Recording from a cell phone?

[Frank Freniere]

Is there an inexpensive gadget/add-on to a cheap Nokia/AT&T cell phone that would allow me to tape a phone conversation?

Right now all I can think to do is to put a suction-plug attachment somewhere near the earpiece and plug that into a crappy old cassette player. Or put the phone on speaker & put it near the cassette player. There's gotta be a better way

Can I somehow get the conversation directly on to my laptop?

[Mitch Drumm]

Frank:

This outfit:

http://www.highcriteria.com/

Makes a bunch of applications generally designed for recording. Some of them specifically for phone recording.

Price generally under 25.

I've used them in the past. They work pretty well once set up.

I don't know how they work with cell phones--I always used an ordinary land line.

I don't know if there is anything that will actually reside on your phone. You may have to install the app on your laptop and record through the laptop.

I'd call them or go over the web site carefully.

I think their tech support is pretty responsive--you might send them an email.

[Michael Maddex]

This is just an untested idea here, but maybe you can go somewhere with it. If your phone has Blue Tooth to connect it to a headset for hands-free operation and your notebook has Blue Tooth (or an adapter for it), maybe you can use that path to get the phone conversation to the PC. Once you've got the signal to the PC, then recording it using software like Audacity should be easy.

HTH: Just an idea.

[Frank Freniere]

Gracias, guys. I ended up sticking a Radio Shack plunger microphone near the cell's earpiece. Do not recommend this option. TERRIBLE reception/background buzzing - but I got 'er done.