Boxer,

Presumably you have tried the new HiJack (v330) with Mark Lord's fix?

You say that the AF debugger gives you "No AF information available" with or without HiJack installed? This implies that you're not getting any alternate frequencies, or perhaps even no RDS at all. However, you mention that you have got at least one traffic announcement which would indicate that you're getting some RDS.

Please try the stock 2.0 final release available from the car player releases site without HiJack installed - Tune to a station you know has a good signal in the area you are in and use the standard radio info mode. If you get the flashing 'RDS' text towards the right of the screen and the station name and name of the program that's currently playing start to fill themselves in, then you're getting RDS okay.

Also whilst doing this keep an eye on the signal strength graph - Try to determine for the station you're listening to at what level on the graph the RDS icon doesn't come on any more.

Once you've done all this, and are certain that you've got a strong RDS signal from the station you're listening to, press the info button to start the AF debugger mode. If the RDS of the station is already established, the alternate frequency list should already be populated, and depending on how long you've been listening to the station, it should already have measured the strength of a number of these frequencies. You should get a graph on the screen which I explain below for the benefit of all:

The graph displays the relative signal strength of frequencies in the list.
A vertical line is drawn for each frequency in the list at the horizontal position determined by the frequency - Since each pixel represents 160kHz it is possible that two candidate frequencies occupy the same horizontal pixel.
The height of the vertical line denotes the signal strength and is normalised such that the range of signal strength readings fits into the vertical space available. This means that the strongest signal should come to the top of the available space, and the weakest signal should appear as a single pixel at the bottom.

You will notice that periodically one of the vertical lines goes dark - This means that the frequency signal strength is being measured. The algorithm for choosing the candidate from the AF list combines both the signal strength and time since last measurement - This way strong signals are focussed on, and weaker signals are tested less often until they become stronger.

The currently tuned to frequency is denoted by a pixel at the top of the bar along with its frequency in MHz.

Sometimes other signals will appear to have a greater signal strength than the one currently tuned to, but the radio does not switch to this frequency. This is because the AF code will not switch to a stronger candidate frequency until it has had a number of consecutive readings above the current frequency's strength.

This makes sure that retunes only happen when we're sure that the candidate frequency is stronger. Due to limitations of the design it is still possible that the stronger candidate frequency is not actually the station we're looking for, it could be a different station (for example a local station) broadcasting on one of the national stations alternate frequencies. So once the tuner has retuned it waits to get a PI code from the new frequency - If this PI code doesn't match the PI code from the station it tuned away from, it tunes back to the old frequency. (The time taken to receive a PI code is greater than the amount of time the background retunes to test signal strength happen in - This is the design limitation).

Please let me know if you're getting RDS, but are still unable to view the AF debugger graph.

Thanks,
Toby