Roy Witt writes in a message to Scott Christensen
 SC> Roy Witt writes in a message to Bruce Bilson
 SC>
 RW>> The external speaker jack. By using a circuit board already
 RW>> in existence, you can tap off the audio and start/stop the
 RW>> recorder at the same time with this circuit.
 SC>
 SC> Yikes!  That means that the volume control affects the level of the
 SC> audio and you lose the speaker.  You also get any distortion and noise
 SC> generated in the audio stages after the volume control.
 RW>  The question was, the "easiest" place to pick off the audio...When 
 RW> was the last time you opened a scanner and found places big 
 RW> enough for your soldering iron to work? On the above mentioned 
 RW> board, there's a pot to control volume to an external speaker, 
 RW> so I see no reason why one would lose the audio or speaker 
 RW> as you say. How much noise or distortion do you normally find 
 RW> in an FM transmission that will affect your capability to understand 
 RW> it? 
Now you're changing your story.  I originally said to take the audio at the 
top of the volume control.  This is almost always an easy place to find - 
unless the radio has a digitally controlled audio level like some TVs and 
commercial 2-way radios.
  
You suggested the earphone jack.  This would work, but you would have to 
monitor through the recorder.  You also pick up all of the noise and 
distortion generated in the audio output stages of the scanner.  These stages 
tend to be quite bad for noise.
  
The noise and distortion *I* was talking about was in the audio PA, which you 
can avoid, as opposed to the stuff generated in the transmitter and receiver 
up to the discriminator - which little can be done to fix, except to redesign 
the radios.
 
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