to start a recording, use the letter R.
to stop a recording, use the spacebar.
TO start and stop play back use the space bar.
Use control F6 to toggle between the three different windows.  To record, 
you want to be in "track view".
If you open audacity, it will start a new track as soon as you press the 
letter R, you don't need to form a new track as in other editers.
You set your audio quality preference in the preferences window.

To edit a track or specific tracks in the track view window, use the enter 
key to select or deselect the track.
Use the arrow keys to select the track.
Control G allows you to adjust level or gain for a track.  Control P allows 
you to adjust the pan or left/right fields on a track.
use the left and right arrows to fast forward or rewind within a track by 1 
second interval, and shift left or right to jump by 3 or 5 seconds depending 
on how you have it set in the preferences.
To adjust preferences, hit Control P.
if you want to multi-track, that is, play a track and record another one 
over it at the same time, set the preferences under I/O settings to play the 
previously recorded track while recording, and you may have to fool around 
with your negative buffer settings to get things to track at the same time.
If you record something and want it to disappear so you can record something 
else, use Shift C to delete the current recording.
The thing with multi-track recorders is that once you have recorded 
something, the program will just add another track when you go to record 
again instead of over writing the first recording as happens in single track 
recorders.

I think audacity also has threshhold level recording, that is, it will start 
a recording when the soundcard receives a preset level of audio and will 
pause the recording when it no longer hears that level of signal...this is 
great for recording scanners or other receivers that are squelched because 
it will eliminate empty spaces on the recording.
You can export to MP3 or OGG format as well from audacity using the "export 
audio" icon in the file menus.  TO import audio use shift I and make your 
selection from the tree view.
use the left and right brackets to select portions of the audio track that 
you want to edit or save.  left bracket selects the beginning and right 
bracket is the end marker.  this will select the portion of audio between 
the two markers, and if you want to get rid of the audio outside these 
markers, use the trim function or control T.   to reselect the whole thing 
again just press control A.

if you need further help with audacity, feel free to email me or skype me at 
Greatcanadian.
email me with a time you want to get on skype if you need to.
i'll post the link for the tutorial which outlines all the hotkeys for 
audacity as well.

73
Colin, V A6BKX