Appreciate the words of encouragement. Already, 24 hours in, I've ordered my second bit of equipment. It's the small Fethead preamp. I'm finding, as many on the forum have discussed, that with just mic and computer I need to crank the recording levels up too far to get clean sound.

I was pre-disposed towards the DBX 286s but size and weight issues led me to the Fethead. It'll take a while to get here I suppose - I ordered it from Holland. Of the two Australian suppliers, one's account was frozen by Paypal and the other charged almost exactly double the cost of my ordering it directly. It's an ongoing problem here once you leave mass market items.

So I'll keep practising with dirty sound until the Fethead arrives. It'll give me time to write scripts for the first few podcasts. I think I'll leave winging it till I know what I'm doing. Plus it will give me a transcript that I can post for those who prefer to read (that's often me).