[IRCA] digital recorder

["Robert Foxworth" <rfoxwor1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On my Utah travels I discovered WalMart selling
digital voice recorders under the RCA label,
priced around $40. I wound up buying two of
them, to record station IDs from my newly
discovered "locals". I'll describe them here
in case this is of interest to other DXers.
This is also listed as made by Thomson, Inc.

This is a "digital voice recorder with built-in
flash memory" and I am using the RP5012 unit,
one up from the lowest capability model. It
measures approx. 3/4 x 1.5 x 4 inches (19 x
40 x 98 mm) and runs from 2 size AAA batteries.

It holds up to 200 files in from 1 to 4 folders.
Each file of arbitrary length is date/time
stamped to the nearest minute, and length is
stored to the nearest second. Buttons provided
are Erase, Menu, Volume Up and Volume Down,
on the front, and Stop, Play, Record, skip
forward (cuts) and skip back, on the unit side.

The built in mic is bypassed by using the
mic jack (3/16 mini mono plug) and a similar
headphone jack is provided. A built in speaker
of about 1 inch is present, and a LCD window
of 7/8 inch square (23 mm) shows the folder
number, file number in use/total files number
(such as 5/23), time of day, battery state,
lock on/off, dictation/autovoice state,
recording-on dot, fidelity mode (SP/HQ),
AVR state, and hh:mm:ss display of where you
are in a file, or remaining time, if file not
playing. The SP mode holds about 6 hours of
sound and the HQ mode holds about 2 hours.

Both the "play" and "record" buttons operate
as "pause" when toggled (push to pause, push
to start) and the clock reflects that.
Time is stored (12 or 24h clock) of the time
each file is opened for recording, as well
as the file length.

I am using the HQ mode with a R-S "Y" cable
which feeds a headset from one branch and
a male-male 3/16 extender to drive the
input jack. The only noticeable issue so far
is a slight aliasing effect due to digital
sampling of the audio when noise or hets
are present and the audio shows a slight
"flanging" effect in some cases. However I
can get clean recordings from the receiver
headphone line jack as a level giving good
headphone volume.

Recording always places the new cut at the
end of all existing cuts, even if you were
listening to an earlier cut.

One of the big drawbacks to this mode is the
inability to rewind a few seconds into a long
cut, as replaying a cut resets it to the
beginning. There is a "cut" mode to slice out
parts of an existing cut, and individual cuts
(or all cuts) can be deleted. I see the
benefit of this kind of device is to record
audio for transfer to a more editable medium
for permanant archiving. There is also no
mode to change playback speed, such as a jog-
shuttle would do.

An external lapel mic is provided, and a
barrel jack is present for external 3 VDC
input.

There is no recording level indication, so
recording from a receiver line jack has to be
set by trial-and-error. Volume up and down
is set in small steps by button, there are no
rotary controls.

Battery life seems good and using alkalines
makes it possible to fill the memory and replay
a couple of times with ample life left.

The walmart SKU (UPC) is 004431910374.

- Bob

20050512_recorder.txt
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