I just turned in draft number nine for an OJR piece. I did a bunch of phone interviews. So glad to have my phone headset - head not compacted at an angle holding plastic against my shoulder, I sit there comfortably able to type. I transcribe as people talk - I'm a fast typist, I can generally keep up with most spoken thoughts.

But today I wanted to confirm a quote from a few weeks back. I wasn't able to reconstruct a few of the sentences around the juiciest bit, because my hand-typed notes were incomplete. So I want an audio backup of these research phone conversations.

My phone sits next to my computer. I figure there ought to be an easy way to get a phone audio signal into my computer for easy recording. It requires a combination of hardware (some kind of RJ11-to-audio Jack? like the one pictured here. Or maybe a modem?) and sound recording software. I saw a packaged software deal offered online for $125 but I imagine that between Radio Shack and shareware I could get my personal evesdropping technology for under $30.