1) a way to map the bookmarks menu onto a face panel button.
2) a way to get rid of/disable certain info display modes i never use.
3) a suedo button press that toggles visuals in reverse order. this way i could use the knob to find a visual by turning it to the right for sequentiual forward or left for sequential reverse.

I thought number 3 was built into hijack already.

if you mean the "visual-" it does not do anything on my player at all. "visual+" also does exactly what "visual" does.

I thought that was a bug that got corrected somewhere along the line. What versions of empeg and Hijack are you running again?

hijack v299 & car2-developer-v2.00-beta13 is what i'm using at the moment.

edit: i'd also like to add that i did not know that visual- was supposed to do that. kinda...when i first saw it i thought thats what it did but then it didn't work so i figured it was only for the sony stalk. the faq says it was developed for it or something.

Hmm, I thought he had a default feature somewhere in Knob Press Redefinition/PopUp0 to allow back/forth visual scrolling. Without needing to program any IR translations. I just tried it and it's not there like I expected. Okay, I stand corrected.

I don't what's going on but this is really wierd. It seems you were right all along Tony - I tried using the Visual- again for KnobLeft and it works now? I was bored so I thought I'd try it.

I don't what's going on but this is really wierd.

You and me both. I've had multiple instances today of being mistaken about things, both on the BBS and in real life. I was certain of my facts one way, only to discover that the opposite was true.

I believe that for the next week or so, I need to doubt and second-guess my perceptions. I am probably going to have to double check what day it is when I wake up tomorrow.

Hey, Tony! It's Wednesday! Why the hell aren't you at work yet!?!

what I want:


working RDS while in mp3 mode.

ceterum censeo....



bye,
[L]

Huh? Color me confused. RDS is for radio, what's it got to do with the MP3 playback? Did I miss a memo?

-Zeke

I think that Lemmy wants RDS Traffic Announcement messages to interrupt MP3 playback....

(His writing style is a little brief..)

That already works fine on the internal build. Toby fixed up all the RDS stuff a couple of months ago, but we need to fix a bug whereby the AF goes crazy near airports (presumably because of radar saturating the band with noise).

TA works fine now, though.

Rob

Could you release the internal build as an alpha?

I'm looking forward to getting Toby's RDS improvements in a beta release. (Hi, Toby!)

It will be released to the Alpha Team when the AF bug is fixed, and then as a public beta.

Hopefully we'll get that done quite soon, as we have some other rather more exciting stuff for the alpha team to play with soon

Rob

So um, looking for any suckers for the Alpha team?

Thank you, it all makes sense now. If anyone actually broadcast an RDS signal beyond call-letters in New England, that would be a handy feature.

-Zeke

Speaking of which, what do all of you Europeans (British included) get on RDS? Edit: That is, what do you get that makes it such a nice, can't-live-without-it feature?

IIRC (never had it myself);

1) Station names. No need to wonder if 97.4 is Radio Whatever. Useful for when you're tuning in late to a sports event and you find commercials. Waiting 5 minutes only to find that you got the wrong channel is frustrating.

2) In conjunction with (1), RDS enables receivers to always tune to the strongest frequency for a given station. This may not sound particulary useful to those US denizens where one transmitter covers practically a whole state, and is the only source of that station, but in the UK, most of the stations are national, and broadcast from multiple antennas. To avoid problems from multipath reception they broadcast on different frequencies. RDS can automatically switch to the stronger frequency when necessary.

3) TA - RDS can interrupt regular programming with local Travel Announcements. So if you hit a tailback, you can switch on TA, and you'll get the next local announcement - regardless of which station you are listening too. (IIRC). ISTR my friends leaving TA off most of the time because the interruptions become too frequent.

IIRC, there's some other capabilites as well - such as being able to broadcast extended textual data - but I'm not sure if that's ever used..

That's right. I forgot that in the UK you've got national radio stations that are transmitted on different frequencies throughout the country. So that explains why items #1 and #2 are useful when they wouldn't be in the US. #3 isn't useful because I doubt there's any law in the US to prevent stations from using it for reasons other than traffic info, whereas I'll bet that there is in the UK.

