe the TV cable connected to the VCR was overriding
the Audio In signal, so I disconnected that. But after doing that,
the TV would just display a blue screen with no sound, and if I taped
anything it would record as blue screen with no sound, even while the
radio was turned on and hooked up to the Audio In jack on the VCR.

How do I get the VCR to pay attention to the Audio In signal, so that
it will be recorded if I record onto a tape in the VCR?

-Bennett

"John L Rice" wrote in message ...
Like other's said, a cheap VCR will work well. If you want better audio
quality and smaller ( but harder to find ) tapes for storage reasons and
don't mind spending $100 to $300, get yourself a Sony DAT machine that will
record analog at 32kHz. ( like a Sony 75ES ) With a 120mm tape at 32khz you
can record 4 hours continuous. Check Ebay for starters.

Best of luck!

John L Rice


"Bennett Haselton" wrote in message
om...
What would be the cheapest way to get set up to tape a four-hour show
off the radio, without having to stay by the radio and switch the
cassette tapes every 60 minutes? Regular audio cassettes can only
save 60 minutes per side. If you want to tape anything longer than
that, do you have to buy higher-end equipment and special tapes? When
I called Radio Shack, they'd never heard of anything like that.

I guess the other way would be to connect the radio sound output to
the audio input for the computer and record it. What's the simplest
software for taking incoming sound and recording it to an MP3 file?
(Windows XP has a built-in "Sound Recorder" program, but it only
records .wav files.)

-Bennett