Thursday, September 21, 2017

Audiocorder and other stuff

For decades, I used timer recording systems of various types to record FM radio programs, just as people use VCR and their modern equivalent HDR to record TV programs.

My Nakamichi 600 had a timer start mode which causes the unit to start recording when power is applied.

My Nakamichi RX-505 has the same feature, and I have used that as recently as a few months ago to record FM radio programs.

I even had a Sony all-in-one music center (a small box) which had the feature, which prior to 2006 I used to record daily radio programs for playback in my car.  It had been fairly hard to find that unit.  However, after 2006, the march of "progress" eliminated the cassette player in my latest car.

This was a huge step backwards for my personal connectivity.

While there were supposed to be digital alternatives, I found none so convenient.  For example, in order to use podcasts, I needed to connect my iPod to my computer every day and fumble around with iTunes.  For various reasons, this often didn't work, and it was ALWAYS more of a hassle than simply popping a cassette into my all-in-one recorder had been, and finally I gave up.  If the internet radio didn't specifically make a daily "podcast" you couldn't just record a particular program at a particular time.  It seemed to me there is a conspiracy against timer recording.

Perhaps there are timer recorders for digital radio now, I haven't looked.  More recently I use smartphone apps to listen to specific programs I like....however this doesn't help if no one has created a suitable app for the program you want to listen to (and there are several programs like that for me).

Anyway, here is Audiocorder, which lets your Mac operate like a timer recorder for audio.

Then, using an extra program they suggest, you can get it to record internet radio also.

Now, stepping somewhat back from High Fidelity, another interesting recordable thing out there is Pirate Radio.  Some of these are on FM because virtually all listeners already have the required FM radios. But most pirate broadcasters are probably sitting in the less intrusive/detectable/complainable regions of HF (say, 6.7Mhz).  I can pick that up with my new General Coverage Receiver (at least, as soon as I get the antenna set up).   While FCC often shuts down pirate radio stations in the FM band (they say, they only do this if someone complains, which is probably accurate) I doubt they have much time for the non-amateur parts of the HF bands and many pirate stations there are legendary.

Here's one list.

And here's another.

HF Underground is showing a bunch of loggings from today.

And of course there are fully "legal" HF broadcast "shortwave" shows also, but books are filled with info on that (including one book I just bought).

I suspect few radio amateurs would risk their own hard won licenses running a pirate radio station.  But I've known hams tell me right away that pirate radio is among the best stuff to listen to on HF.




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