Are there any local stations in the UK?

Also, I think you underestimate the size of US states. North Carolina is 48,711 sq mi. Britain (is that the correct term for the island that is comprised of England, Scotland, and Wales?) is 88,800 square miles. England alone is just 50,363, so only slightly larger than North Carolina. And North Carolina is only the 28th (of 50 ) largest state by area.

This may not sound particulary useful to those US denizens where one transmitter covers practically a whole state, and is the only source of that station

Maybe those tiny little New England states or those flat ones in the west... I can't hear Harrisburg, let alone Philly, in Pittsburgh. Likewise as I go east I lose Harrisburg stations before I get to Philly.

There are some places I know of with simulcasting but there tends to be heavy overlap, which I find annoying; I don't want to hear the same thing twice, or 3 times as is the case in one place in the southern tier of New York.
So if you hit a tailback, you can switch on TA, and you'll get the next local announcement - regardless of which station you are listening to
We're getting more and more HARS beacons in the 1610-1640AM range, so in many cases that's what I'd want, and I doubt those transmitters even support RDS-TA.

On my way to the empeg meet I was in my non-tuner-equipped vehicle (at the time) and wishing I had one when I hit a backup on I-70. I ended up assuming accident, getting off and going around that one exit, and it worked out fine; I didn't see a HARS beacon sign, either, but I would have tried...

Breaker, Breaker One-Nahn we have radio rednecks in hot pursuit!

Careful what you say about some of them tiny little New England states, some of em got mountains jest about twice as tall as those in PA!

3,213' PA Mt. Davis
6,288' NH Mt Washington
Current weather at 6, 288':
30°F Fog Feels Like 16°F
UV Index: 0 Minimal
Dew Point: 30°F
Humidity: 100%
Visibility: 0.0 miles
Pressure: N/A and steady
Wind: From the West at 28 mph
As reported at Mt. Washington, NH Last Updated Wednesday, October 9, 2002, at 11:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Calm night tonight.



-Zeke

(In fairness NC does have Mt Mitchell at 6,684')

....ok, I was exagerating a little about the coverage ability of US stations....but having just driven Boston->DC and back again the next day, I do appreciate the size of some of the smaller states.

Great Britain also contains the nearby islands owned by those three countries - eg, Scottish Hebrides, Shetland Isles etc. But not Northern Ireland. (which is part of the UK, but not GB). I can never remember whether the Isle of Man is in GB or not, ditto Jersey and Guernsey.

I didn't say our mountains were big, only that:
-certain midwestern states are flatter, so maybe radio gets more than 60 miles out from the transmitter there
-certain New England states don't *go* 60 miles in all (or often more than one) direction from such transmitters.

Independent points

In some respects, it's jealousy. Of course, I'd care more if there were more worth listening to around here, but on a drive to Boston from Pittsburgh (via Elmira, Binghamton and Albany) I do have radio to listen to most of the way that I find enjoyable, and when it's not, of course, I turn the player back on.


Mt Davis isn't particularly exciting, either, BTW, but it does happen to fall about 60 miles from stations here, for what that's worth.

As far as extras go, we also often get scrolling text info about the current radio show, such as the presenter, telephone numbers, title of current track, competitions etc<br><br>

But traffic announcements are where it's at. Very useful!

In reply to:

---

IIRC, there's some other capabilites as well - such as being able to broadcast extended textual data - but I'm not sure if that's ever used..

---

It certainly is! And this being the wishlist forum, one thing I'd like is to be able to look at the RDS RadioText without switching from MP3 to radio, so I can find out what's on without interrupting playback only to find it's "The Archers" again . A bit like picture-in-picture on your telly.

In reply to:

---

Are there any local stations in the UK?

---

Yes - mostly single transmitters, AFAIK. There are regional BBC stations, typically covering one county or large city. Independent local radio stations cover a similar area, but they are more common in large cities, and often don't cover rural areas. RDS can link networks of local stations together using EON in a similar way to AF linking different transmitters of one station.

