Help with recording/breaking up calls

[rpd51]

Hello all, I'm a police officer in North, NJ. I pretty good when it comes to computers and programming, so the Fire Chief for the town I work in asked me if I could create a program on the computer that records all fire calls and breaks them down one by one, and save them as mp3's into a folder. I told him I would give it my best shot, and now I'm at a standstill. My configuration is as follows: I have a RadioShack PRO-2050 plugged into a computer's Microphone port that sits in Fire HQ. I have Scanner Recorder installed, and it records the transmissions, but it records EVERYTHING. We have three departments transmitting fire calls over the same frequency. So what I'm trying to do is find some sort of software, or maybe write something myself that will recognize the tones of my fire dept and record just their call. If anyone can lead me in the right direction I would GREATLY appreciate it. Thanks everyone.

Rob

 

[trafficdan]

Rob try http://www.davee.com/scanrec/

There are a couple of us that use this. Quality is pretty good. You just have to play with it a bit.

There may be some files from it on my website, I forget. www.trafficdan.com

Good Luck,
TrafficDan.

 

[NeFire242]

Would almost be easier just to PL all of the departments.

What is the reasoning behind the recordings? If this is to be held and used later on such as to prove a case in court, I'd go with some high quality DVR and leave this mp3 stuff alone.

 

[rpd51]

Rob try http://www.davee.com/scanrec/

There are a couple of us that use this. Quality is pretty good. You just have to play with it a bit.

There may be some files from it on my website, I forget. www.trafficdan.com

Good Luck,
TrafficDan.

Thanks for your help TrafficDan. I currently use Scanner Recorder to record the entire transmission from the frequency, but what I'm trying to do now is when the audio enters my computer, I want to record only the calls for Riverdale. I dont know if this is possible...

 

[rpd51]

Would almost be easier just to PL all of the departments.

What is the reasoning behind the recordings? If this is to be held and used later on such as to prove a case in court, I'd go with some high quality DVR and leave this mp3 stuff alone.

Currently, the only record of a fire call is the police dispatcher fills out a sheet and faxes it to fire HQ when the call is cleared. What we want to do is eliminate the paper, and just record the call, and store it in a folder. This would be much better for court and would really help out our dispatchers by getting rid of the paper log.

 

[dangitdoug]

Try this company. They used to be Dictaphone

http://www.nuance.com/

Doug K

 

[pinellasfirefighter]

I use sound forge for recording and chopping up the feeds. Its a studio software program that works very well. you can pick it up for 400 dollars or i can e-mail you a cracked full version for free. your choice

 

[rbm]

Advanced Virtual Control BCD396T (AVC396) wil do exactly what you want.
(An updated version is said to be coming.)
http://www.scannerbase.com/scannerbase-avc396-uniden-bcd396t-scanner-software/

However, you'd have to dedicate a BCD396T to logging and the audio files are .wav files.

Each transmission is a single file with a date/time/frequency/PL stamp on it. Here is a sample for 154.950 mhz with three different PL's. (110.9, 127.3, and 146.2)

21-Tacticals_Police_NYSP-F-1-Cars_-154.9500_C127.3__8-03-26-PM_8-03-32-PM_06-01-2006.wav
21-Tacticals_Police_NYSP-F-1-Cars_-154.9500_C110.9__8-33-49-PM_8-33-51-PM_06-01-2006.wav
21-Tacticals_Police_NYSP-F-1-Cars_-154.9500_C146.2__9-14-59-PM_9-15-01-PM_06-01-2006.wav

 

[bagmouse7]

If you use Probe software with a Optocom or an OS456/Pro2006 or OS535/Pro2042 you can control the recorder on a per tone basis.
I am not aware of any other program/hardware that will let you control the recorder based on the transmitted tones.
Maybe someone else does...
Thanks.

 

[Al42]

You could probably use a tone-out pager connected to a recorder to do what you want. You might have to add some circuitry to the pager to reset after a certain time out if it doesn't already have some way to do this.

As far as a recorder, I'd use one of the recorders made for the purpose - something that records 8 or 24 hours of voice on 1 tape. They only record when something is coming in, so you can usually use a tape for days if you want to have to look through that many calls.

 

[STiMULi]

Would almost be easier just to PL all of the departments.

What is the reasoning behind the recordings? If this is to be held and used later on such as to prove a case in court, I'd go with some high quality DVR and leave this mp3 stuff alone.

PL tones would just segment the stations and not the calls. With multiple station dispatches it would complicate the recording process.

As far as MP3 goes they probably want them for training purposes and well as quick dissimenation.

Do you start a call with a Tone out? What mechanism do you guys use to terminate a call?