02/15/05 - Here's another review for you Sync magazine... You suck!

UPDATE 11/21/05 - Before you read the story, just know that less than a year after I got screwed over, Sync magazine is out of business... Yay! - Ziff Davis Plans to Close Sync Magazine - NYTimes.com 11/19/05

A couple of months ago I was asked to write a review of this piece of crap radioShark FM radio recorder for Sync magazine. The guy who asked me to write it said it would be good publicity for my web site. Well, the magazine just hit the newsstands and guess what, they didn't even mention the name of my friggin web site! Not only that but they rewrote my review and used the term ''a raunchy morning talk show'' in place of ''a daily talk show'' which is what I actually wrote. I would never refer to Howard's show as ''raunchy.'' How about rewording it to say ''funny morning talk show'' you friggin idiots.

If you want to read what I actually wrote and submitted as my review, just scroll down. If you want to read the review in the magazine, stop by your favorite book store, pick up the Feb/Mar issue of Sync, turn to page 63, quickly read the rewritten review and put the magazine back on the rack. Don't waste your four bucks paying for it. If they're twisting my words, perhaps they're twisting someone else's. F-Sync magazine! Lesson learned.

This is what I actually wrote and submitted to Sync magazine in late 2004.

When I first read about this product it sounded like exactly what I needed. I run a Howard Stern fan site and listen to every minute of his show, every morning. Sometimes I miss something and need to rewind quickly but it was never that simple. What I’ve wanted for the past few years is something like a TiVo (or digital video recorder) for radio. The RadioShark comes close to being just that. The RadioShark allows you to time shift the radio station you are listening to so you can pause or rewind to something you heard just seconds, or minutes earlier. Great idea, not so great execution.

Setup was quick and easy. Throw the installation CD in, load the program and then plug the RadioShark into a USB port. I had to reboot my system but the instruction manual didn’t mention anything about that.

The RadioShark looks cool with it’s white, shark-like shape and the glowing blue lights (which turn red when recording) on each side. It would look good sitting next to a nice white iMac. After playing with this thing for a while, I think that’s exactly what it was intended for. It’s not very Windows friendly. First of all, there is no clock in the Time Shift function in the Windows version so you have no idea how far back you can go or how much you’ve recorded. The Mac software apparently has the clock. That’s a major flaw as far as I’m concerned. If I have to rush off to the bathroom or answer a phone, I want to know how far back I need to rewind. If there’s no timer, I have to guess. Not cool.

I also ran into some problems with the software crashing. I’d make a change in the preferences and the program would crash. It was just a matter of restarting the program but it was pretty annoying.

After having a hard time getting decent reception I visited Griffin Technology’s web site to find out if they had any suggestions. It turns out you can plug a cable into the headphone jack to extend the antenna capabilities. That helped pull in a decent signal that I could record.

There are some issues with the audio quality as well. The feed sometimes sounds like it’s bubbling up from underwater or like the software is having trouble keeping up with the audio feed. This seems to be an intermittent thing so I’m not sure where the real problem is. It happened on every station I tried so it wasn’t a station related issue. That was the second major flaw that I found with the RadioShark.

I tried out a few different quality recording formats when I recorded The Howard Stern Show over a few days. That odd bubbling audio quality was still there no matter what I tried. My guess is that it was the version 1.0 software that comes with the unit. They may need to go back to the drawing board on the Windows version.

The scheduled recording feature is flexible and allows you to create recurring events, such as a daily talk show, so you can leave your computer on and let it do its thing while you’re on vacation.

Overall I thought the RadioShark was a great idea but I doubt that I would use it to record the show every day. It just wasn’t reliable enough. I might use it as a backup for Time Shifting the show while I type up my synopsis every day though. I just need to find a location where I can get a reliable signal. I didn’t run into any crashing issues during recording, just when adjusting preferences. Avoid adjusting preferences and the software should be fine. Sounds ridiculous, but it works!

I personally wouldn’t spend the suggested retail price of $69.99 for this unit. I currently use a small FM radio hooked up to the audio input of my computer to record The Howard Stern Show with some specially designed software (SkyHawkTech.com’s Cybercorder). I think I’ll stick with that for now. My FM radio doesn’t have the pretty blue lights on it, but I think I can get by without those.

Thanks Sync magazine! I'll never trust anyone again.

Update 03/07/05 : I've found some new uses for the magazine since it's useless for the ''articles.'' Here are just a few, mostly bathroom related for some reason...

Sync Bathroom Mat	Sync Toilet Mat	Sync Toilet Tank Cover
Sync Winter Floor Mat / Dirty Shoe Mat	Sync Carpet Protector	Sync Toilet Paper