Hi - I am planning to record telephone conversations from home for
later broadcast on the air. I will use a mike/mixer and hybrid - the
person on the other end will just have a telephone -
I have seen many choices -
telos makes something called telos one and delta
comrex makes one
jk audio makes something called the innkeeper

I have used JK Audio's broadcast host and continually get echo/bad
seperation

products range from several hundred to close to 2000 - I'm not adverse
to paying the higher price for the best quality - anyone have any
advice or experience

I am looking at bswusa's catalog -

http://www.bswusa.com

You can get a great little gadget for $15 at Radio Shack that connects between
the telephone handset and the phone proper. The output is a mic-level mini jack
(for which you can get an adapter).

You can get a great little gadget for $15 at Radio Shack that connects
between
the telephone handset and the phone proper. The output is a mic-level mini jack
(for which you can get an adapter). BRBR

This route will not let you balance the level of the local talent vs the remote
phone talent. A good hybrid like the Telos One will allow you to bring both
your mic and the telephone line into the mixer seperately so you can balance
and eq seperately. I have always had the best results with the Telos. I have
used the Gentner (now with a new corporate name) but never had as good/easy
results.
Mac Kerr

d wrote:

I have used JK Audio's broadcast host and continually get echo/bad
seperation

Are you adjusting it for every call?

products range from several hundred to close to 2000 - I'm not adverse
to paying the higher price for the best quality - anyone have any
advice or experience

In general, the higher end units will require less tinkering and fiddling
with each call in order to get optimal separation, but from my general
experience, the cheap Heathkit phone patch is not much worse than the latest
Gentner digital box _if_ you spend five or ten minutes making sure the
levels and balancing are right on. Some of the wider band units have
several balancing controls for different frequency ranges, too.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
d wrote:

I have used JK Audio's broadcast host and continually get echo/bad
seperation

Are you adjusting it for every call?

products range from several hundred to close to 2000 - I'm not adverse
to paying the higher price for the best quality - anyone have any
advice or experience

In general, the higher end units will require less tinkering and fiddling
with each call in order to get optimal separation, but from my general
experience, the cheap Heathkit phone patch is not much worse than the
latest
Gentner digital box _if_ you spend five or ten minutes making sure the
levels and balancing are right on. Some of the wider band units have
several balancing controls for different frequency ranges, too.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

for a home type set-up i would suggest an ordinary speaker-phone, slightly
modified to taste. the speaker is transformer coupled to one ch of a
recorder. sometimes the mic of the speakerphone is wired to a mix-minus and
sometimes not. for a straight interview its not strictly necessary. the big
advantage is that the caller can hear at a level equal or even louder then
an ordinary call. also the cost of an off the shelf stand alone speaker
phone will be much less then a digital hybrid.


i have not used the JK hybrid but am very familiar with telos and gentner
units. i would expect it to work substantially the same in this application
provided that you drive the "send" at a reasonable level and have it
properly configured. if you are feeding it with a mixer output then taking
its output back into the mixer in you certainly will get the howling
feedback you described.

another problem occurs when operators choose to employ the hybrid as a
speaker-phone by not wearing headphones and cranking up a cue speaker. too
much cue volume and a feedback loop to the mic occurs.

Try a Gentner Telehybrid.
Works with analog or digital phones,
Automatic setup by dailing a 1-800 number.
Bought 10 of 'em for a newsroom operation.

On Tue, 8 Jun 2004 23:24:23 -0400, "Tim Perry"
wrote:


"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
d wrote:

I have used JK Audio's broadcast host and continually get echo/bad
seperation

Are you adjusting it for every call?

products range from several hundred to close to 2000 - I'm not adverse
to paying the higher price for the best quality - anyone have any
advice or experience

In general, the higher end units will require less tinkering and fiddling
with each call in order to get optimal separation, but from my general
experience, the cheap Heathkit phone patch is not much worse than the
latest
Gentner digital box _if_ you spend five or ten minutes making sure the
levels and balancing are right on. Some of the wider band units have
several balancing controls for different frequency ranges, too.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

for a home type set-up i would suggest an ordinary speaker-phone, slightly
modified to taste. the speaker is transformer coupled to one ch of a
recorder. sometimes the mic of the speakerphone is wired to a mix-minus and
sometimes not. for a straight interview its not strictly necessary. the big
advantage is that the caller can hear at a level equal or even louder then
an ordinary call. also the cost of an off the shelf stand alone speaker
phone will be much less then a digital hybrid.


i have not used the JK hybrid but am very familiar with telos and gentner
units. i would expect it to work substantially the same in this application
provided that you drive the "send" at a reasonable level and have it
properly configured. if you are feeding it with a mixer output then taking
its output back into the mixer in you certainly will get the howling
feedback you described.

another problem occurs when operators choose to employ the hybrid as a
speaker-phone by not wearing headphones and cranking up a cue speaker. too
much cue volume and a feedback loop to the mic occurs.



