JK Audio: Inline Phone Reporting

Radio World User Report, September 30, 1998
by Lee Shepard, Vice President News Broadcast Network

Ask almost any radio reporter to name his or her favorite piece of equipment. Chances are, it is a "box", custom-made by a station engineer that allows the reporter to feed tape-recorded stories over the telephone.

The possibility it may be ugly with wires hanging out the back makes no difference to the reporter, as long as it works. It is strange to me that, in all the time radio and the telephone have been going steady, equipment manufacturers have not fallen all over themselves to design a simple, inexpensive magic box of their own. Newspeople crave products that assist in feeding stories over the phone without having to put on headsets, plug in a mic or add a preamplifier. I believe that long awaited box has finally arrived in the form of the INLINE PATCH from JK Audio.

On the market since January, this analog phone hybrid is about the size of a paperback novel, with features that will appeal to radio and TV news operators, audio visual and multimedia producers - basically, anyone who wants to record or send audio over the phone. It took longer than it should have for me to decide that this device was what I needed. The enclosed instructions seemed a bit unclear, perhaps because the device does so much. But I sure know what hum is, and right out of the box, the INLINE PATCH was giving me about 20db of steady, uninterrupted hum. Having just gone through a three month finger pointing session with a computer sound-card company I was surprised and pleased, when the JK Audio representative said, "Yes, I know exactly what the problem is. That was our fault. You got one of the early units that contained a wiring mistake. We thought we had caught all of them, but apparently we missed yours. Send it back and we'll correct it and ship it out the same day." The unit came back minus the hum, and I started using it, both on the road and as a back up in the studio. It performed very well in both situations.

An equipment problem in the studio required that the INLINE PATCH be routed into the console for over two weeks. The problem was solved, but the INLINE PATCH stayed. I liked the sound better than the old unit and I discovered how easy and seamless it is to use. With the INLINE PATCH connected to the console via the XLR jacks and with the phone connected to the front of it, I can establish contact with the newsmaker, and conduct the interview over the phone without missing a beat. Both sides of the conversation are recorded with equal balance, although this feature can be fine-tuned with the separation control. Note that doing it this way allows the phone handset mic to become part of your on the air equipment. That's both good and bad.

I concentrate much better on the interview if I am not making constant adjustments. Make sure you are using a good, name-brand phone. Keep in mind that the phone will color the sound of your voice, but not the newsmakers. The signal from the incoming side of the line is not filtered by the phone, the way it is with a handset interface. Using the INLINE PATCH this way really suits my interviewing style, but there are times when I want to isolate the soundbite from the distracting noise in the studio. The separation control balances the incoming and outgoing signals nicely, but it does not completely isolate the incoming voice. When that feature is needed, a toggle switch on the front allows you to seize the line, hang up the phone and work through your console as if a normal phone line hybrid coupler.

The eighth-inch jacks in the back allow you to feed a stereo signal into a recorder with the caller on the left channel and your voice on the right. Another mini-output jack combines caller and your voice on both channels. A third mini-jack allows you to play sound bites into the telephone line, while you are talking on the phone. These desktop features make the INLINE PATCH very appealing to newsrooms. Its outstanding professional sound is the icing on the cake.

News Broadcast Network is a provider of corporate audio materials. The author has worked as announcer, newsman and personality for WTOP(AM) and WMAL(AM) in Washington.