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:

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

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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