Radio Your Way LX AM / FM Radio Recorder

by PoGo!

Product Details

Product Manual [2.23mb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 2.4 x 3.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0008KL7IQ
• Item model number: PRYM4LX
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #68,703 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: March 28, 2005

Product Description

Imagine the ability to record your favorite radio programs such as AM Talk Radio, Sports, News or Music and play those recordings back at a more convenient time. Radio YourWay LX makes this possible! Set Radio YourWay LX to record any station, any time, totally unattended! MP3 Recording- Easily transfer and archive your recordings to a PC or MAC with an available USB port Record from any audio source (CD, Cassette, or TV etc.) in MP3 format without the use of a PC! Playback MP3, WMA or RVF files ID3 Tag support Use Radio YourWay LX as a portable storage device for data files! Backlit LCD display Built-in line/mic in Built-in internal speaker and microphone Frequency Cover Range - FM 87.50MHz-108MHz, AM 530kHz-1710kHz Firmware upgradeable Uses rechargeable LI-Polymer battery - 15 hours battery life, 4 hours charging time USB connectivity Included accessories - Stereo headphones, USB cable, FM cable, line-in cable, AC adapter and user manual System requirements - Pentium MMX or higher, Mac OS X or Higher or Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, 20MB Hard Drive Space, Available USB Port Dimensions - W - 2.36 x H - 3.93 x D - 0.78 Approximate weight - 3 oz

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

130 of 131 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful little radio timeshifter; crufty interface, May 14, 2005

By 

Book Fan (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Radio Your Way LX AM / FM Radio Recorder (Electronics)

Fall 2008 update: In the last few months, this product has been discontinued. A new improved successor product (seemingly from the same factory in Korea) is available in the US as the C Crane Witness, and in Japan as the TalkMaster Slim.

Many, but not all, of the radio shows I used to record with this wonderful toy are now available by podcast. I still use mine to record over-the-air shows that I cannot get by podcast (such as Dean Edell), and it is still invaluable. There are other FM MP3 recorders, but at this point, the only AM MP3 recorders seem to be the Radio YourWay and the newer C Crane Witness.

Original review from May 2005:

I've been very happy with the capabilities and performance of this radio recorder, and I would give it 5 stars if the interface (and manual) were better. This product occupies a unique niche, at this time of writing, it is the only stand-alone (non-computer) solution to timeshifting radio that I could discover. Finally I can listen to Ira Glass and Terry Gross and Neal Conan and Science Friday and Elvis Mitchell (public radio geek shows), even though I'm busy when they're on.

It is basically like a VCR for radio, allowing you to timeshift radio shows that you want to listen too later, saving them as MP3 files, with a choice of kbps. You can record onto internal memory, or onto removable flash memory so it is easy to move things recorded to other computers. (There is also a USB interface, but that gives access only to the internal memory). Oh, it is a perfectly respectible MP3 player also.

The sound quality seems good at the higher sampling rates e.g. 256kbps (if there is a good signal). Some of my stations have poor signals where I live, so I record non-musical shows at a lower rate and use the hi-cut equalizer setting to reduce the hiss and static to listen.

But this little box has a few other tricks up its sleeve. You can play back at different speeds, 0.5x, 0.7x, 1.3x and 1.5x. I regularly use 1.3x to listen to spoken NPR shows a little faster than real time. And the 0.7x is good for slowing down someone who is hard to understand. (Fun to do this also with music.) You can fast forward over ads, you get to hear little bursts of sound as it passes over and when the sound quality changes you know you're back to the show.

Also, it will take mic or line in and save it as an MP3 file. This allows you to, say, use the headphone jack of your tv and timeshift the audio of shows you want to listen to later.

The box itself is about the size of a deck of cards, and is pretty lightweight (feels like it contains air), so it is easy to carry it around and use it as a portable source of music and spoken radio. It weighs much less than my iPod.

The interface is crufty, the buttons are numerous and do different things depending on what mode you are in. It is too complex to play with while driving (I pull over to adjust playback). It is also a mystery sometimes under which folder a recording is going to appear, and it doesn't match what the manual says. The file names are long number salads - you can figure out what part of the names are the date, which are the time, etc., but they are hard to read, especially since when you select a filename, it becomes so long that it doesn't fit on the screen and then starts scrolling. The filenames and folder names should be better done.

The manual I got was like reading a parts list with descriptions (gently translated from Korean); with few exceptions everything is there, but it is not well organized or cogent. I had to go back and forth through the manual and glean new info each time (I'm a computer person well accustomed to lots of complex interfaces). It could really use a "getting started" section. The pdf manual available in this Amazon listing is much improved with clear explanations and screenshots of how to do various operations. [Summer 2011 ETA]

All in all, I'm getting a lot of use and pleasure out of this product, and find it a great supplement to my iPod. I would like to see a combination product with a better interface design.

77 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Almost Excellent Liberation, June 12, 2005

By 

Sun Rizing (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Radio Your Way LX AM / FM Radio Recorder (Electronics)

With many thanks to Book Fan for his very helpful review, I went ahead and purchased this very versatile AM/FM radio recorder/MP3 player from Pogo. I must say, I am very happy that I did. I would have given the radio a five star rating, but due to a few minor but fixable bugs in the firmware, as well as the cryptically written user's manual, I could not. Hopefully Pogo will take the hint from these reviews and strive to propel this amazing little device into Five-stardom territory.

