This one is obvious you need a computer.  Just how much computing power do you need for podcasting?  I can best answer that by describing the computer I used for all of my podcasts.  Please understand that what I used works.  If your computer is better then the one I used your in great shape probably.  If you computer is older and less powerful the one I used you may have problems but it may work. 

I used a E Machine tower 1.75 GHZ and 512 meg of ram and about two year or more old.  I started off using the sound card that was interrogated with the computers motherboard but I was getting a lot of pops and noise in my recordings.   I looked all over the Internet and talked to several people and they convinced me that I needed to upgrade to a better sound card so I did and it worked a lot better.  The sound card I added was an Sound Blaster Audigy 4.  It wasn't the latest and greatest sound card but the price was right,  and it worked.  The only reason I am telling you this is if your having trouble with your recordings the look at your sound card.  If you have a new or nearly new computer you might not have a problem.  Also the better sound card came with some good software the came in handy for a lot of things.

You need to have something that will carry your telephone conversation from the telephone to the computer so your can record your interview for the podcasts.  I use the Radio Shack Model: Recorder Control Catalog #: 43-228.  It's a device that costs $26.99 and works great.  This device starts a recorder to tape conversations when your single receiver is picked up.  So here is how it works.  You can plug the lead on the left into a two or three way telephone jack adapter (about $7) and the leads on the right are designed to plug into a tape recorder so the recorder will automatically come on when you pick up a call.   But in this case you want to plug one of the plugs on the line into your sound card input.  The unit does not use any batteries. 

It works very well.  With this unit both telephone conversations go directly into your sound card with no outside noise.  To make sure that you don't pick up any extra noise try to keep the lines from the phone to your computer away from lights and other electronic gear.   I turn off any electronic gear that I don't need when recording an interview. 

So now lets talk about telephones.  I use a Uniden 2.4GHz cordless telephone.  and here is the Amazon.com link.  This is not a real expensive phone but the sound is great.  It costs about $24.99.  If you have a better phone you can use it.  I tried several phones in my house and this one works the best for recording interviews.  You can do what I did and try other phones before you buy one.  I also use this phone as a microphone. 

Here's how this works.  Sometimes you want to record something before the interview, or after the interview.  I want the sound to be the same so I use the phone to record by calling another line and then recording my one way conversation.

The only other piece of equipment I use is an extension I also bought from Radio Shack that makes it easier to go from the recorders control device to my computer jack.  

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