I think crutchfield has a mounting adapter for the Mr. Fusion. Mind you you have to buy the Mr. Fusion from them to get it......

to mr pca - you make the whole process sound soo easy - i would love to pay in advance like the others for one of the tuner units, or even a kit requiring assembly... so, count me in on a purchase!

thank you for focusing your efforts on this great service to so many of us

Can't decide between one or two kits. Doh.

Hello all

Well, I am still waiting for the correct pricing info on the microtune modules. I spent a considerable time on the phone to a bloke in Germany yesterday, discussing the available options. The problems seems to be that the module used in the original empeg tuner system is sold mostly (99.999 recurring %) to a very large OEM in the US, and as such is subject to constant design changes and modifications, without notice.

They're happy to sell them to me, but the situation is such that they couldn't guarantee that the modules I received would be identical, either physically or electrically, from order to order. Obviously, not a particularly good solution.

However, they also now do a standard range of modules, with a slightly different set of characteristics, which DON'T change willy-nilly. There are several alternative modules in the range, all of which are pin and software compatible, but differ in price and intended application. We narrowed it down on the phone to 3 different units, and I am waiting for the data sheets and prices so I can pick which one is best.

The three modules are:

The ETSI version for europe, which is optimised for FM performance and low cost, at the expense of AM reception (not used all that much around here) being slightly inferior to:

The North American, which has performance-optimised AM and the US-style FM tuning spacing, but at a somewhat higher price, which is in turn eclipsed by:

The world standard module, which has excellent AM and FM, works in Japan etc as well, and has weatherband on around 165ish MHz. This is the most expensive of the modules, but the most versatile.

The problem with selecting the right module is one of stock control, more than anything. For cost reasons it would seem best to do the ETSI version with european kits and the US version with NA kits. However, this would require different kits to be produced in relatively smaller quantities, two sets of tuners to order, etc.

If the costs aren't too prohibitive, my personal feelings are that the technically best solution would be to use the world module, thus ensuring that not only would the tuner work everywhere, but only one type of module would need to be ordered. The downside to this is that it might raise the final cost of the kit slightly, although you would get weatherband thrown in.

Anyway, until I get the prices and datasheets I can't make a more informed decision, but I thought you might be interested in the progress I'm slowly making towards making all your lives that much more fulfilled

Patrick

I would be willing to pay more for the weatherband one as long as the player software took advantage of it.

Sean

Question about the three different modules.

Would the empeg car player software have to be modified from its current version in order to even work with these new modules at all? If so, what is the likelihood of that happening?

There should not be any need for the player software to be modified at all, save perhaps in the case of the weatherband receiver. The PIC in the tuner unit has a standard protocol which the player uses to tune it, receive rds data, and so on, so as long as this protocol is adhered to the system works as is.

Anyway, from what I gather sans datasheet, the replacement tuners from microtune have virtually identical interfaces to the original one. It's all set up by I2C in the tuner module, and Hugo is more than capable of making any minor mods needed.

He does, after all, have a bit of experience in these matters.

As far as weatherband goes, I still need to look into this.

Patrick

Hmm, think I've mentioned it before, but here I go...

If it can do weatherband, do they have any which does Police frequencies??
That would be cool. (At least I think)

TommyE

I think it is common knowledge this 'kit' will be cost more then the original tuners, but anything is better then buying one off of ebay for $400.

As for Police frequencies, would be cool but HIGHLY illegal.

Naahh, Here in Norway it is allowed to have a police scanner, but you are not
allowed to use it. Who said I was going to use it ??

TommyE

In the US you can use police scanners. Just not in a car.

yup, sorry, didnt mean to confuse.....

You can't use one in a car? Serious?

I got that info from a Radio Shack manual, so you can think of it what you want. I scanned the page out of the manual and attched it to this post. Check it out.

My brother is a cop.....you dont want to get caught driving around with a police scanner.......

Wow, I was planning on installing one. That sucks.

