I'm trying to record my father talking about his youth but the recordings
come out with his and my voices very quiet and lots of hissing background
even though the room is quiet apart from our speech.

I have tried an old Tandy Realistic Omnidirectional Pressure Zone Microphone
bought about 1995, connected to a tape recorder bought about 1985, though
good quality. I am about five feet away on one side of the mike, my dad
four feet on the other side, but the speech comes out faint and you
have to listen through hissing.

Have also tried an Olympus WS-200s digital voice recorder - this seems to
pick up more - the speech is louder, but less clear, and same hissing.
I was surprised that the Olympus was not far behind the Tandy in quality.

Best is Sony camcorder about four years old, almost no hissing, and
speech is loud and clear, though can hear the camcorder whirring.

Please could someone tell me why the camcorder is good - what's going
on in it that makes the speech loud and stops most background noise?
Is it amplifying the speech?

More importantly, does anyone have any suggestiosn as to what
microphone(s) I should buy to get a proper sounding recording? Is there a
mike which would work from several feet away? Or should I buy two mikes,
one for my dad to hold near his mouth and one for me, with some sort
oif mixer. I notice maplin sell some cheap mixers £25 but I've no idea if
they are
any good. What should sort of device should I be recording onto?

Thanks
David