I'm looking for an answering machine that would allow people to leave
long messages with fairly good audio quality, and which would offer a
simple means of preserving messages as sound files.  On my current
machine (a dinosaur that uses a cassette), friends sometimes leave me
messages which they mean for me to preserve and transcribe, but they
are often cut off because the tape is too short.  And the sound
quality leaves much to be desired.  And besides, tape casettes are a
clunky medium to deal with. As for machines with digital chips, they
won't fit the bill either -- they usually
have a fifteen minute capacity and the sound is lousy.)  I'm looking
for something that would record for much longer (at least an hour) and
would ideally allow me easily to preserve messages in a convenient
format.  The best solution would be an answering machine with a
removable SanDisk type flash card whichwould allow me to record
messages in MP3 and then transfer whatever I
need to my computer hard disk.  Does anything like this exist?  I know
that radio programs like As It Happens have a segment that features messages
that listeners leave on a machine.  Is there some super answering
machine known only to radio professionals?

Why not investigate a FAX/Voice modem for your PC and have the PC "do
the talking" (and recording)?


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