How-To Build A Telephone Recording Circuit From An Old Modem

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We’ve posted our How-To for the week over at Engadget. Do you have an old modem lying around? Have you been dying to record some of your phone conversations for those podcasts or homebrewed movies or crazy flash animations you make? Wait no longer! Build yourself a little circuit to change the analog phone’s audio to regular line audio to record with your sound card. Remember that it is illegal in many places in the world to record phone conversations without both parties’ consent.

20 thoughts on “How-To Build A Telephone Recording Circuit From An Old Modem

  1. I just built one of these, works pretty well.
    Only problem is you have to speak quite loudly and clearly into the phone to be heard; otherwise it gets buried under a fairly loud medium-pitched drone (nothing to do with the phone itself). Could it be because I used 22uF caps instead of 10uF?
    Awesome hack, either way, and questionably legal.

  2. That should work great… I am an armature sound technician and run nice sound system. Now I will now be able to run a phone conversation through my sound system.

    The next step for me would be to run the mix from the mixer minus the phone call (eliminate feedback) back to the person on the phone. Any ideas?

  3. That should work great… I am an armature sound technician and run nice sound system. Now I will now be able to run a phone conversation through my sound system.

    The next step for me would be to run the mix from the mixer minus the phone call (eliminate feedback) back to the person on the phone. Any ideas?

  4. Sorry to be a downer, but the capacitors are only rated at 35 working volts, and polarized. The 100 volt ring signal from the phone company may destroy them, best to use non-polarized with telephone circuits as well.

  5. You guys should really be careful with this. Most states have very strict wiretapping laws.

    If you record someone without their consent, you could go to jail or face a civil suit.

    The following states require the consent
    of ALL parties before being allowed to record:

    California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Washington.

    http://www.rcfp.org/taping/quick.html

  6. oh.. p.s.. playing stupid won’t get anyone out of trouble either..

    So.. if you live in one of those states and you happen to record your phone s*x or break-up with your girlfriend, the unsuspecting person on the other line could make your life difficult.

  7. John – it’s definitely possible, but not with this setup. (As written) gives audio line out.

    Now, here at HAD, we pride ourselves on not doing things as written, don’t we.

  8. This was my first electronics project… The schematic sucked and I’d never soldered before (except messing up my xbox, heh. I got it fixed by a friend). My dad helped me out with it, and we spent a few hours on it last night. It didn’t work. :( then, looking at it today, there was no continuity through the transformer. I just replaced it and it still didn’t work. Then I noticed I used a 100 uF Capacitor instead of 10 for one of them. It worked!!!

  9. Hey Allan,

    it seems like that Meeko box does not have any schematics available. Can you send them to me please, it seems like exactly what I want to build. My email address is sebs89 _at_ gmail d0t com. Thanks in advance!

  10. I was wondering about this unit…
    Will it automatically pick up a phone call, or do you have to start or switch something on when the phone is picked up??
    Thanks for the info in advance.

    Steve

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