Your recommendations please for a voice recorder

Chris25

My cousin is investigating our family history. She's in the US and has asked me to send her anecdotes from elderly relatives. I think, perhaps, the best way to do this is by voice recorder as my handwriting is awful.

I'm not technologically minded at all and wondered if anyone has any suggestions or recommendations?

Any would be gratefully received

llyamah

What phone do you have? It might have a built in voice recorder. iPhones do, as do most other smart phones.

Chris25

it's a battered old blackberry which I recently got it from my son as he has a new phone. I didn't get any instructions though so don't know it's capabilities.

If it does have a recorder built in, is there any way to transfer any recordings made onto some sort of format to send to US?

A.Penny.Saved

If it can record and you can transfer recordings off it using usb(?) then you could copy them to a cheap memory card using a PC/laptop to send to the US.

search for the blackberry model # to find it's capabilities.

Chris25

many thanks both of you - will investigate further re phone

A.Penny.Saved

If it cannot do what you require then you will need another method of digitizing your voice. A microphone connected to your PC mic input should do it, then use some software such as audacity to record/edit the sound file.

I purchased a Philips Voice Tracer LFH0882 earlier last year but the place I got it from no longer sells them.

Search Amazon for voice recorder to see what they have. Philips make fairly decent ones. You could get one with a flash memory card facility or one with inbuilt memory and usb port which you connect to a PC/laptop to transfer off the recordings. Then edit the recording with a sound editing application before copying to a thin memory card to post to the US. An SD card is very thin and wouldn't cost much to post. Avoid USB flash memory because they are bigger and heavier. Think about what you could use this for in future

Chris25

thank you A.P.S, I'll contact my cousin too, to find out what would work for her.

beautiful_ravens

You can get usb stick style dictaphones for £10 + see ebay. You could send her the WAV audio files by setting up Dropbox on your and her PC, no need for posting at all.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/8GB-HQ-DIGITAL-VOICE-SOUND-RECORDER-PEN-DICTAPHONE-USB-MEMORY-STICK-AUDIO-RECORD-/300946164155?pt=UK_BOI_Office_Equipment_Supplies_Office_Equipment_ET&hash=item4611ca09bb

https://www.dropbox.com/

A.Penny.Saved

Yes, you could just open a free file hosting account with one of the file hosts and upload the files and email the link to your cousin. No postage, no buying memory cards etc. All you need is a microphone connected to your PC, record the audio and encode it to Mp3 with a free program and upload it. If this idea appeals then ask for advice on software etc.

A dictaphone/voice recorder only adds portability and is that really important?

Chris25

thank you both - must admit I haven't done anything about it yet but intend to next week.

A.Penny.Saved

If privacy bothers you then you can encrypt the files and add a password so that even if someone managed to get the links they could not decrypt them. Some hosts even have password features which add even more protection.

Then email the link and password to your relative to download. You could even encrypt your emails using Thunderbird, also free, if you are serious about privacy. Or use gmail with ssl.

7-Zip for compression/encryption is free.