Hijack v337 and RDS/AF Issues

Hijack v337 is out, and includes a new menu entry, Tuner AF Blocking, which attempts to disable the RDS AF feature for those having trouble with it. I suspect it also disables everything to do with RDS, but have no idea whether it helps at all.

Has anyone (UK/Europe) tried this yet?

Cheers

I suspect it also disables everything to do with RDS, but have no idea whether it helps at all.

Yay! Since RDS is virtually worthless in the US, I will be very happy to have this feature. I am sick of having my clock be wrong every time I go to an RDS-enabled station.

Clock wrong?! Am i missing something here?

My empeg clock is always gaining time, when I go to an RDS station, the radio shows the correct time

Is it meant to reset the empeg time from RDS? As mine clearly isnt

Is it meant to reset the empeg time from RDS? As mine clearly isnt

No. It doesn't set the empeg's time based on RDS time. But in my area, RDS time is always wrong. Yeah, the RTC on the empeg isn't perfect, but it's much more reliable than the stations around here who can't be bothered with nuisances like "daylight savings time" or even "setting the clock on their RDS transmitter." But they do seem to spend lots of time coming up with lame advertisements for their morning show to embed in the RDS info scroll area.

Or, in other words, the ability to disable RDS is a god^H^H^HLordsend.

Seems to work too well...

No matter whether I had the messages enabled or disabled, I didn't receive a single RDS message on the one station that broadcasts it. I assume from a cursory glance at the patch that you are simply blocking most if not all RDS messages?

Either way that's fine for me (and stops the stupid AF stuff retuning over and over) since I don't need or use the RDS but I'm sure others will complain.

Also, one other thing I noticed. In the menu, I assume you are going for alphabetical order? In my case the Tuner AF Blocking option was appearing before Show Flash Savearea. It took me a while to find it because of this. You can see this in this part of the patch.

@@ -3059,6 +3083,7 @@

 	{ blankerfuzz_menu_label,	blankerfuzz_display,	blankerfuzz_move,	0},

 	{ blanker_menu_label,		blanker_display,	blanker_move,		0},

 	{ saveserial_menu_label,	saveserial_display,	saveserial_move,	0},

+	{ tuner_af_blocking_menu_label, tuner_af_blocking_display, tuner_af_blocking_move, 0},

 	{"Show Flash Savearea",		savearea_display,	savearea_move,		0},

 	{ bass_menu_label,		bass_display,		tone_move,		0},

 	{ treble_menu_label,		treble_display,		tone_move,		0},

BTW: I am in Australia.

Thanks,

Thanks, Shonky.

I figured it would probably nuke all RDS messages (for now). I'll fix the menu ordering for v338, and rename it to "Tuner RDS Disable", since that's what it seems to be doing.

Ideally, I'd like to be able to differentiate between the AF messages and everything else, to allow finer-grained control. But I suspect the RDS messages themselves travel over a different connection than the Tuner serial port.. Right now it's just blocking the "retune to frequency B" message, that is used by the player s/w to do RDS scanning. No retune == no scanning.

Cheers

Okay, Hijack v338 is out. The "Tuner AF Blocking" menu entry has been renamed (and placed in correct sequence!) to "Tuner RDS Control" in the Hijack menu. Still does exactly the same function as v337 -- cosmetic changes only.

Cheers

mark can you add FM STEREO / MONO switch feature?

>mark can you add FM STEREO / MONO switch feature?

Yes, I think that's just a bit flip in one of the messages.

But I'm going to be kinda busy between now and the Amersfoort meet, so it may have to wait a "bit" longer.

Cheers

I just checked into the FM Stereo/Mono thing briefly now.. it's done in the audio processor (DSP), controlled by the Y:STRO parameter (0==mono, 1==stereo). Perhaps our resident DSP guru (genixia?) could have a go that this particular feature for us?

While poking around, I also stumbled over the Tuner's Local/Distance mode bit, if anyone has a GOOD use for that capability..

Cheers

thanks mark i can wait

I have never had a car-tuner where this option was really working. We have many radio-stations here around, the french over the boarder are boosting their programms with some extra-power. The LOCAL setting should prefer stations in the direct area, so they won't get disturbed by the stronger, but more far away ones. But not my Kenwood, nor my two Sonys did make a hearable difference between LOCAL and DISTANCE, so i think let's forget this feature....

cheers, Thomas

In this case, the "local" setting attenuates the signal by 10dB. Any stations strong enough to make it past that are tuned in.

Cheers

I tried both v337 and v338, and in both of them enabling / disabling RDS AF does not have any effect for me at all. Sound is still interrupted very much as long as the right frequency is tuned, and the frequency is changed to one without much reception after less than a minute.

Mark 2 empeg
Consumer Image v2.00 final

Same with me...