Recording Scanners with Mic In and/or Laptops?

[RedPenguin]

Alright, I was getting strange noises when trying to record my BR330T with my laptop using a 3.5mm Stereo male to male cable.

After reading some random sites on the Internet, I've read that appearntly most Mic In's (no line in on my laptop) are mono and that using a stereo adapter will simply overload the Mic In.

Does this seem true and should I get some mono 3.5mm male to male cables?

Also, if it is needed, my laptop is a Compaq Presario F739WM. I have tried to look in the manual if the Mic In is mono, but I can't seem to find this info on Compaq.com.

 

[blackacid]

Mic ports are mono but most use stereo plugs. One side of the stereo is 5volt to power mics. The computer is feeding your scanner a few volts down the line which is most likely what is causing the noise. What I usually do is make a custom cable and not connect the 5 volt ring. If I'm being really cheap about it I'll take a premade stereo cable and cut it somewhere then rewire it while not reconnecting the 5 volt wire.

http://www.hobby-hour.com/electronics/computer_microphone.php

 

[slicerwizard]

Alright, I was getting strange noises when trying to record my BR330T with my laptop using a 3.5mm Stereo male to male cable.

So you're blasting the sensitive mic input with a speaker output signal? Ouch. Strange noises, huh? Go figure.

After reading some random sites on the Internet, I've read that appearntly most Mic In's (no line in on my laptop) are mono

That's probably accurate.

and that using a stereo adapter will simply overload the Mic In.

Excuse me? Somehow, two mic level signals will overload a mic input? That makes no sense. For starters, the signal on the ring connector will go straight to ground if you plug in to a mono jack, so how does it overload the PC?

I know that the "invisible" parts of electronics (like electrons and radio waves) can be hard to figure out, but audio jacks and plugs are just simple mechanical devices; just take a moment and actually look at them - notice how a stereo plug has three connectors (tip, ring and ground), while a mono plug has only a tip and a big ground sleeve. A mono jack isn't going to have its tip connector where a mono plug's big ground sleeve can touch it, so how could a stereo plug's ring connector possibly make contact with a mono jack's tip connection? Since it can't, how could it overload it?

Does this seem true

No.

should I get some mono 3.5mm male to male cables?

Is the 330's output jack mono? If not, what's the point?

Also, if it is needed, my laptop is a Compaq Presario F739WM. I have tried to look in the manual if the Mic In is mono, but I can't seem to find this info on Compaq.com.

So test it. Make a stereo recording with a program like GoldWave while alternately feeding audio to the tip and ring of a connected stereo plug. Then look at your recording - can you see the audio flip between channels? If not, it ain't stereo. If you can't get any audio through the ring connection, that's a pretty clear indication that your mic in jack isn't stereo, wouldn't you say?

 

[RedPenguin]

Well....

Is the 330's output jack mono? If not, what's the point?

Well it is, but appearntly sends signal on both parts of a stereo cable so that, while mono, you receive sound through both earpieces. Though it looks like perhaps a USB add-on sound card may end up working better, because seems like life would be much easier with a Line In instead of a Mic In.

 

[davidmc36]

Well it is, but appearntly sends signal on both parts of a stereo cable so that, while mono, you receive sound through both earpieces. Though it looks like perhaps a USB add-on sound card may end up working better, because seems like life would be much easier with a Line In instead of a Mic In.

That seems to be the way all the newer scanners are set up, "mono" sound but the jack is wired to send it to both sides of a stereo plug. And it should be true that your mic in is wired in the same way, "mono" audio but set up to recieve both sides of the stereo plug. You are simply overloading your mic in which is very sensitive. I gave mine a try with the discriminator output from the 245 and Trunk88 did not work at all.

I will have try the USB card and see how it works.

 

[RedPenguin]

That seems to be the way all the newer scanners are set up, "mono" sound but the jack is wired to send it to both sides of a stereo plug. You are simply overloading your mic in which is very sensitive. I gave mine a try with the discriminator output from the 245 and Trunk88 did not work at all.

I will have try the USB card and see how it works.

That's most likely what I will end up doing. I wish they would have been clever enough to put a Line In on the on-board sound device, but oh well.....

Maybe not that many people really need a Line In on their laptop, but scanner hobbyist I feel would have great reasons for it. I like to record with my laptop and BR330T because during special events if the power goes out for a little bit, the laptop will quickly go to battery and so will the BR330T, and not shut off, while a desktop and my BCT15 will most likely go out.

The power in my area is so annoying and I know it sounds like I do a lot to make sure I record special events, but most of the radio traffic in my area gets boring to listen to, but it seems to explode during special events with great traffic, so I get annoyed if the power goes out and I end up missing basically all of it. We don't so much get power outages as much as power hickups, though they are enough to restart every PC in my house, which more start up again but I have to reopen my applications and recover anything that didn't get a chance to save.

