Baofeng Recording Rx only from UV-K5

[Nlong596]

I recently got a UV-K5 and have gotten everything programmed to receive local UHF/VHF aviation traffic. I upgraded the antanne and have good sound coming through the speaker of the radio. I am a student pilot and am wanting to record audio and save it for later playback for examples of clearances and such.

I now want to output the speaker audio to a computer or tablet to record it. I have tried hooking a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter in and the 3.5mm to computer/tablet, and nothing happens. It is as if the computer doesn’t recognize the input as a mic or the audio being input. I also got a special baofeng cable that hooks into both mic/headphone in speaker with an aux line out and that also isn’t recognized by the computer as a mic input.

Any suggestions to capture this radio traffic on a computer to clean up and later replay?

 

[KK4JUG]

While I don't record any of my ham, scanner or GMRS radio traffic, I do record music. As a musician playing in a band, I also engineer some of the band's recordings.

One of the recorders I use is a Tascam DR-100 MX II. It has built-in mics plus inputs for external mics (XLR) and mini-plug (3.5mm). It is a stereo recorder. It may be better quality than you need. The price is around $400. It stores recordings on an SD card as WAV files which would be recognized by your computer.

Like I said, it may be more than you need but there are similar but less expensive recorders out there that might work for you.

 

[cmjonesinc]

I don't have much experience with Baofengs but if you're just needing audio from the speaker you should be able to get a 2.5mm to 3.5mm cable and roll on with it. If your computer utilizes one of the headphone/microphone combo plugs like most modern ones that may be your problem. You can try a cheap usb sound card to split the mic from the speaker.

I've used these to feed audio from scanners and radios before and they work fine for what they are.

https://a.co/d/50wiPwp

Apparently this also exists. May be a bit overkill for what you need but it looks like it should do the job as well.

Amazon.com

 

[alcahuete]

You sure your cable is working? Are you sure it's the proper cable? Sure your computer jack is working? I have done that with many of those cheap radios and it always works fine. There's nothing special that needs to be done, no special cable that needs to be used. It's literally audio output from the radio to audio input on the computer.

 

[KK4JUG]

You sure your cable is working? Are you sure it's the proper cable? Sure your computer jack is working? I have done that with many of those cheap radios and it always works fine. There's nothing special that needs to be done, no special cable that needs to be used. It's literally audio output from the radio to audio input on the computer.

And some computers have different volume settings depending on what program is active.

 

[fireadioguy]

Try using a speaker mic with a jack, then to the computer.