*Badly* need radio fm tuner for RioCar!

i bought my rio before my car because i knew they were going fast. i didnt even think about the FM tuner untill it was too late and it appears the rio store is closed :-(

does anyone know where i can get one or who would sell me one? i would be very very thankful

-Dominic

ebay has them sometimes. But the average going price for them is around $400 right now which may make you think twice about wanting one.

I still don't see the point of a tuner when you can have all the music you want at your fingertips. Then again... I am in Seattle where all radio stations suck and they never live up to WEBN...

I do have kenwood head unit that my empeg feeds into, but still between the cd player on the kenwood and the empeg... I never ever listen to the radio.

That's just me.
StaHi

i agree i probably would use the rio more.. but then again isnt the thought of owning a car without a radio kind of silly?

If you've got a second DIN slot available and can't find a tuner you can install a cheap CD/radio head unit and feed it to your empeg or amps. Lots less $$ & easier than rooting through ebay methinks...

Or if no DIN you can always use one of the tiny Sony walkmans that's only a radio, not as slick, but functional.

-Zeke

I lived without a tuner for almost a year because they weren't available yet. It wasn't hard to do, but having the tuner is great.

WEBN ??? That's a station here in Cincinnati. Is it popular elsewhere?

Jeff

"I still don't see the point of a tuner when you can have all the music you want at your fingertips. Then again... I am in Seattle where all radio stations suck and they never live up to WEBN... "

I just moved to San Antonio Texas a month and a half ago, and I have yet to listen to the radio in my car (I don't have an Empeg tuner, but an old Alpine unit). The funny thing is, a guy at work plays the radio all day and 90% of the music his stations plays is on my Empeg* (It helps that with the upcoming concert they play at least 6 Rush songs every day), not something I experienced with the rock station in Houston. All that to say, even though I've moved to a city with a better radio station I still only ever listen to my Empeg.

*One of the truly wierd experiences I've had is hearing "By-TOR and the Snow Dog" on my co-workers radio across the room at the same time it came up in shuffle mode on my Empeg. I didn't think this was a song that ever got radio play, much less to have it occur simultaneously with my Empeg. What are odds? Must be that problem with the Empeg's randomizer

Ah, another empeg owner in Cincinnati. That makes three of us that I know of, maybe there are more in hiding

But have you actually installed one of your (three!) empegs into a vehicle yet.. ?

No I have the needed equipment but have run out of money to pay for an install. <sigh>

There isn't really much point to a tuner from a music point of view (unless you have an incredibly small mp3 collection to put on your Empeg). I'm keen to get one mainly for RDS traffic information - crucial in the area where I live and with the journeys that I have to make. Timely warnings can save hours of wasted time. News and certain sports coverage are sometimes welcome too.

I guess RDS is one of the few advantages that us UK lot have over those in the US. I'm not sure what things are like elsewhere.

I can't believe we got 11 posts into this thread and no one told Flameboy about Patrick's kits. (Which, incidentally, are mentioned in the "Where can I buy one" section of the FAQ now).

Flameboy: One of the empeg guys is planning on making tuner module kits and selling them for (it is hoped) about $160.00 US. They should be available within the next couple months if all goes well.

awsome, thank you. Should i wait before installing the rio or is it reletivly easy to add the tuner on after instalation?

edit: it appears riocar.org isnt responding...

As long as you're able to take your dash apart to get at the wiring easily, the tuner module is plug and play. In my Rodeo, this was easy as pie. My Saab is another story. It depends on your car.

RioCar.org has been down since about 3PM eastern. Drakino, the owner, is aware and should have it back up asap.

Should i wait before installing the rio or is it reletivly easy to add the tuner on after instalation?

Depends on your dash. If it were MY car, no problem, because everything unscrews rather easily without bending or damaging anything. If there's a lot of digging and prying involved in getting the player out of your dash, well, that's something you have to consider and it's up to you. Most dashes, the sled's tabs will bend to connect to the mounting kit, but the mounting kit screws to the dash or frame, so you simply unscrew the mounting kit (leaving the sled attached) so you don't have to bend or pry anything.

edit: it appears riocar.org isnt responding...

Known problem hopefully corrected soon. And yes, this was a FAQ entry which I would have linked you to if riocar.org had been up.

thanks, you guys are all very helpful :-)

isnt the thought of owning a car without a radio kind of silly?
Not considering most radio is crap, around here the stations change formats throughout the day just to keep anyone who [u]may[/u] be still listening. When 16 hours of the day isn't music but instead useless garbage commercials that repeat way too often boring, droning & numbing then why listen. Perfect enviro for the Empeg.

i agree... but you should be able to get in the car and hear important news, traffic updates, etc...
not to have that basic functionality is a little troublesome, wouldnt you say?