 

[SCPD]

I have one of the desktops that has a sound ports in back and up front. So to record and listen to two scanners, I have one plugged into the rear line-in port and one plugged into the front line-in port, all using stereo cables that I had on hand. I have two mic in ports as well, but in research saw that I didn't want to use them as I may overload the mic port and/or sound card

From there it goes into Windows mixer, and I have set the rear feed to be the right channel and the front feed to be the left channel, and comes out on my speakers as such. Works well, and after seeing it done on scanamerica.us I knew I had to do something similar for home listening.

I saw mention of an add-on USB sound card in one of the posts above, that might not be a bad avenue to explore if it does indeed have line-in ports.

Good luck, and hope this helps some, though I know it isn't what you are trying to do

 

[RedPenguin]

Wow...

I have one of the desktops that has a sound ports in back and up front. So to record and listen to two scanners, I have one plugged into the rear line-in port and one plugged into the front line-in port, all using stereo cables that I had on hand. I have two mic in ports as well, but in research saw that I didn't want to use them as I may overload the mic port and/or sound card

From there it goes into Windows mixer, and I have set the rear feed to be the right channel and the front feed to be the left channel, and comes out on my speakers as such. Works well, and after seeing it done on scanamerica.us I knew I had to do something similar for home listening.

I saw mention of an add-on USB sound card in one of the posts above, that might not be a bad avenue to explore if it does indeed have line-in ports.

Good luck, and hope this helps some, though I know it isn't what you are trying to do

Well, I know that is not what I want to do, but it's defiantly a cool thing to know. Too bad Audacity will not let you record from both at the same time. Doesn't seem like Audacity ever lets you record with two Audacity's at the same time.

EDIT: The more I think about it, I guess you technically could use your method then just record the Stereo Mix, but if you are not careful, you will get annoying sounds from other software and/or Windows in your recording.

 

[SCPD]

Yeah when I set it up, both sides were recording. I only want to record the fire channel, because I also have split some special PD talkgroups that I do wish to record.

It was my mistake in recording to have enabled the stereo mix, which caused both channels to record. Once I selected just the rear feed for recording things straightened out.

I wish I could record on my Pro-163 by talkgroup ID as my Pro-2052 allows me to do, but alas, no such luck, unless there is a trunktracker type of application that can run in the backgroup and read talkgroup IDs on the Pro-163, but I think I'm pretty much out of luck in that regard.

As for audacity, can you install it twice, to separate folders and start each as a single session? Or does it tie into the registry and make doing that difficult? Damn, now I might have to try that and find out for myself. LOL

 

[ibagli]

As for audacity, can you install it twice, to separate folders and start each as a single session? Or does it tie into the registry and make doing that difficult? Damn, now I might have to try that and find out for myself. LOL

I have the current release and the beta installed (in different directories), and it won't let me run both at once. I doubt it would let two of the same run.

 

[JeremyB]

On my Toshiba laptop there was a program in the control panel that allowed me to change the input from mic to line in

 

[slicerwizard]

Well it is, but appearntly sends signal on both parts of a stereo cable so that, while mono, you receive sound through both earpieces.

OK, I see I wasted my time with that last post. If the scanner puts audio on both sides of a stereo cable, the scanner has a stereo jack. If it had a mono jack, it couldn't put any audio on a stereo plug's ring connector. So now we know what type of plug you should be using on the scanner end. So what about the laptop's connector? I outlined the procedure to figure it out.

Though it looks like perhaps a USB add-on sound card may end up working better, because seems like life would be much easier with a Line In instead of a Mic In.

Or you could just use an attenuating patch cord. Your recordings would have less noise in them compared to a direct connection to a USB sound device.

 

[RedPenguin]

I have one of the desktops that has a sound ports in back and up front. So to record and listen to two scanners, I have one plugged into the rear line-in port and one plugged into the front line-in port, all using stereo cables that I had on hand. I have two mic in ports as well, but in research saw that I didn't want to use them as I may overload the mic port and/or sound card

From there it goes into Windows mixer, and I have set the rear feed to be the right channel and the front feed to be the left channel, and comes out on my speakers as such. Works well, and after seeing it done on scanamerica.us I knew I had to do something similar for home listening.

I saw mention of an add-on USB sound card in one of the posts above, that might not be a bad avenue to explore if it does indeed have line-in ports.

Good luck, and hope this helps some, though I know it isn't what you are trying to do

Do you just record the Stereo Mix or something after that? My XP only seems to let me select either front or back for recording not both at the same time. Even though I have controls for both, but in recording, it only lets you "Select" one.

Also, are laptop mic in's more sensitive? I just notice that putting a scanner in to my Desktop Mic In, doesn't sound so darn overloaded.

