Using a PC to record Radio Broadcasts

Posted by: colin thomas on 11 September 2002

I want to be able to record some of the Jazz or Rock 'live' performances that the Beeb occasionally output. In the past I've recorded them onto my cassette deck but would like to use my PC in order to get better quality and more convenience. My aims are:

1) avoid loss of quality when I edit
2) overcome the time constraints of a 45 min tape
3) have the convenience of letting the software start and stop the recording session at predetermined times.

Steve Catterall has kindly passed on his experience and suggested that rather than buy a DAB card I should acquire a digital TV card. Steve points out that the radio signal is broadcast at 192kb as opposed to the 128kb signal now used for DAB.

Likely card is a Happauge WinTV. Does anyone have any experience of using the card, or similar, for this purpose. On the other hand is there a better method.

Colin
Posted on: 11 September 2002 by Henry Cosker
Colin

My two-year-old analogue Hauppauge WinTV card works very well indeed, with great stereo VHF and Nicam stereo sound from ordinary analogue TV/VHF aerials. Radio recording is a doddle (I use Cool Edit), but video capture requires a pretty fast PC - I have trouble with an 800Mhz processor and 256MB of RAM.

Regards
Henry
Posted on: 11 September 2002 by colin thomas
Henry,

Thanks for the info.

I'll probably go for the digital option (WinTV Nova via satellite dish) as I should get better quality by bypassing my soundcard. Anyone done a comparison?

Colin
Posted on: 13 September 2002 by John Channing
I use a Psion Wavefinder, which is basically a DAB radio aerial that plugs into a USB socket on your PC. The quality is quite adequate for the speakers attached to my PC and I have had excellent reception in Docklands and South West London.
John