First, I should tell you that I'm a high tech gadget guy (degree in computer science, etc.), and love devices like this. On the other hand, my wife is very gadget/tech-toy shy, and is very reluctant to change her ways, once she finds something that works well for her. Even so, after I sat down with the sorry excuse of a manual, the Pogo radio, and a cup of coffee, I studied and familiarized myself completely with the radio's operation. I then transferred my understanding of the radio's basic operation to my wife. To my surprise and delight, she quickly threw away her cassette players, recorders and tapes, and went out on her daily walks with only this very handy, lightweight radio.

I purchased the Pogo radio with 256MB internal memory and a separate 1GB SD memory card, since my wife records many hours of an AM radio show every late night/early morning. And because the radio's USB/PC interface doesn't enable direct access to the radio's external memory card, I also had to purchase a USB to SD card adapter to upload the resulting MP3 recordings to my PC's hard drive. I should not have had to make this purchase, and believe the ability to upload from the radio's external memory card should be considered an item for a future firmware bug fix by Pogo's programmers.

Another bug fix that Pogo should consider for this potentially excellent device should be to simplify the resulting filename for the recorded MP3s. As Book Fan stated, After the shows are recorded from the radio, they wind up in the "Voice" mode file list with their titles looking like very long, scrolling, binary bytes of data, instead of something looking like English. It should be a very simple matter to modify the title format into one with the month/date/day shown more intelligibly for the novice user.

The AM and FM reception of this unit is surprisingly good in our location, even better than the much larger radio we were using to record to my wife's cassette tapes. This is quite a pleasant surprise for us, since we can now have much more room available on our hutch shelves, with us now only needing this one very small device rather than a large cassette tape recorder and large AM/FM radio. The AM/FM to MP3 recordings are very clear, even with the voice sampling rate at the lowest setting. This low sample rate sampling also increases the number of 4 hour shows that we can record in a row without having to erase or upload them to the PC for storing, burning onto CD or e-mailing (as long as it's done legally, of course).

The unit is so light (unlike the iPOD) that you can easily carry it hung about your neck with the included lanyard, or in your shirt pocket. You'll hardly notice it's there, except for the high quality sound that will be playing in your ears from the very high quality ear buds that come with the unit.

Do yourself a favor and go ahead with this purchase. My wife and I are happy we did, as it has liberated us from making any more purchases of messy space-occupying cassette tapes and recorders. She really loves it, and we believe you will too!

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Radio *My* Way, April 13, 2006

By 

Amy W (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Radio Your Way LX AM / FM Radio Recorder (Electronics)

This is a talk radio listener's dream. I shopped around for an mp3 player/recorder, specifically to record satellite radio. I record almost daily. RadioYourWay is everything I want. A VCR for radio.

The menu/display is quite intuitive. I read the directions for specifics anyway. The only time I was frustrated was when set up a timer schedule and later, couldn't figure out how to `delete' the schedule! Turns out, there are 20 slots for schedules and you can't delete them. Not technically - you `Disable' them. ANd the bookmark feature; haven't figured that out yet.

Sound quality: Great for talk radio. (Join the Revolution!) Records to MP3. Pick your speed and equalizer mode. I can go as low as 32 kbps and sound quality is good. Record many hours and still have room for some music mp3s. My music sounds good too. Although, not excellent -- I'll repeat what other reviews state: This is NOT a player for solely listening to music mp3s. This is for recording radio programs.

FF/RW/Speed/Repeat A-B/TIMER/Sleep: Excellent Features.

Modes: There are 4 modes you listen by: AM, FM, Line/Mic, and Schedule. AM and FM - (Ten presets each.) Line/Mic: any Mp3 you've recorded. Schedule: Any timer recording. Once you start listing to a recorded MP3 (In either Line/Mic or Schedule mode) if you hit stop and turn the player off - it will hold your place. Unless you switch modes. Then you start over again. But there's something call Bookmarks - I haven't taken the time to figure those out yet. (!) Sounds like those will solve that issue and keep a `bookmark' in the file(s).

Computer connection: Couldn't be easier. I have a Mac and RYW plugs just as any external hard drive does. No special software needed to install (on my Mac anyway, not sure about PC). Transferring files is easy - to AND from - as I please. It's not proprietary, ithank you very much. I don't believe I could transfer `a folder' at a time; it had to be a `file' at a time. Small glitch.

Accessories: Pleased. Headphones are OK. The unit's cover for the USB port is tiny. TINY. When I opened the package I left it in there because I imagined that will get lost in no time. It would be nice to have the USB cover attached to the unit somehow, so you could just `flip' it open for a connection. I wish a case were included with the package. I might buy that later. Would like to see an FM transmitter function.

AM/FM reception: I live outside the downtown area. Reception is generally great. However, in city, AM is not as good. A big consideration if you're in a big city. The antenna is just OK. I have to place it carefully at times to make sure I'm recording clearly.

Battery Life: Good. I love not using batteries. Recharge every couple weeks. I have to record my 5 hour program with the power plugged in. Works out great.

One last note, for comparisons sake: I bought an iRiver IFP-899 mp3 player/recorder. It's great. However, it lacks some of the functions and ease of the RadioYourWay. I love my iRiver, but not when I have 5 hour show to listen to. Reasons: 1. When I power off, I lose my place. 2. Takes forever to fast forward / rewind. (iRiver is for music. And/or 5-10 minute recordings.)

Alrighty, then. Happy Recording!