I recommend against it, unless the caller lays claim to being a member or next of kin of some organized criminal element or a member of an online game playing group or a collard green avid reader of john norman or like genre. Check your local laws on recording coversation. Otherwise, don't do it as it will alienate you, most likely.

If one does decide to record said conversations, it would behoove one to have their ducks well in order, lest chaos ensue.

by the way, if you are all that interested in recording personal conversations, I suggest you place passive listening devices in every nook and cranny. Have a hammer ready, 'cause you may find more nails than what one is accostombed to chewing upon.

summin got ya gander yup?

As Luftmarque mentioned, Skype is probably the easiest way to do it and will likely give you the best quality for no money. Skype does not have native support for recording calls but there are several plug-ins for it. If you are using POTS (plain old telephone service) then some answering machines have the ability to record calls. Or you could get a cheap telephone microphone; it's just a contact mic mounted to a suction cup. Feeding pre-existing audio into a PC, like a tape recording, is almost trivial.

I do a fair amount of audio to PC so just ask if you'd like more details.

Just to clarify since it seems to be a concern for several posters: I'm not talking about secretly recording telephone conversations. I'm talking about recording some conversations with friends who know they are being taped. I appreciate the concern, but it's not that kind of thing.


Thanks for the head's up about Skype. I'll poke around to see what's out there. I avoid cell phones because I find them obnoxious, but that might be an option too.

I have crappy microphone for my PC and decent speakers, but I've not had a lot of luck getting decent sound out of that mike. What do you do to make decent PC recordings from a tape or through a microphone?

I'll give it a shot and see how it works. Thanks for the info.