Updated November 3, 2006

It’s been a bumpy ride in the transistion from tape to digital newgathering for radio. Lots of half-baked concepts have found their way to the market in the past year, not to mention the cruel and unusual rights management issues Sony packs into some of its minidisk recorders.

In May, Spain’s AEQ Broadcast released the PAW 120 Digital Field Recorder, a palm-sized chip recorder specifically designed for field reporting. It can be found online for around $650. “PAW” stands for Palm Audio Workstation, though I like to think it’s because this cell phone-size recorder fits so snugly into your — uh, paw.

At 4¾” by 2” and a little over ¾” in thickness, this lightweight, aluminum-cased recorder can tuck into your shirt or trouser pocket. It comes with a black leather belt-loop carrying case with Velcro closure.

Unlike the much larger and clunkier Marantz PMD 660 that burns through four AA cells in four hours or less, or the Edirol R1 which devours its portable power in less than two, the PAW 120 runs for six hours on two double-A cells. There’s little need for an external power source (nor is there one), though the PAW 120 can be powered through a laptop. Its on-screen display asks, once you’ve plugged the PAW into a computer, whether you’d like to transfer files or use the USB connection as a power source. You can use rechargable batteries, but the PAW 120 does not recharge them via USB power.

The standard array of WAV and MP3 flavors can be selected along with CCITT a/law and u/law formats. You can define four unique recording templates (mono, stereo, compression, various sample rates and bitrates) that can be called up quickly. It has a decent built-in mic, and a speaker that kicks out enough volume to check a cut without resorting to headphones. Headphone volume is more than adequate. The PAW 120’s features are far more sophisticated than the M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 which sells for about $200 less. Everything on the PAW 120 is negotiable. Every option can be custom-set to individual tastes.

It has line out and headphone jacks, mini-jack inputs for line and mic, and a locking adapter cord to accomodate mono or stereo XLR-connector mics. Though you can use any mini-to-XLR cord, the PAW 120’s locking 41” cable can’t accidentally pop out of the recorder in the heat of action.

The PAW 120 can handle just about any species of condenser or dynamic microphone, with or without phantom power. I use a Sennheiser MD-46 which doesn’t need the PAW’s 19 or 34db boost for low-output mics.

The Paw’s pre-record mode allows you to set levels at the push of a button before using its slider switch to create an audio file. Record levels can be easily adjusted on the fly and markers easily laid down during recording. Pressing the Stop button for three seconds ends a recording session, a safeguard against stopping prematurely. Likewise, shutting down the recorder requires pressing the power key for three seconds.

With 512MB of flash memory, the PAW 120 can hold roughly 9 hours of FM-quality mono voice recording at 128kbps, and 5 hours of music using 256Kbps MPEG 1 Layer II for stereo FM quality. The non-removable flash card will also hold a little more than 90 minutes of raw, uncompressed stereo audio. Its sound is pristine.

A button doubles the luminescence of the OLED screen that’s fairly readable in bright sunlight. The display includes a well-indexed VU meter and complete overview of system resources and settings at a glance. It features a voice-activated recording mode and automatic gain control. The recorder’s ergonomics are well-thought through and mostly intuitive.

Virtually all the PAW’s settings are tweakable for those who love to define and store custom parameters. You can also create your own alphanumeric designators for file names, a feature I use daily to identify sound files recorded at different stories or locations.

The PAW 120 features a graphical editor capable of fast and easy waveform pull-up editing, though cutting and pasting are not supported. The graphical representation of the wave can be magnified for precise cutting. Alternatively, timecode numbers can be entered to mark in and out points — for the obsessives among us.

The File/Folder Manager works just like Windows explorer, allowing you to create and rename directories and move files among them.

There are a few quirks: Printed documentation is a little sketchy and vague. The web site for updated firmware, http://www.paw-recorder.com/, is still in Chinese only, making mystery downloads of its links.

Carrying the recorder around in my hand while in off mode, I’ve managed several times to hit a secret combination of buttons that launch a Chinese-language routine I’ve not been able to exit without momentarily removing a battery. Perhaps it’s a diagnostic routine. I should remember to engage the Hold switch, which locks the keyboard, to prevent this — but it is weirdly annoying. The PAW 120’s menus originally spoke either English or Chinese, though a firmware update released in early November now adds Spanish to the mix.

I’m pleased with this little recorder which has stood up admirably over five months of breaking news, disasters and docs. It’s yet to let me down.

Linkage
Transom.org exists for public radio correspondents, though it’s packed with tool and content tips for all in radio. Transom.org has won the only Peabody award ever presented to a Web site.