Episode: 4193
Title: HPR4193: Why I haven't recorded an episode for HPR
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4193/hpr4193.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 21:05:56

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4193 for Wednesday the 28th of August 2024.
Today's show is entitled, Why I Haven't Recorded an Episode for HPR, it is part of the
series podcasting how-to.
It is hosted by fellow book and is about 12 minutes long, it carries a clean flag.
The summary is, Dave records an episode for HPR explaining why he hasn't recorded an
episode for HPR.
Hold up a minute.
Did you just say you're going to be recording an episode on why you haven't recorded an
episode?
Well, yes, exactly what I'm going to do.
Hi, my name is Dave and this has been quite a whilst it's my last recording for HPR,
to which I'm very welcome.
But I suppose the whole point of this episode, which is a little bit all over the place
because I'm actually out walking at the moment, is to try and explain why I haven't recorded
an episode for Hacker Public Radio recently.
Before I get started on that, I probably should point out I have already read out now
the majority of this episode, which isn't scripted by the way, but I've got to press
record.
So therefore I was talking to a phone that was not listening, classic.
So it's been a few years since my last episode.
But since then I've been suffering from a fairly acute case of hypocrisy because this
is an episode about why I haven't recorded an episode at the same time as why I'm recording
an episode whilst trying to justify a why I haven't recorded an episode.
So I'm on my way, on foot down, sorry, on my way down to my son, who is currently
doing Taekwondo.
My wife's down there already, she went down earlier on.
So I thought I'd come down and meet them.
But I think the principal reason why I haven't done an episode for Hacker Public Radio
recently is mostly around, I suppose if I'm being honest, it's apathy.
Yes, they pulled out a call for urgent episodes.
Oh look, someone's asked for that call, I don't need to worry about it.
And that's not a solution, really, isn't.
I have no excuse for that, but given that this has been on my mind for the last couple
of days.
But I don't know how it is for you, but I always suffer from this affliction where I could
be in the car driving or I could be lost, I know it's that way.
Or I could be sat on my can, or whatever.
And I'll have this fantastic idea for an episode, and I might, yeah, this is it, this is
going to be a brilliant episode to record.
But the time you get around to finishing up what you're doing, you've forgotten.
Oh, the great idea, it's lost, which is not ideal.
So I figured that as I'm walking to go and meet up with Carol and Alex, I would take
the opportunity to record an episode.
Now it was my intention to use my portable recorder, that's when I switched it on, here
it said, me and battery flat.
So I'm using my phone, and I'm kind of glad about that actually, because it kind of
proves the point that I want to make, that actually it's shockingly easy to record an
episode for HPR.
I don't know if this is a bit meta, listening to an episode of HPR explaining how to record
an episode for HPR, and I know that a few people have done this themselves quite recently.
But given my own lack of contributions of late, it seemed appropriate that I'm going
to get run over again, it seemed appropriate that I should record one of my own.
So I've been doing this, I have picked up my phone, I'm walking, I'm out of breath,
this is a fitness thing, all I got, and I'm all the way to walk through a local beauty
spot to get to where I want to get to, I've fired up an app on my phone, and what this
time around I should press record, and I've started talking, and that's it, that's all
you need to do, there's nothing beyond that that you need to think about.
Once the episode is completed, hang on, I am lost, is there a public footpath down this
road?
This one?
Thank you, so I see it, so yeah, getting lost again, that's because I was talking to you
and not concentrate on where I was going, ah, there we go, so yeah, just picking up
the pressing record, talking, once I've finished, I can then take this recording, track it
onto the HPL website, fill out some details, press go, and that's it, job done, everything
else from that point on was taken care of by the volunteers, the amazingly volunteers
behind the public radio itself, so it really is that easy, now to be fair, you could probably
do that from a phone, so you could do that and submit it while you're out actually out
on the belt, but with audio, and Ken has always said audio quality is not barrier to entry
where I'm recording an episode before, hack a public radio, and to a point, I agree,
and I have spoken about this before, where audio quality, I think there has to be a certain
level before, before submissing it, and that is you have to be able to understand what
a person's saying, I've listened to a number of, well, a small number to be fair, of hack
a public radio episode where I've not been able to actually understand what a person
is saying, because the quality is so bad, but that is very much a minority, 99 point
whatever it is for some of the episodes that I have heard have been of sufficient quality
to be able to hear them, so most mobile phones these days have a decent enough, I'm lost
again, have a decent enough microphone on them, and all of them do have a microphone, that's
kind of a requirement of a phone, is to have a microphone on it, or a decent enough
quality, even your budget Chinese brands have a microphone of decent enough quality
to be able to record something like this, and you can determine whether you want to make
a change, edit the file, sorry about the buzzing you're hearing the background, just trying
to work out where on earth I am, to work out where I need to go to, I need to go that way,
okay, that's cool, but you can edit it off, to the fact, I'm probably going to edit this
file before I submit it, because there are, there's an embarrassing long silent period
towards the beginning of the file, there will be some production notes, I record it after
I record it, I'll take those out, and then I'll just dump them into audacity or something,
make it sound better for you, and then submit it, and that's probably all that you need
to happen, from that point on, is there a motorcyclist on this path, idiot, but you
could also, if you wanted to chuck your file through, your finish file through a service
like what, so unfortunately when I switched from my recording app, earlier on to try and find
that where I was going, because I thought I was lost, it stopped recording, which is rather
frustrating, but then when I switched back it started recording again, so all of the
bit that was missed was about, I often will then throw the recorded file into, into
authentic, which is a service you can use to cleanse audio, but you don't have to do
that, you don't have to do that at all, it's not a requirement for the purposes of, of
HPR at all, just to go through and do any of that, it's a matter of personal choice.
The authentic service, which I've mentioned before, on HPR, other people have as well,
you just chuck a file into it, and then you have some options for noise reduction, removal
of hissing, background noise, harm all the rest of it, and then it chucks out a nicely
cleaned and nicely cleaned file, and you get two hours of free on the extra small tier,
which is available for no cost, but then from that point on, which you've then got, I
think you've got nine hours or 21 hours of processing time, that you can then subscribe
for, so fairly reasonable rate, I am not getting a commission from off on it, so I'm not
trying to sell you a service that I'm going to benefit from, but you don't have to do
any of that, like I say, it could simply be a case of picking up a phone, pressing record
on an app, most phones have a sound recorder already built into them, there are plenty of
apps around you can use, I use one called offonic edit, but you do not require an offonic
account to use, it's only if you want to then use the cleaning services off on it that
you then need an account, but as a sound recorder, well, you be the judge, it's pretty decent,
and then once you've got that file just export it off your phone, and then, like I said,
upload it to the HBL website, fill in the details about what this shows about, and then
press, one of the buttons says submit send, I can't remember exactly, so it really is
as simple as that, as for why I haven't done that over the last three years, I have no excuse,
and I'm not going to try and justify my lack of recording by any lofty reasons, because
they're not any, so hopefully that will change going forward, so anyway, I've been Dave,
otherwise known as the lovebug, find all my contact details over on my correspondent
page, correspondent 314, and I think, as always, I've gone out from HBL radio for the use
of their service, and join us again tomorrow for another exciting episode of HALCA Public Radio.
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