Recording aircraft audio with an iPhone

I did a google on

iphone audio input

and got this which suggests that you have just two options

• use the hand free kit mike input
• use a USB audio input adaptor

I had exactly the same problem with my Nokia 808 and it has exactly the same two options. I never found a USB audio adapter which worked with it, though some clearly should since it contains a limited-capability USB controller.

Some background here and here. Isn't it sad that when you google for something, the best hits are one you wrote yourself a while ago..

I suspect the Iphone has exactly the same mike connections on its 3.5mm hands free kit jack.

In the end, I used a Nokia hands free kit, cut off the cable going to the two earpieces right after the mike, put a blob of epoxy over the wires I just cut off so they could not short, put some more epoxy over the mike switch (which is normally programmed to launch some app e.g. to record sound so you don't want that) and just tuck the mike into the headset! It works superbly but of course is not as clean as making a direct connection to the aircraft audio.

Final update was posted here

Does the Iphone 5 not have a 3.5mm jack socket for a hands free kit? You get stuff like this which suggests there is one but it is ambiguous.

The catch is that most "splitters" are intended to split a 3.5mm audio-out jack across two jacks so two people can listen to one audio stream simultaneously. What you want is an adapter that splits off the mic-in into a separate jack, so you can hook it to the intercom.

I have not tested it, but this is supposed to work: http://www.amazon.com/Headset-Buddy-01-PC35-PH35-Smartphone-Blackberry/dp/B002SK66OY

And you would use that in combination with this: http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/avpages/recordingCable.php

I cannot comment on voltages and currents. Peter knows more about this, but with this setup you may well be overboosting your iPhone mic-in tremendously. On the other hand, the aircraft intercom recording cable is supposed to step down the signal to the level expected by a recording device.

Muelli, you can use the iPhone 5 headphone jack to record in MONO. But you need the right cable, and it will be mono only

Sorry for the confusion

The Big Q is whether the Iphone 5 uses a normal 3.5mm-plug hands free kit which works with other phones.

The earlier Iphones do, for sure, as do just about all other smartphones, though many use a 2.5mm plug. The hands free kit is just a dumb thing with no electronics.

If Yes then it can be made to work. If No then you have to find some other way and the simplest way will be to get whatever hands free kit does work, and shove the mike into the aviation headset earcup. That is obviously guaranteed to work in so far as getting audio into the phone.

The next issue, which I found with the Nokia 808, is whether the hands free kit mike can be used to record sound into the camcorder app. Obviously it can be used for making voice calls (that's what it's for!) but it doesn't follow that the camcorder app will use it also!

It turns out that on the Nokia the Nokia camcorder app does not use it, but a 3rd party app (CameraPro) does, which is how I finally solved it.

So I suggest the first thing is to get the real Apple hands free kit and make sure the mike on that can be used to record into the camcorder app. If not then you are "a bit screwed"...

Yes, Peter. It should be possible through the headphone jack with the right cable

Yes; it will be mono only. But that's fine for this application; the source is mono anyway (unless you are using the fancy new Garmin intercom) and in any case you would probably post-mix the audio track to be the same on both channels.

I don't know why the phone makers have these stupid Kremlin politburo type committees deciding what the correct customer behaviour/profile should be and what functionality (which is obviously available) should be inaccessible to the great unwashed. There are loads of people on the web tearing their hair out trying to record audio to the 808 (which has a superb 1080P video capability) other than via the built-in mikes.

It appears that bluetooth is the way forward in all these cases - including muelli's. I just didn't research the BT products. There are several which look like they may work, none of them below $ 3 figures. Simply broadcasting the aircraft audio over BT (paired to the phone) would be very neat because the phone can be moved around easily.

It certainly can't be done using Nokia's camera app which is hard-coded to use just the built-in mikes, and I could not establish meaningful communication with the "one-liner-email" chap who wrote CameraPro, to find out if a BT source could be connected to. Apple may or may not have done the same functional crippling.

Peter, i think Apple does not allow audio in via BT. What i do: i connect one of the rear headset jacks with the audio in of my GoPro camera. What also worked fine was headset jack into an old minidisc recorder.

Yes but Apple supports a BT hands free connection, both as one of those things you see car drivers stuck in their ear, and the in-car installed modules.

This connection does stereo output and (I assume ) mono input, although supporting just mono input would be really stupid on BT.

So the question is as before : can this be fed into the camera app?