Recording Audio of Logged Transmissions

Summary: Recording the audio of each logged transmission – choosing an input or speaker source, the trigger/silence/length settings, and why the first few seconds are always included.

Click the Record button in the Squawker Connect window to turn recording on – it switches to a solid red Rec ON. From then on, every transmission that gets logged is saved as its own audio clip.

Choosing Your Audio Source

Use the dropdown next to the Record button to pick where the audio comes from – it lists every active Windows audio device:

• Microphone-style entries are inputs – your microphone, a line-in connection, or a virtual audio cable fed from your radio.
• Speaker-style entries are outputs, marked “(what’s playing)” – picking one records everything that speaker or headphone output plays, via loopback.

A speaker/headphone source will pick up anything else the PC happens to be playing at the time, not just the scanner – a line-in cable or a virtual audio cable fed directly from the radio is the cleaner choice if you have one available.

Use the refresh button if you’ve just plugged something in and it’s not showing yet, and the folder button to jump straight to where recordings are saved. The level meter and status line beneath show whether Squawker PC is actually hearing anything from the selected source.

Recording Settings

Open Recording settings to adjust:

• Save to – where clips are stored, via Browse. Defaults to a “Squawker Recordings” folder in your Documents if left blank.
• Folders – Standard or Extended layout – see the separate article on folder layouts and groups for what each does.
• Trigger level – the audio level that counts as a real transmission rather than background noise.
• Minimum signal – Off, 0.2, 0.5, 1, or 2 seconds (default 0.5). A clip is only kept if audio stayed above the trigger level for at least this long in total – anything shorter is discarded as a squelch blip rather than a real transmission. Only audio from after the previous clip finished counts toward this, so a stray pop right after a genuine call doesn’t get credited to it.
• Stop after silence – how many seconds of silence end a clip.
• Max length – the longest a single clip can run before it’s cut and continued in a new file.

The First Few Seconds Are Always There

Every clip includes a few seconds of audio from just before the transmission was logged. Scanner polling only reports that something’s happening once the audio has already started, so without this you’d consistently miss the very beginning of each call. This isn’t adjustable.

Works with Any Scanner Type

Recording isn’t tied to a particular radio – it works the same way whichever scanner type your profile uses, since it listens to your chosen Windows audio device rather than the radio’s own data feed. Recording settings are saved per profile, so different profiles can use different sources and settings.