Bob, the WODX ID went right from a Sony XDR-F1HD into CoolEdit running on my PC. It was recorded off the HD1 signal, so no hiss in either the air signal or the recording itself.
I think Bill is using a Witness (possibly two of them) when he travels. A few of those Seattle IDs (like KMCQ) did indeed sound pretty rough, but I suspect that had more to do with the signal than the recorder.
No, the Witness isn't perfect - but I get usable results from it on a much more regular basis than I did when I was dealing with cassettes. It's never off-speed, it never has issues with tape edges getting mangled or heads being misaligned, and it's impossible to rewind something and record over it by accident. (Oh, and it never runs out of tape 10 seconds before the ID hits!)
Honestly, with the volume of stuff I record when I'm traveling, it would be impossible to do in 2012 if I still had to seek out cassettes to do it and keep my aging cassette gear running.
Oh ok. Sounded good. Yes, the KMCQ one did sound especially rough, and there were several others. As a matter of fact, I will be spending a month in the Spokane area and will redo the KKZX ID, since that one got very distorted. You got my note the other day Scott, right? I leave tomorrow. If anyone was wondering, I got my recorder last week, an Olympus 801G with a patch chord connected to a small tuner on the IPhone. Sounds perfect. The cassette clicking off before the ID hit happened to me last week as I was recording KAFE, but I rewound the tape and got it. The cassettes will be for home use until all of them have radio on them, then I go digital. I think I might have found the headphone jack on the boombox, so no need to buy any other new equipment.
