Perhaps a stupid question - Replay functionality

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andrewccm

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Just curious, do any scanner manufacturers have a replay function built in to their scanners? What I mean is something similar to a PVR. I often hear something that I didn't quite catch everything and would like to "rewind" it a bit and re listen. I know this may sound crazy, but it really seems (to me anyway) like a useful function.

I realize you could record everything and play back, but I was just interested in a button to hit to backup a few seconds or so...

I am guessing this isn't something available at this point, but does anyone else think it would be a semi-useful function?
 

texasemt13

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I am guessing this isn't something available at this point, but does anyone else think it would be a semi-useful function?

I think it would be a useful option yes, but would increase cost tenfold, and as Alabama said, the demand is not there right now (nor is the funding). I do agree, though, it would be a nice function to be able to replay the last 10 seconds of intercepted audio.
 
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N_Jay

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I think it would be a useful option yes, but would increase cost tenfold, and as Alabama said, the demand is not there right now (nor is the funding). I do agree, though, it would be a nice function to be able to replay the last 10 seconds of intercepted audio.

10 fold? Come on, just a couple of $, but in consumer products every penny is examined.
 

Don_Burke

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Just curious, do any scanner manufacturers have a replay function built in to their scanners? What I mean is something similar to a PVR. I often hear something that I didn't quite catch everything and would like to "rewind" it a bit and re listen. I know this may sound crazy, but it really seems (to me anyway) like a useful function.

I realize you could record everything and play back, but I was just interested in a button to hit to backup a few seconds or so...

I am guessing this isn't something available at this point, but does anyone else think it would be a semi-useful function?
I have not seen it in one.

It would be handy sometimes. I would think an outboard device would be the place to start. They do market something like that for pilots.
 

andy404ns

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The problem I see is that if it worked the way you wanted it to, it would be recording everything which would take up a ton of space. Obviously it would have to be set at some threshold. For instance if they made it so that it only recorded the last 10 seconds of audio but then you'd be recording over those 10 seconds constantly and you probably wouldn't get what you wanted anyway. Recording the past 1 minute might be useful but again, when would it start timing the one minute? Seems tricky to me.

Another idea might be to have an internal recorder for specific channels. Much like on the Uniden 996T you can mark a channel to record out, perhaps you could mark a channel to record internally. This would greatly reduce the space taken up by the recordings and you're more likely to record things you're actually interested in. The stored recordings could be automatically deleted each time the power is cycled or at some predefined limit.
 

Don_Burke

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The problem I see is that if it worked the way you wanted it to, it would be recording everything which would take up a ton of space. Obviously it would have to be set at some threshold. For instance if they made it so that it only recorded the last 10 seconds of audio but then you'd be recording over those 10 seconds constantly and you probably wouldn't get what you wanted anyway. Recording the past 1 minute might be useful but again, when would it start timing the one minute? Seems tricky to me.

Another idea might be to have an internal recorder for specific channels. Much like on the Uniden 996T you can mark a channel to record out, perhaps you could mark a channel to record internally. This would greatly reduce the space taken up by the recordings and you're more likely to record things you're actually interested in. The stored recordings could be automatically deleted each time the power is cycled or at some predefined limit.

The gadget I was thinking of is something like this:

http://www.rwrpilottraining.com/FlightCom_DVRManual.pdf

Page 5 goes over how the recorder works.

That particular unit looks pretty expensive. Making a cheaper unit for scanner-type use should not be much of a challenge.
 

rdale

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Recording the past 1 minute might be useful but again, when would it start timing the one minute?

It would hold 60 seconds worth of audio, and when it recorded the 61st second it would remove the 1st. That would be a GREAT feature - so many times it was "what did I just hear?" If you could quickly replay it (I'd be happy with just 10 seconds) then I think that would be a big help.

MP3 players have voice recorders that hold hours of data in something as small as the volume control knob and cost $20. This wouldn't be an expensive addon.
 

andrewccm

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NO, it s a scanner & NOT a recorder. Again supply & demand comes into play

Well that was certainly an opinion I suppose.

Plenty of things in "scanners" that are not demanded.
This function would be for scanning and the ability to go back a few seconds in case you missed something or needed to hear it again. I am not suggesting that it permanently archive anything or even be able to dump the data. I just want a small buffer or even a small pause button.

Regardless, as far as cost goes, it should be insignificant.. The audio quality out of these things and the compression audio codec used to get decent recording capability should take VERY VERY VERY small amount of space to handle even a minute of recording time. As mentioned, you can get a little MP3 voice recorder with mic and flash memory for less than $20. Flash memory by itself to handle probably 10min of mono low bitrate data is less than $5 off the shelf.

Anyway, supply and demand.. Well if no one mentioned it, how would the demand ever be met? Consider this post a demand from one user.

Thanks for everyone's response.
 

andy404ns

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It would hold 60 seconds worth of audio, and when it recorded the 61st second it would remove the 1st. That would be a GREAT feature - so many times it was "what did I just hear?" If you could quickly replay it (I'd be happy with just 10 seconds) then I think that would be a big help.

MP3 players have voice recorders that hold hours of data in something as small as the volume control knob and cost $20. This wouldn't be an expensive addon.

True, but holding hours of data might not be particularly useful. If your scanner holds, for exmaple, 20 gigs of audio and you want to hear what you just missed, you'd need some method of fast forwarding to the last 10 seconds. Then your scanner becomes an mp3 player and you might as well tape a cheap mp3 player to your scanner and use the record out feature.

However, the 60 second idea could be useful. All you'd need to do is access the file and hit play. Even if you only wanted the last 10 seconds, it's not much of a hassle to listen to another 50 seconds. Again I think adding the channel specific option to something like this would be extremely beneficial.
 

andy404ns

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The gadget I was thinking of is something like this:

http://www.rwrpilottraining.com/FlightCom_DVRManual.pdf

Page 5 goes over how the recorder works.

That particular unit looks pretty expensive. Making a cheaper unit for scanner-type use should not be much of a challenge.

Unless I read it wrong that unit is still external (unless you take your cockpit apart and hide it). So basically we'd be asking the scanner companies to put something like that inside their scanners, then give us the functionality to interact with it via the scanner interface. Don't know how much work/money that would be but it sounds doable.
 

lugoffman

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Well you could also go to http://www.scanamerica.us/index.php and see if they got a feed set up for your area as to what you was monitoring. If they do not you could get a feed started for your area and it will record everything that is active for that feed and you can go back into the archive and look it up and replay it THIS IS FREE !! to do good luck http://tx.scanamerica.us/index.php looks like dallas does not have a feed but you can start one for free if you got a extra scanner laying around it's easy to do just email gordon@scanamerica.us and he will get you set up for the feed
 
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Grog

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There have been a few XM radio units that would record the last 30 minutes continuously (I think the latest is 60 minutes) so it's not too far out of line for a small device.
 

Don_Burke

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Unless I read it wrong that unit is still external (unless you take your cockpit apart and hide it). So basically we'd be asking the scanner companies to put something like that inside their scanners, then give us the functionality to interact with it via the scanner interface. Don't know how much work/money that would be but it sounds doable.
I am asking no such thing.

An outboard unit would make far more sense at first.

If the demand is there, the manufacturers will figure out a way to make it internal.
 
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