I need something that can be put in my handbag, this will probably sit on my lap. No need for endless recording time but it must pick up the spoken word with clarity. Cheap would be good.

So … I await your recommendations and advice.

Thanks, as always. 🙂

Potentially shaky legal ground….
What for?

Might be able to offer advice, via email….!

Some digital dictaphone with a hidden mic outside the bag for pickup. Something small but amplified and not a material bag that’s going to cause noise.
Oops sounds like I’ve done this before.

Captain – I couldn’t possibly say! Don’t really give a stuff about legal implications though.

what about using a mobile phone ringer turned off and set to record ( if you have a phone which will record)

works well for some one I know very well

+1 for the mobile phone route with the ringer turned off.. Mighty effective microphones on smartphones these days..

Don’t suppose you’ll be sharing the recording with us, no, thought not 😆

Take care, the mic will pick up botty burps too.. 😆

Smart Phone with recorder on; they’re pretty good and its not unnusal for people to have a smart phone close to hand or on a table etc.

Thanks for the suggestions guys but my phone is just a phone. Don’t do gadgets!

I’ve recorded “meetings” on my mobile. Phone on table looks perfectly normal, set to record just before going into the room . Sound quality is just fine 🙂

this has great potential…

reminds me of when us students were accused of too raucous behavior in French class. So the teacher got a gettoblaster and put it on our desk with a tape in and set it to record!

…we had pill bottle tops clicking and all sorts, any strange sound we could make we made it,…lol…i think they just gave up in the end and turned it off…

as you were….

Isn’t the OP a cop or is that someone else?

Don’t think so, i guess this will be some form of care of an adult issue.

Zoom H1 Portable Digital Recorder, approx £80. Runs on standard batteries and you can plug an external mic into it.

Just hit eBay and type in, ‘recording device’. You could even add the word, ‘spy’ if you wanted to.

Voila! Hundreds of devices, many under £20, most so small you can hide them in a pack of chewing gum. I have a £15 camcorder which is sound activated, so you can just leave it on for weeks on end, on a single charge. It comes on upon hearing something, records until the sound stops and automatically switches itself off. The mic is better than the lens…

spy pen recording thingy for a five spot

Dammit – just bought one. And then I needed a 4GB, class 10 micro SD card from mymemory.com for another fiver. So that’s a tenner all in.

I discreetly recorded a downward position at work and then brought the device out in the middle of the meeting, the company shit there selves and paid me 3 months salary when i resigned ,i traveled the world kite surfing and met my wife .it was a good but( balsy move ) not legal but it worked – best thing i ever did #ifitfeelswrongitis ?stickyground though ?

reminds me of when us students were accused of too raucous behavior in French class. So the teacher got a gettoblaster and put it on our desk with a tape in and set it to record!

We had a bit of weird teacher at school; fat (short arms, big belly – so had to write is semicircles on the board), mad, would fart in the wastepaper bin. He had poor class control and world also just wander out of class of ages leaving us to our own devises.

One day he’s disappeared and we’re all rattling away – the door opens, he comes in, opens a draw and pulls out a dictaphone.

Re-winds the tape a few seconds and plays it back….. noisy school kids…… door opens…. silence.

“You hear that silence? Thats the sound of power” he said

It wasn’t – it was the sound of us expecting someone with some actual authority coming in to ask where the hell our teacher had buggered off to again.

Most MP3 music players have a record facility on them somewhere.
Not sure of the quality as never tried this function

I don’t think its illegal, it is also admissable incourt. Wether anyone takes any notice or believes the veracity of a recording is a different thing.
I was taken to small claims by someone, who had recorded a telephone conversation as part of his evidence. The judge thanked him for is efforts but flatly refused to let him play it onhis little tape recorder.

I’ve never quite gathered what was illegal about recording conversations. If the conversation has legal implications, what’s the difference between recording it, or recalling it from memory, then writing it down and sending it to the other party to verify the record as accurate minutes of the meeting?

What’s the evil NHS done wrong now 🙂

Trouble with in a bag is, as mentioned, the bag may muffle the audio, so something like the dummied up pens and key fobs may be more useful. You walk in with item in your hand along with a few other bits and pieces and put them down on a desk or table and you are away – try and work out how you are going to deploy it before hand – be comfortable with the theatre of it. Also with a bag if for example you get up and put the bag on the floor you’ll maybe loose quality and also look a bit odd picking it up again and carefully placing it on your lap. Far better to put the device down, ignore it and pick it up when you leave. Not sure if you’ve used this kit before but test it a number of times before you deploy, both to make sure it works and so that turning it on is second nature, I’ve worked on a number of tasks where people have used stuff like this come back all excited and have not turned the thing on or not got it to record, so make sure it’s second nature. You can use concealments for kit like this and get good results, drink cans and starbuck type coffee cups for instance but with a bag unless you secure it near the opening of a bag that may not work very well. Depending what you are going to use the transcript for might be worth a preamble of date, time, location and who you are going to talk to before deployment and a similar precis at the end before turning it off. Obviously the best solution would be to bug the location before hand but presumably you’re not going to be able to do that 🙂

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/oftel/consumer/advice/faqs/prvfaq3.htm

It won’t be admissible in court unless you advise the person that they are being recorded. And even then will be hard to verfy time, place, people involved etc. What you really want to do is film them, with sound and proper time stamp in the equipment.

Konabunny your link relates to interception of communictaions – eg phone calls not conversations

Hels do you have a link to back that up, there seems to be some opinion that secret recording ,may be admissable in some cases eg

http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=4310

Obviously this activity is perfectly acceptable for law enforcement under RIPA. But as there is no need for a private individual to comply with RIPA I’m not sure that material they obtain would immediatly be inadmissible – not trolling just cusrious if there is some case law on it.

CG pictured earlier:

No one will suspect a thing……. 😉

http://www.amazon.com/1GB-Pen-Voice-Memo-Recorder/dp/B0012N36DC should do the trick 🙂

I felt hurt that so many of you feel that there’s wrong-doing involved. I’m hardly femme-fatale material. 😯

I’m an old girl, my memory is not what it was and pretty shonky hearing too. Just in need of some discreet assistance. 🙂

You lot made me laugh anyway. 😀

I’m hardly femme-fatale material.

Thanks for the suggestions guys but my phone is just a phone. Don’t do gadgets!

[pedant]Well, what you’re looking for rather comes under the heading of ‘gadget’…[/pedant] 😉

I have a few mini disc recorders and a microphone that works well.
Could post it to you, if it’s a one-off use? Lemme know.

. I have a £15 camcorder which is sound activated, so you can just leave it on for weeks on end, on a single charge. It comes on upon hearing something, records until the sound stops and automatically switches itself off.

Interesting, got a link?

I’m hardly femme-fatale material.

I don’t agree. (Rubs thighs in Vic Reeves manner).