Recording Options
If I am tuning around the bands using either my Drake R8B or my Palstar R30CC receivers and I come across a
signal that I’d like to record, I capture it using an Edirol R-09 WAVE/MP3 Recorder. (The recorder interfaces
with said receivers via their audio line out jacks.) Signal captures (recorded in .mp3 format) are then easily
transferred from the recorder to a PC where they are edited using the Total Recorder sound recording and
processing tool.
If I want to perform an unattended recording session on a single frequency, I also make use of Total Recorder.
This product has a great feature that allows one to schedule multiple recordings each of which can be directly
saved to your PC’s hard drive in .mp3 format for later manipulation. Conveniently, the scheduling feature can be
set to shut down your PC when the aggregate recording job is complete. (Signals are fed to the PC on which Total
Recorder is running from the audio line out jack of the utilized receiver.) I use this option mostly for overnight
recording jobs. DXing while you sleep!
Direct recording to my PC’s hard drive of 190 khz. slices of the radio spectrum from 0.5 Mhz. to 30.0 Mhz. is
possible with my RFSpace SDR-IQ software defined receiver running in concert with the SpectraVue software. On
medium wave, assuming 10 khz. station spacing, this option allows the simultaneous capture of 19 separate (but
sequential) channels. A mild drawback of this recording option is that several minutes of recording (say across the
top of the hour) using the 190 khz. bandwidth yields a large file size (SpectraVue specific .wav format) which can
take some time to carefully go through (using SpectraVue) looking for new stations. Once such a station is found,
Total Recorder can be used to cull a desired sound clip in .mp3 format from the SDR-IQ/SpectraVue derived
recording.