Patent ID: 7538663

Claim:
A portable apparatus for acquiring information indicative of the operational status of machines distributed at various locations along a measurement route, the apparatus comprising: one or more measurement sensors for measuring one or more characteristics of a machine at a location on the measurement route, where the one or more characteristics are indicative of the operational status of the machine, the one or more measurement sensors for generating one or more analog sensor signals based on the one or more sensed characteristics, the one or more analog sensor signals including frequency components that are beyond a human-audible frequency range; a sound sensor for generating an analog audio signal associated with the one or more characteristics of the machine measured by the one or more measurement sensors, where the analog audio signal is generated at one or more frequencies that are within the human-audible frequency range; one or more analog-to-digital conversion circuits for converting the one or more analog sensor signals to digital sensor data that is associated with the location along the measurement route, and for converting the analog audio signal to digital audio data that is associated with the location along the measurement route; and a digital storage device for storing the digital sensor data and the digital audio data.