Mike Cleaver Broadcast Services
Voice-overs, Newscaster, Engineering and Consulting
Vancouver, BC, Canada

MacKerr wrote:

You can get a great little gadget for $15 at Radio Shack that connects
between
the telephone handset and the phone proper. The output is a mic-level mini jack
(for which you can get an adapter). BRBR

This route will not let you balance the level of the local talent vs the remote
phone talent. A good hybrid like the Telos One will allow you to bring both
your mic and the telephone line into the mixer seperately so you can balance
and eq seperately.

Hmm, this sort of brings up an interesting question: does anyone
make a device that does all this via software? If it happens
that you're going to record everything on a computer anyway, you
could do it all through DSP, and presumably you could make a
system that autodetects everything it needs to autodetect.

I wonder if you could even do it as a plug-in for some existing
recording software (ProTools, etc.)...

- Logan

"d" wrote in message
om...
Hi - I am planning to record telephone conversations from home for
later broadcast on the air. I will use a mike/mixer and hybrid - the
person on the other end will just have a telephone -
I have seen many choices -
telos makes something called telos one and delta
comrex makes one
jk audio makes something called the innkeeper

I have used JK Audio's broadcast host and continually get echo/bad
seperation

I've got a JK Audio Innkeeper and it's served me well. I had a Telos One
prior to the Innkeeper and I've found the innkeeper to be much easier to
achieve good results from. I've got no experience with the Broadcast Host so
I can't make a comparison. My applications have been in the field for
network newsmagazine shows where I have the on camera person miked with
lavaliere or boom and I take the caller audio and record to a separate
track.

Charles Tomaras
Seattle, WA

Hmm, this sort of brings up an interesting question: Does anyone
make a device that does all this via software? If it happens
you're going to record everything on a computer anyway, you
could do it all through DSP, and presumably you could make
a system that autodetects everything it needs to autodetect.

How would the software know who was talking? That isn't obvious. You might just
as well use a compressor, which would probably use audible side-effects.

William Sommerwerck wrote:
Hmm, this sort of brings up an interesting question: Does anyone
make a device that does all this via software? If it happens
you're going to record everything on a computer anyway, you
could do it all through DSP, and presumably you could make
a system that autodetects everything it needs to autodetect.

How would the software know who was talking? That isn't obvious. You might just
as well use a compressor, which would probably use audible side-effects.

You'd know who was talking because you'd know where it was coming from.
To do a hybrid, you'd need to have two sound devices on the computer... one
connected to the phone line, and the other connected to the local sound
source and destination. That second device might be connected to a soundcard
but it also could be connected to an application through a pipe.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

d wrote:

I have used JK Audio's broadcast host and continually get echo/bad
seperation

products range from several hundred to close to 2000 - I'm not adverse
to paying the higher price for the best quality - anyone have any
advice or experience

We use JK Audio's InLine Patch and it works fine.



--
Len Moskowitz PDAudio, Binaural Mics, Cables, DPA, M-Audio
Core Sound http://www.stealthmicrophones.com
Teaneck, New Jersey USA http://www.core-sound.com
Tel: 201-801-0812, FAX: 201-801-0912

What about http://www.retellrecorders.com/recor...achine/650.htm $167.95
? It connects to both the receive and transmit pair in the telephone
handset, and through separate pre-amps gives a "stereo output", with the
near part on one channel, and the far party on the other channel. There are
adjusters to balance the sound if need be, but because it connects to both
pairs, and because there is a very gentle ALC on each channel, no adjustment
should be neccesary. It is used for broadcast. On that site, if you go to
http://www.retellrecorders.com/help/connectors.htm , down at the bottom,
(you have to scroll down quite a long way), it talks about the Intelligent
Recording Interface part 650 "
The Intelligent Recording Interface

The Intelligent Recording Interface is the most sophisticated telephone
recording connector in the world.

and you can click on a link to listen to a recording made with it.

Hope this helps.

Ruth

"d" wrote in message
om...
Hi - I am planning to record telephone conversations from home for
later broadcast on the air. I will use a mike/mixer and hybrid - the
person on the other end will just have a telephone -
I have seen many choices -
telos makes something called telos one and delta
comrex makes one
jk audio makes something called the innkeeper

I have used JK Audio's broadcast host and continually get echo/bad
seperation

products range from several hundred to close to 2000 - I'm not adverse
to paying the higher price for the best quality - anyone have any
advice or experience

I am looking at bswusa's catalog -

http://www.bswusa.com