Flying Kipper

I purchased a Tempus radio and a minidisc player (MZ-NH700) with the same intention, i.e. to use the timer facility on the radio to trigger the synchro record facility on the minidisc recorder, and discovered precisely the same limitation, namely that the minidisc recorder switched itself off after about five minutes (in fact just a little more). The minidisc was connected to the mains at the time, so the source of power does not appear to make any difference; and in fact, it is stated in the instruction manual that, when the recorder is on standby for more than five minutes, without receiving a signal, it will switch itself off. I have returned my NH-700 to the shop, in the hope that I might be able to find a model which would do what I wanted. Sony Customer Service, however, tell me that there are no minidisc recorders made by Sony which do not switch themselves off in this way, and I am not hopeful that I will be able to find a suitable model made by another manufacturer. Needless to say this is very frustrating. The manual for the Tempus I radio (and other blurb I've seen elsewhere) expressly states that the timer function is intended to be used together with the synchro record facility on a minidisc player, but it appears that there are no minidisc players able to work in this way. I can however suggest a slightly cumbersome solution to the problem of setting the recorder to record programmes when you are not there--namely, simply to set the recorder to record everything up to and including the programme you want, then delete all the preceding material. With a 1 Gb disc on Hi-LP this will mean that you set the recorder to record a programme up to forty-odd hours in advance. This, of course, makes no use of the timer record function.