Recording Dispatch Audio

[Braeden]

Hello All,
Not quite sure where I should ask this question, but this seems like the most pertinent spot.

I am a Security Manager at an Amusement park in MN, with one of my primary roles being overseeing dispatch. Before my time there, we used to record our radio traffic by using a radio that plugged into the computer and saved the recordings in our files.

Does anyone have any idea what the best way of recording this again would be? It is something that we would really like to start up again. I'm obviously kind of stupid when it comes to this, so thanks in advance for the help.

If it matters, we are on a UHF system with mainly motorola equipment.

Braeden Johnson

 

[cmdrwill]

Most Motorola mobile or station radios have a fixed level line audio output, that is NOT affected by the volume control. If I knew a little more about your system, radio model numbers,I could help you set up the audio side of this.

There are many audio logging programs for PCs.

 

[AggieCon]

Rather than occupying a radio, unless you have plenty to spare, I suggest getting a $12 SDR dongle and recording using something like SDR#. What's you exact goal? Is this something that can be in the office for anyone to utilize, or are you wanting it off site or only accessible to a few? Are you going to immediately review the recordings, or it is a long term archive in case something comes up? Depending on your requirements, it can be done cheap and easy, but if you need something more robust (and have a nice sized budget), you might need to look into a "professional" solution.

 

[Braeden]

The radio we would most likely be a Kenwood. We do have about 6 Kenwood mobiles (base stations) we are not using for anything, so we we have some to spare. It would be connected to a computer in dispatch most likely and that radio would be dedicated to that purpose.

What we would like is potentially a different file for each day. Our old software had a file for each day, then had sub files that had had about three hours of recording each. I'm assuming it did that stuff by itself, but like I said, before my time.

I would like something similar to that, where it is easy to pull traffic from incidents we have and save it for training purposes.

Thank you so much for the quick responses and willingness to help!

 

[nated1992]

If you have a spare computer hook the radio up to it from the Aux speaker out and then to the line in.

Fine a open source recording software and set it up to record from the line in port.

To start you may have to manually start and stop the recording to get it to do the day to day file like you wan't

However if you know any one with batch file scripting knowledge they could probably automate it

What you want should be reasonably due able though

"Another thought would be to use two tone detect which is open source. At the start of every day have a set tone which would trigger the program to record set it to record for 86400 seconds " Might do a little less to give it time to save the huge file before starting it again. This would be a supper simple way to go aswell "

 

[AggieCon]

How much traffic do you have on that channel? Is it non-stop talk, or is there a lot of dead air during a lot of the day? Do you really want a continuous file for an entire day, or do you want files for each individual call?

What operating system does the computer have?

 

[Braeden]

We have pretty continuous traffic all day that would need to be recorded. Our computer would have Windows 7 most likely.

 

[flythunderbird]

There is a free command-line application called SoX which could be used for unattended recording:

SoX - Sound eXchange | HomePage

It could start at, let's say, midnight with a Windows scheduled task, record for 24 hours, and save the file. Then the task could kick off another 24-hour recording the next day at midnight. If you ran it inside of a batch file, you could name it with a date/timestamp. You can specify the sample rate to conserve hard drive space. It has a ton of options.

 

[AggieCon]

Howdy Braeden,

I suggest using FFmpeg to encode and record your traffic. I pretty sure there are no license issues using it for commercial purpose. Here's a link to a good version of it that I use: https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/

You would download and extract this. Then, I wrote a script (that you can modify) that uses FFmpeg to record your audio in a format that preserves quality while keeping file size low. I made it to where it creates a new file every three hours.

I can help you setup Windows Task Scheduler in a way that starts it automatically in case someone forgets, it gets closed somehow, or the computer restarts.

I'm not aware of any free or cheap program with an easy graphical user interface that will record the line in from the radio.

Check your messages for more information.

Glenn, good to know about SOX. I'm going to download that as well.

 

[M105]

This page lists several scanner recording programs. Might be worth looking at a few.
Audio Recording - Software: Audio Recorders

 

[AggieCon]

It appears the forum owners have not yet allowed you to receive messages, so here's the detailed part.

After you get all of this setup, it will record 3 hour files in a 11kHz low variable bit rate mp3 quality, and with Windows Task Scheduler, we'll try to make sure it stays going. The file names will be the date and time of the beginning of the recording.

Download 7-Zip. This will allow you to extract the files. It's a very good packaging program. You could also use it later on to archive your old recordings. 7-Zip

Download FFmpeg. Figure out whether your computer is 32 or 64 bit (go to Control Panel -> System; under the System subheading in the new window, there should be a line for "System Type"). Download either the 32 bit or 64 bit static version of the software (top row on the page with two columns). https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/ Extract the file. Move the contents to C:/Radio Traffic (a folder you should create). Rename the long folder name to "FFMPEG". In the Radio Traffic Folder, make a new folder called "Recordings". Note: You can do this in other folder locations, it will just mean the script will have to be modified.

Tell the program what to do. In the Radio Traffic folder, make a new "Text Document" (right click, go to new -> Text Document). Open it and copy and paste the following:

@echo off
cd "c:/Radio Traffic/FFMPEG/bin"
title Radio Traffic Recorder
:start
echo New recording session started...
ffmpeg -f dshow -i audio="Line In (Realtek High Definition Audio)" -t 43200 -acodec libmp3lame -ac 1 -ar 11025 -aq 7 -f segment -segment_times 10800,21600,32400 -strftime 1 "c:\Radio Traffic\Recordings\DispatchArchive_%%m-%%d-%%Y_%%H%%M%%S.mp3"
goto start

Save the text file as "RecordRadio.bat" and change the file "Save as type" to "all files". You should now have a "Windows Batch File" instead of a notepad document.

Next, make sure your radio is connected to the line in port of the computer. Set the volume about 3/4 of the way. Tweak it in the future to find a good level that is clear and doesn't distort yet is not too quiet. If you have a different audio driver or a different name for your input, we'll have to modify the script to account for that.

If you are lucky, after that, double click on the RecordRadio.bat file you made, and it should start recording. You can create a shortcut to that file.

If you decide to go this route and make it this far, I'll send you info about scheduling a task in Windows after we get this working properly. Let me know if you have any questions. I left this running overnight scanning my radio, and it seemed to work well. I can't be held accountable for it or any failure, though.

Hope this helps you accomplish your goal.

Justin

 

[AggieCon]

Additionally, I can help you setup a Robocopy script that can copy the recordings to a network drive so they can be accessed remotely. If you really want to get fancy, there are webserver programs that would allow you to access the files from other computers on the network or the internet through your web browser.

And I hope you will consider hosting a feed on this website.

 

[flythunderbird]

Glenn, good to know about SOX. I'm going to download that as well.

Great! If you don't mind learning the not-extremely intuitive command-line parms, you'll find that it does an outstanding job.

 

[AggieCon]

If you don't mind learning the not-extremely intuitive command-line parms

I doubt it can be any worse than the ones for FFmpeg...

 

[Braeden]

Thank you all for the information. I will start to play around with this next week when I am in and will contact you with questions.

 

[Livewire3286]

First responder apps - radio log sounds like an even more feasible option. Allows you to do vox recording of a line in option to a pc. I use it a lot for something similar and its a great program. However, do not expect any support - we havent been able to get the guy to respond to emails for some time and he doesn't come to these forums any more. But the program is solid and would work great for what you are asking for.

ResponderApps - RadioLog