Nah (1) important news-if you can catch them thru the mass of commercials at the right time, plus I can get that thru various other means right away. (2) traffic- no need to know it's the same as yesterday. (3) etc- I can look thru the window to see what's going on there.

I am from Cincinnati brudda...

By the way... I am flying into Cincinnati on the 20th of June, we should have a meet. Albeit a very small one but a meet nonetheless. Who is up for it?

Chris

I am up for it. I might actually have mine installed by then. I talked to the neighbors son and his friend and they are supposed to help me install this weekend for $100. I'm not holding my breath though, he's not that dependable. But he did a very nice install of a stereo and DVD player and such in his car.

If you're really mourning the lack of traffic and news, try tellme. 1-800-555-TELL or #121 on your AT&T cell phone. It'll give you traffic and headlines whenever you want them, instead of waiting twenty minutes for the radio station to do traffic. And if you find yourself stuck in traffic, be sure to try a round of blackjack with sean connery.

Matthew

I thought I would use my tuner too before getting the Empeg....boy was I wrong. Every week or so I turn on the radio for two or three minutes before getting disgusted and going back to "Radio Scott" - all music, all day, every day, no commercial interuptions, only the hits. Radio doesn't stand a chance.

If the guy that wants it for the RDS in the UK can actually live with it switched on, he's a better man than I ! Mine interupts my fine Empeg selection to tell me what's happening in four other irrelevant areas on the ten miles to work. Then you have the pot luck of whether the station are going to switch it on (or off): In short, it's as much use as a chocolate teapot, except for the EON, which generally keeps you tuned in to the same station as you travel up and down our compact land.

I hate to own up, but one of my tuner modules never gets used and the other(in my motorhome) only when my wife wants her favorite DJ's. But no I'm not selling it, the situation might change.

Another advantage of the UK is that we have specific programmes on Blues, Folk, Reggae, Country and much more on BBC Radio 2. I have a nifty thing called a Wavefinder which downloads digital radio programmes to your PC, with added timer software. You can then listen to it on Empeg at a time that suits you.

From the number of dedications that they get worldwide, plenty of people have found it on the internet, check it out!

In reply to:

---

except for the EON, which generally keeps you tuned in to the same station as you travel up and down our compact land.

---

EON (Enhanced Other Networks) makes the local TA work when you're tuned to a national BBC station. Every time a traffic announcement is triggered in a BBC local radio station the trigger is sent down to Broadcasting House and the appropriate message is sent out on the national network NICAM tribs. These can then be decoded at the local transmission station and the appropriate RDS flag triggered on the local RDS encoder.
It's actually AF that keeps the radio tuned in.

Fair enough and thanks for correcting me on the terminology, but it still doesn't work very well!

I know, I always find that the TA announcment kicks in just as I inadvertantly join the end of a very long queue on the motorway. Oh, well, suppose we'll have to see if the DAB implemenation is better. Speaking of which, time to try and hack my wavefinder into the USB port on my empeg!

Let me know if you succeed with the Wavefinder, I have a single dipole on my motorhome, connected to a Wavefinder, connected to a computer that was going begging, which is connected to the television (so you can just about see what you are doing) and connected to the aux. input of the Empeg. You couldn't do all that in a car and it doesn't work very well on the move, so I might as well have upgraded to a sattelite dish on the roof!

I think the major stumbling block is the old USB master/slave thingy. I'm sure the software is do-able (the audio decoding being the least of our worries!). I'm afraid it's a case of the hardware being incompatable . If you wanted to go overboard you could always get one of those miniscule PC's (like Hugo's mp3mobile, except with a beefier CPU), run windows 98 and use the VIADAB API to provide serial control of the reciever. You could then write a program bound to a Hijack menu that would allow you to tune to an ensemble, pick a service, list all available services, etc. Although it is a 'sledgehammer to crack a nut' solution. I do have a liitle VB app that gives me control of all these things, I suppose I could bodge serial control on. All that leave is the C code on the empeg and I've only recently started getting to grips with C++ under win32...

Nurse, pass me my minitature PC and wavefinder please....

Laura,
I will install it for you if you have everything ready to go around the 22nd or so. Gonna cost you some skyline chili though. Everyone would get the wrong idea if I said Laura is gonna buy me a couple of three-ways... oops. I guess I did say that outloud huh. ROFLMAO

StaHi

Oh my god you will!!! That would save me $100's. It would be worth buying you some Skyline chili for. What, can't you handle a 4 or 5 way?

Send me a PM on this so I know what you need me to get.