Really I'm thinking the world module would be the best even if a little more expensive. Saves you the hassle of having two different versions. I guess it does all depend on the price difference but it still won't be costing US$300-400 all up like on ebay. And there's the slight increase in performance and weatherband too.

I assume the world module can do 9 and 10kHz increments on AM as well as 0.2 and 0.05 MHz increments on FM. i.e. it is switchable like the original module whereas the ETSI and NA models are hard coded to 0.05MHz/9kHz and 0.2MHz/10kHz respectively.

In Oz we use the 9 and 0.05 MHz versions which I assume is the same as the ETSI version. I know there are only a few Oz and NZ ppl around here though. Weatherband won't do anything for us that I'm aware of.

I'm sure we all appreciate the effort you've made so far. Thanks man.

Why, what's the typical punishment? If it's just a small fine or something I may still install one under the dash or something. My friend had a PA system in his car and a cop told him it was illegal but the cop didn't do anything. We were like 16 at the time so the cop might have been BSing us.

What's stopping you? That's very uncharacteristic of you. I would have expected you to say that if you bought the police scanner, and you bought the car, you can do whatever you want with it since it is yours.

Calvin

whole different ball game, think about it, your running from the cops, what better to have but to know where they are putting up roadblocks, spike strips, etc,.....most likely, they would at least 'liberate' the scanner from you.......

I do think I should be able to do what I want with it. What's stopping me? The law.

Think about it. They don't want criminals to have scanners, because then it would make it easier for him to get away. But if the criminal is already running from the cops, he's got nothing to lose. He might as well have the illegal scanner. So I think it's a useless law.

An open question ......
I can't ignore this term any longer, my curiosity has got the better of me;
What additional broadcasts would a Weatherband receiver capability allow me to actually receive in the UK - weather reports?!

No, the law still has value - it also helps to reduce ambulance-chasing by litigation lawyers and journalists.

Anyway, it's sure to be a moot point within the next 10 years or so - most police radio will probably be encrypted.

Please everyone, back to the tuner kits AM/FM?maybe weather....

I don't think the weather band feature works in the UK. It's a US only thing from what I remember...

- Trevor

Not quite, Patrick; all the smarts for the tuner (including interpolation of signal strength compensation values, snap tuning to RDS AF frequencies for monitoring, etc) are all done *in the player code*. The tuner protocol doesn't have "tune to xxx" commands, it has "3 byte tuner I2C send" and "8 byte I2C send" for example. If the alternate modules don't use the same philips tuner chip (6840 or something newer in the same range, I think) then it'd require significant hacking to get it working.

The player software also reads the I2C eeprom in the tuner module for calibration values.

Without major player software mods, you're really going to have to go for the 1385 weatherband module, which at least is backwards compatible with the current software (though weatherband support would require some more work on the player)

Hugo

For the record, using a police scanner in the car is about as illegal as putting your trash out on the wrong day of the week. (Or so a cop friend told me).

From what the fellow with the funny name in Germany told me, the modules they are recommending are compatible with the 1384 unit originally used, but with added features such as direct IF output and the like. As far as I know they are pretty much backward compatible, and I believe are still labelled 1384 and 1385. When the data sheets get to me, I can find out more. I'll chase them in the morning.

Patrick

I love this...Nearly fell out of my chair. The other side of the page you scanned is all about 12V powering from your vehicle. TOO funny! Thanks for that Rob.

"...Now, the bullets are put in here and this is the trigger--oh, and by the way, it will do bad things to what you shoot...."

As another poster said, I don't believe that the transmissions a weatherband receiver receives are available in the UK or on the Continent. It's a NOAA ([US] National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, pronounced like Noah) service called NOAA Weather Radio, or NWR. It's described at the NWR web site and in their FAQ, if you want to investigate if something similar is available in your area. If you don't feel like reading about it, it's basically a nationwide low quality FM radio station broadcasting on several frequencies. It features a continuous reading of NOAA weather reports by an automated voice. There's also supposedly a feature that allows automatic tuning to the station when a settable code is detected, meaning that an important message about the area which the code describes is being announced. (I have no experience with that feature, though.)