Elta -- Looks Great, Doesn't Record

I was going to Africa to do ethnographic field-work and wanted an audio recording device. While looking for a tape- recorder, I was persuaded to by a much handier device: an MP3-player that was also a memory stick and a voice recorder (so I was told) as well.

The Elta product looks nice, but the instructions that this overtly German firm included with it are written in a version of English that must have come from China. The person from whom I bought it from spent about an hour with me unsuccessfully trying to get it to record or play.

There is no visible microphone or jack for mike.There is a toggle switch labeled "menu" with double arrows in two directions. My friend and salesman said his has a cheaper one from the same firm that he uses all the time to listen to music on. When the son arrived, he took one look at the instruction maual I had laid open to the record page and tossed it aside.

After about a quarter hour of fiddling around together, we were able to record voices by talking "at" the gadget. I could also hear some sample music but not delete it. Part of the problem is that the toggle switch has to be depressed -- I guess you're just supposed to know that -- and for a certain amount of time. Too short, or too long, and it won't work. Then you have to work through the menu as in a computer game, since you can't always get to the same goal by following the same path. It would seem there is an rdm(x) command in the programming, for those who care about that sort of thing.

So, armed with my expensive but very small device and, thank goodness, pencil, pen, paper and money for more of such, I set off. It was a few days if not weeks before I wanted to used my Elta device. By that time, I had forgotten how it worked.

Try as I might, I never was able get the recording function to work again while I was in the field. At least I could record all my ideas on aper! The music and interviews I recorded with a camcorder. That was another technological fiasco of sorts, but that is also another story.

Back in Germany, I e-mailed Elta with my problem. I was asked to go into more detail as to what exactly my problem was. Saying I couldn't figure out how to record voice on the device was not specific enough.

So, I detailed every possible step and quoted chapter and verse of the user's manual. The same representative from Elta wrote back that the question was too technical for him He, the company representative, couldn't tell me how to use my device, so he'd pass it on to a technician, who'd get back to me.

That was over six months ago, and I haven't heard word one. Meanwhile, various technical-savvy students have looked at it (all of whom wear MP3-players almost like jewelry) and have shown me how to listen to the pre-recorded music - that I don't particularly care for - but not how to record. And it still uses up batteries like a dog eating Milk-Bones.

At least I never had a problem with using the memory-stick function.

Kim Dammers