 

[SCPD]

I have the current release and the beta installed (in different directories), and it won't let me run both at once. I doubt it would let two of the same run.

Well damn, that sucks. Some software will allow you to install into multiple locations and run at the same time. I know ScanControl for my Pro-2052 can do this. Oh well, it was worth a shot and a suggestion.

 

[SCPD]

Do you just record the Stereo Mix or something after that? My XP only seems to let me select either front or back for recording not both at the same time. Even though I have controls for both, but in recording, it only lets you "Select" one.

Also, are laptop mic in's more sensitive? I just notice that putting a scanner in to my Desktop Mic In, doesn't sound so darn overloaded.

If you go into Windows audio mixer and under the recording options select stereo it will record both channels, but note, there will be no separation. That is to say, it records all to one file, so in my case, if PD is talking and a Fire calls goes out, they would both get recorded to the same file. Thus, since I am more interested in recording the special PD groups (ie. detail channels), I'm only recording the right channel.

Maybe it'd help if I explain my setup a bit more.

Pro-163 scans PD, Life Flight and Rural Fire. This scanner is not recording anything. This is the left channel.

Pro-2052 scans Fire and the special PD groups that I want to record. This is the right channel.

I do my recording on this scanner using ScanControl which has a recording feature built-in that saves the file by talk-group, date and time. I wish I could do this with my Pro-163 but it isn't a computer controlled scanner as the Pro-2052 is.

So in review, to record both channels to one file, use stereo. If you only want to record one channel, select which channel to record in Windows audio mixer and you're off and recording.

As for your notebook mic question, it is possible I suppose that they are more sensitive, but personally, I think it is like any other mic, some are better, some are worse and some are absolute crap. It also depends I suppose on how the mic gain is set in audio mixer.

 

[RedPenguin]

Ok...

If you go into Windows audio mixer and under the recording options select stereo it will record both channels, but note, there will be no separation. That is to say, it records all to one file, so in my case, if PD is talking and a Fire calls goes out, they would both get recorded to the same file. Thus, since I am more interested in recording the special PD groups (ie. detail channels), I'm only recording the right channel.

Maybe it'd help if I explain my setup a bit more.

Pro-163 scans PD, Life Flight and Rural Fire. This scanner is not recording anything. This is the left channel.

Pro-2052 scans Fire and the special PD groups that I want to record. This is the right channel.

I do my recording on this scanner using ScanControl which has a recording feature built-in that saves the file by talk-group, date and time. I wish I could do this with my Pro-163 but it isn't a computer controlled scanner as the Pro-2052 is.

So in review, to record both channels to one file, use stereo. If you only want to record one channel, select which channel to record in Windows audio mixer and you're off and recording.

As for your notebook mic question, it is possible I suppose that they are more sensitive, but personally, I think it is like any other mic, some are better, some are worse and some are absolute crap. It also depends I suppose on how the mic gain is set in audio mixer.

Ok, because I was looking at my Windows Mixer strangely, because when I select Line In 2, it automatically unselected Line In and everything else. So I was wondering how you could possibly select two things at a time in Windows Mixer.

Yea, my Laptop Mic In must be crap. Because I put my BR330T on two of my Desktop Mic In's to see something and both of them didn't have annoying as crap noise like my laptop seemed to have. Maybe the Mic Boost is on, on the laptop, but yet, I swear in Vista I turned it off, so I don't think that was it.

 

[blueangel-eric]

Ok, because I was looking at my Windows Mixer strangely, because when I select Line In 2, it automatically unselected Line In and everything else. So I was wondering how you could possibly select two things at a time in Windows Mixer.

Yea, my Laptop Mic In must be crap. Because I put my BR330T on two of my Desktop Mic In's to see something and both of them didn't have annoying as crap noise like my laptop seemed to have. Maybe the Mic Boost is on, on the laptop, but yet, I swear in Vista I turned it off, so I don't think that was it.

on tigerdirect i saw some USB soundcards that can be used on laptops. don't know how much better they would be but it's another option.

 

[davidmc36]

Ok, because I was looking at my Windows Mixer strangely, because when I select Line In 2, it automatically unselected Line In and everything else. So I was wondering how you could possibly select two things at a time in Windows Mixer.

Yea, my Laptop Mic In must be crap. Because I put my BR330T on two of my Desktop Mic In's to see something and both of them didn't have annoying as crap noise like my laptop seemed to have. Maybe the Mic Boost is on, on the laptop, but yet, I swear in Vista I turned it off, so I don't think that was it.

That seems to be consistent with any souundcard. You can only select one record source at a time. You need another sound device to select another record device, only one per card.

As far as mics go, i always found my SB Live (desktop) mic to be way too sensitive and my laptop a little deaf, just depends on what guts/tuning they put into it.