record saved phone messages onto my computer

Message deleted (repeat 17 times). I have one left. It’s from last week – I need to call her back.
My voice mail is officially decluttered!

I’ve transferred ten of them from the mp3 player onto the computer. Now, to do the rest and then delete them from the voice mail…

I have a lot of saved voice mail messages. They’re all funny or mean something special, such as people congratulating us on our engagement. Or phoning while I was in the hospital having Isak. Or wishing him a Happy Birthday.

Isak is now more than a year and a half old, similarly dating the majority of these messages. There are about 16 of the 20 spots taken up with old messages, meaning sometimes the mailbox gets filled to the brim so I want to transfer them onto the computer.

I started last night by recording them onto the mp3 player. I got through about half.

Tonight I recorded some saved voicemail messages off my phone and onto my PC. To do this, I made a custom cable out of a hands-free earbud and an RCA cable.

1. Find a wired headset. Most phones come with one. I’ve accumulated like 5 over the years. [flickr]
2. Sever the ear bud, and strip the wire. Inside are copper wires (ground) and another insulated wire (signal). Carefully strip the inner insulation. There are only a few threads of wire to carry the signal, so cutting even one is a bad thing. [flickr]
3. Do the same for an RCA adapter. Find an RCA -> 1/8” cable (or whatever you plan on plugging into your PC). Cut the head off one RCA. You’ll find the guts are similar to the headset wire. Do the same stuff inside as in step 2. [flickr]
4. Splice the grounds and signals together. Shield the signal wires with electrical tape. You’ll want to leave the ground wire partially unshielded, so you can touch it with your body to provide additional grounding. Now plug one side into your phone, and the other side into the PC’s line-in. You can record anything: saved messages, ring tones, even phone conversations! [flickr]

The output is pretty good, but not flawless. Listen for yourself [.mp3, 500k] That’s the twins singing their ABCs.

Here are two more:

Aaron will take your order [.mp3, 1mb]
The twins spelling their names [.mp3, 500k]

Got a bunch of cute ones from the twins and they’re filling up my voicemail. I already have a microphone so this should be easy.