The following is a Plus Edition article written by Dick Eastman.
I suspect this article will appeal to a small segment of newsletter readers. However, if you record podcasts or want to do so in the future, read on. If you are in a band of some sort, you also will be interested in this device. In fact, you can record most anything, such as your grandchild's first words.
First, let's define a podcast.
Unlike radio broadcasts, these "Internet broadcasts" are not subject to static, fading, or atmospheric noise. If recorded properly, these audio broadcasts should have great audio quality; they will sound almost like someone talking while seated next to you. That's true whether the "broadcaster" is in your home town, in Australia, or in Stockholm.
Back before the days of the Internet, I used to listen to short wave broadcasts. I enjoy listening to the news from the BBC in London, music from Quito, Ecuador, or commentary from South Africa. I still do the same although I have now replaced the shortwave radio with my computer and an Internet connection. Today's technology is cheaper (I already purchased the computer for other purposes), easier, and is much better sounding. Best of all, I can now find "broadcasts" about a wide variety of topics, including genealogy. All I need is a desktop, laptop, or notebook computer with a sound card (all computers manufactured in the past five or ten years have built-in sound cards) along with loudspeakers or earphones.
Some people prefer to copy these "broadcasts" to MP3 music players, such as the Apple iPod, and then listen to them while jogging, commuting, or just sitting in the back yard. The free software included with most MP3 players automates the process, making it simple to copy the files as needed.
For an example of genealogy podcasts, you can listen to several that I have recorded in the past at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/podcasts. In addition, you can listen to The Genealogy Guys podcasts at http://www.genealogyguys.com, Lisa Louise Cooke's Genealogy Gems podcasts and videos at http://genealogygems.tv, Irish Roots' Cafe On the Air at http://www.irishroots.com, DearMYRTLE’s Family History Hour at http://podcasts.dearmyrtle.com, Family History Expos' Genealogy Podcasts at http://fhexpos.libsyn.com, and others.
A quick search on Google or other search engines will find a plethora of podcasts about other topics from any number of radio stations as well as topics about politics, religions, automobiles, raising a family, investments, pets, collecting stamps, and much, much more.
For many people, I suspect that listening to podcasts will produce a reaction of "I could do that!" Indeed, if you have good presentation techniques, you probably could do exactly that. If you believe you can create interesting audio broadcasts, I would encourage you to create podcasts. Creating podcasts is a rather simple process that can be very satisfying. In this article, I will describe two methods that I have used successfully.
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