And there are community radio stations, often with a short-term licence (e.g. one or two months during the summer) and student radio with very low power transmitters covering a university campus.

I've discovered a wonderful way to avoid the Archers (as I had far too much of it when I was a kid) is to never listen to Radio 4. It has stood me in good stead for a number of years now.

Unfortunately this means I keep hearing Chris Moyles - but the solution is to press Source and I'm back in happy music land.

I don't mind The Archers, but I do find that not listening to Radio 4 is the only sufficiently foolproof way of avoidng Ned Sherrin. On the other hand, this does mean I sometimes miss absolute gems such as The Sunday Format.

Peter

What I want is that RDS-AF (which makes the empeg change frequencies when the signal gets weak) works while the empeg is in mp3 mode.
The TA feature works very good as of 2.0b13 _BUT_ unless I stay in one area with one frequency for the given station its useless.

what I could get from what german radio stations transmit on RDS:

Time: all stations which broadcast time data get that data from the official german timesource so it's very reliable
AF: alternate frequencies - see above
EON: enhanced other networks. say I listen to a station which does NOT do TA but 'belongs' to a network which has another station WITH TA service. If they support EON the tuner switches to the other station on a traffic announcement, then switches back.
Text: most german stations transmit text by now. somtimes commercials, sometimes TA in text form, nowadays its mostly title & artist of current song...

there is much more but I'm too lazy to hunt it down by now

bye,
[L]

In Antwort auf:

---

but we need to fix a bug whereby the AF goes crazy near airports (presumably because of radar saturating the band with noise).

---

ouch!!!! that would really be a showstopper for me right now, living in the middle between frankfurt/main airport, wiesbaden US airforce base, ramstein airbase and hahn airport...


bye,
[L]

>>ramstein airbase

Ahhh - is that where the slightly freaky German metal band got their name from? I have often wondered.

Guys, you have to watch the start sequence for Triple-X. The film is worth buying just for Rammstein! Head-mounted flamethrowers!! What a superb toy.

Ah - good point. I have to admit I've been missing a lot of programmes I know I really like purely because I can't be bothered coming out of my playlist and into radio mode. (or is it because we fear change?)

I'm sure there was discussion about using Hijack to insert keypresses at certain times so you could switch over to Radio 4 for "Just a Minute" (is that still going? I'm sure half the old crew are no longer with us) at the correct time of day.

6,288' NH Mt Washington

The elevation of myself is about that, and thats near the flat plains edge of Colorado. Hell, if it's not above 10k feet, we don't even bother to call it a mountain peak here

True, but it's not 6000' above the surrounding countryside. The base of Mt. Washington is about 2000' (2032' at Pinkham Notch). So the 10,000' peaks in Colorado have just as much (immediate) vertical as Mt Washington has (although there's a bit less oxygen up there, which makes tougher climbing).

Don't get me wrong, NH is not the Rockies, or the Kootenays or the Sierras, but there are some big hills here.

I think that so far the most impressive mountain I've seen is Mt. Ranier, when it's visible of course.

All of which has nothing to do with the fact that radio transmissions regularly don't go anywhere near 60 miles in NH. All that RDS stuff in the UK/Europe sure sounds nice though. Traffic and weather advisories scrolling across the bottom of the empeg screen while listening to mp3's...that would be a Good Thing.

-Zeke

True, the 10,000 foot peaks aren't that much taller then the surrounding countryside, but those are also the small mountains around here. Pikes Peak is 14,410 feet up, so about 8000 feet higher then the city.

Us natives of Colorado I guess are all just stuck up about our big piles of rock

And to be back on subject, Cheyene Mountain (a 9565 ft hill) is used by all the major TV and radio stations to broadcast from. I can easily pick up the local pop station 60 miles north in Denver, but thats about the extent of the range. And due to the mountains to the west, the coverage is only a semi circle from the transmitter. Our family cabin can receive a few AM stations out of Denver depending on the weather.

ok fine but i still want 1 & 2 for christmas this year :P

And the whole friggin country is tiny compared with Canada, 'cept for the egos.

Yeah, but Canada's mostly frozen Arctic wasteland, with a little sliver of habitable at the south

Ahh.. good to see the brainwashing has worked!

Or are you the real dbrashear, who got clubbed over the head by Marty?

There is no dbrashear, only Zuul.

I don't mind The Archers, but I do find that not listening to Radio 4 is the only sufficiently foolproof way of avoidng Ned Sherrin.

Thankfully Radio 4 is pretty much a Ned Sherrin free zone nowadays (relatively), just need to avoid Loose Ends on a Saturday night and that awful pompous music quiz he does.

On the other hand, this does mean I sometimes miss absolute gems such as The Sunday Format.

It's odd how people can have such differing tastes; to me the Sunday Format is one of the worst pieces of radio ever, I really can't find anything funny in it at all.

So, who is looking forward to 7 hours a day of TV shows with their video removed http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7 ?

And the whole friggin country is tiny compared with Canada, 'cept for the egos

While admittedly Canada is slightly larger in land area:
2. Canada: 9,220,970 sq km
3. US: 9,158,960 sq km

Let's whip 'em out and really compare:

Mt. McKinley at 6,194 m (in Alaska) is highest point in North America and Death Valley at -86 m (in California) the lowest point on the continent.

Comparative Population (2000):

1 China - 1,256,167,701
2 India - 1,017,645,163
3 United States - 274,943,496
...
35 Canada - 31,330,255

US GDP (2001est.) - $10.082 trillion / per capita: $36,300
Canada GDP (2001 est.): $875 billion / per capita: $27,700

and get this:

approximately 85% of the population of Canada is concentrated within 300 km of the US/Canada border

'nuff said. You are right about the egos though

Just because USAians cannot control their population is no reason to attempt to gloat -- and much of that population is there only because said country deliberately let others bleed to death in WWII before finally entering the game (reluctantly at that).

Cheers

We were just giving Canada the opportunity to step in and obliterate the Third Reich. If you want something done right...

Seriously...it's not worth getting into a pissing contest over We're happy neighbors now, eh?

I doubt there's any law in the US to prevent stations from using it for reasons other than traffic info, whereas I'll bet that there is in the UK.

On countless occasions I have noticed that local independent (i.e. non-BBC) radio stations transmit the TA beacon to switch you over to adverts preceding the news, which itself precedes the actual TA you are waiting for - most annoying.

That said, I would be inclined to agree with your suggestion that it's probably illegal to misuse the TA beacon here, no doubt the guilty broadcasters hide behind a legal loophole of some sort or another. Possibly similar to the one where advertisers use sound compression during adverts, a now distant rant of mine thanks to TiVo!

Whoever it was in the thread, both the "News Quiz" and "Just a Minute" will be back shortly in the autumn schedules, have you tried "dead ringers" it does it for me.

How you avoid Ned Sherrin and the Archers, and for me "quote, unguote" is to set a timer program to download DAB, or even better Satellite MP2's of all your favourite shows, edit them with DirectCut and download them to your Empeg, once a week: You can go back and forward, pause and play the funny bits to your friends - infinitely preferable!

I also listen to 8 hours of intelligent music shows from radio2, each week, by this method - that how I find new music I like.

Back stop is, you can download any shows you miss from BBC radio player.

Unfortunately this means I keep hearing Chris Moyles

Oi, I only just noticed that, Moyles's godfather is my best friend, he's a local lad and one of my staff was in the same class at school and he's a thoroughly nice lad to boot, as long as you keep it to seven pints of lager in the local - but no, why would you listen to his show, it's offensive, with an Empeg full of good stuff to go at!

How you avoid Ned Sherrin and the Archers, and for me "quote, unguote"

I misread that the first time and thought you said you liked "quote, unquote" !!!

Back stop is, you can download any shows you miss from BBC radio player.

They still don't list every show yet though.

Actually the other problem is that I actually do find a lot of his show funny, but I don't want to as it is mind-numbing and laddish