Can I buy a portable digital radio the size of a 'Walkman'?

[Charles L]

Does anyone know if they exist and if they do where I can
purchase one? Dick Smith and JB don't have any as of yet.

Charles L

 

[|-|erc]

"Charles L" <tjf00@dodo.com.au> wrote ...

Does anyone know if they exist and if they do where I can
purchase one? Dick Smith and JB don't have any as of yet.

I got an MP3 player much smaller than a walkman and it has an FM radio.

Herc

 

[John Tserkezis]

|-|erc wrote:

"Charles L" <tjf00@dodo.com.au> wrote ...

Does anyone know if they exist and if they do where I can
purchase one? Dick Smith and JB don't have any as of yet.

I got an MP3 player much smaller than a walkman and it has an FM radio.

He said *digital*.

With the CPU, logic decoding and the rest, there's lots of hardware overhead
there, would likely be a while before we see the size of digital sets
approaching the size of current smaller crop of FM receivers.
--
Linux Registered User # 302622
<http://counter.li.org>

 

[David L. Jones]

Charles L wrote:

Does anyone know if they exist and if they do where I can
purchase one? Dick Smith and JB don't have any as of yet.

Charles L

Sony have one for $449:
http://www.smarthouse.com.au/Reviews/Media_Centres/S6F2V5L6
Due this month.

Dave.

--
---------------------------------------------
Check out my Electronics Engineering Video Blog & Podcast:
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[Clifford Heath]

John Tserkezis wrote:

He said *digital*.
With the CPU, logic decoding and the rest, there's lots of hardware
overhead there, would likely be a while before we see the size of
digital sets approaching the size of current smaller crop of FM receivers.

Funny that, because you can get a dual-channel digital TV receiver
in a USB stick format. The radios will come, they just have a
smaller market. It's nothing to do with the chip size. Some of
these USB receivers have an ARM9 processor in them, so they could
be easily programmed as radios instead of TVs.

Clifford Heath.

 

[David L. Jones]

Clifford Heath wrote:

John Tserkezis wrote:
He said *digital*.
With the CPU, logic decoding and the rest, there's lots of hardware
overhead there, would likely be a while before we see the size of
digital sets approaching the size of current smaller crop of FM
receivers.

Funny that, because you can get a dual-channel digital TV receiver
in a USB stick format. The radios will come, they just have a
smaller market. It's nothing to do with the chip size. Some of
these USB receivers have an ARM9 processor in them, so they could
be easily programmed as radios instead of TVs.

Current consumption will be a big issue for portable devices.
Atmel's DAB receiver front end chip for example takes anywhere from 0.25W up
to 0.6W on it's own.
Throw in the rest and it's no wonder Sony's DAB player only gets 9 hours max
from a set of AA's.

Dave.
--
---------------------------------------------
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[terryc]

On Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:37:34 +1000, Clifford Heath wrote:

John Tserkezis wrote:
He said *digital*.
With the CPU, logic decoding and the rest, there's lots of hardware
overhead there, would likely be a while before we see the size of
digital sets approaching the size of current smaller crop of FM
receivers.

Funny that, because you can get a dual-channel digital TV receiver in a
USB stick format. The radios will come, they just have a smaller market.
It's nothing to do with the chip size. Some of these USB receivers have
an ARM9 processor in them, so they could be easily programmed as radios
instead of TVs.

Reading this, my instant response is that it must be just a software
limitation, aka picking up the frequency and decoding the signal.

Oh wait. thinking of FM being in the middle of the TV bands and analogue
TV cards which gave you TV or Radio depending on software.

As my cobolt set top boxen picks up the digital radio signals (some of?)
leads me to ask if all digital radio signals are in the TV bands?

--

Great advances in Debian Linux; post a bug report and get spam in three
days.

 

[David]

In article <4a5f050d$0$40020$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>,
"Charles L" <tjf00@dodo.com.au> wrote:

Does anyone know if they exist and if they do where I can
purchase one? Dick Smith and JB don't have any as of yet.

Charles L

Leading Edge have a very nice little digital radio - the Digitech AR1745

Bought mine a few months ago and am very pleased with it - covers AM FM
and SW, with about 200 memory spots. My FM comes from 50km away and
reception is great.

Runs on 2x AAs or external 3v, has internal speaker and headphone out.
Has clock, alarm etc as well

All this in a very compact package for $50!

Got mine from Leading Edge Wagga - love it

David

 

[Clifford Heath]

David wrote:

Leading Edge have a very nice little digital radio - the Digitech AR1745

Looks nice, is also sold under its original branding as Redsun RP300,
but it's a digitally-tuned analog radio, not a digital radio.

Frankly I can't for the life of me work out what's wrong with analog
radio that we need to ditch it and replace all our old receivers with
digital ones. Pointless waste of money.

Clifford Heath, VK3CLF.

 

[Phil Allison]

"Clifford Heath"

Frankly I can't for the life of me work out what's wrong with analog
radio that we need to ditch it and replace all our old receivers with
digital ones. Pointless waste of money.

** Analogue radio (FM) is very wasteful of bandwidth - just like analogue TV
is too.

Changing to DTV has allowed a 5 or 6 fold increase in the number of high
quality TV signals available in the same parts of RF spectrum. It has also
eliminated "ghosting" and noise in the picture plus and most electrical
inteference annoyances caused by the fact the signal is analogue. Antennas
are also much smaller in capital city locations.

Digital radio provides similar advantages in economy of spectrum use and
signal quality. It will also eventually allow a big chunk of the VHF band
( 88 to 108MHz) to be put to other uses.

Be a shame to lose AM band radio though, would mean the end of super simple
recivers like "crystal sets".

Every second kid still builds one of them - right ???



..... Phil

 

[David L. Jones]

David wrote:

In article <4a5f050d$0$40020$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>,
"Charles L" <tjf00@dodo.com.au> wrote:

Does anyone know if they exist and if they do where I can
purchase one? Dick Smith and JB don't have any as of yet.

Charles L

Leading Edge have a very nice little digital radio - the Digitech
AR1745

That's not a digital radio.
The OP is obviously talking about DAB digital radio:
http://www.dbcde.gov.au/broadcasting/radio/digital_radio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Audio_Broadcasting

Dave.

--
================================================
Check out my Electronics Engineering Video Blog & Podcast:
http://www.alternatezone.com/eevblog/

 

[John Tserkezis]

Phil Allison wrote:

Be a shame to lose AM band radio though, would mean the end of super simple
recivers like "crystal sets".

Every second kid still builds one of them - right ???

You bring up an interesting point. What will the schools of tomorrow bring?

Ok boys and girls, today, we're going to build a digital radio receiver:
First we have to learn about radio theory,
Then digital.
Then RF design in the commercial radio band
Digital design in logic, microprocessor, and DSP.
Embedded software design, and audio stream decompression techniques.
On the hardware side, first we learn about basic soldering.
Then PCB manufacture,
Then surface mount soldering.
Easy, that bit should only take about a decade or so.

The hard bit is the encryption, because we would be violating any number of
licences to teach you about the very last critical bit that would make your
radio useful at all.



Since that technique is not viable, we'll do it the easy way.
We'll get you to go to the Aldi's around the corner and buy a $25 receiver
from them.

If you manage installing the batteries and getting it to work, we'll
consider it a pass.
--
Linux Registered User # 302622
<http://counter.li.org>

 

[Mr.T]

"Clifford Heath" <no@spam.please.net> wrote in message
news:4a5fed7f$0$7463$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au...

Frankly I can't for the life of me work out what's wrong with analog
radio that we need to ditch it and replace all our old receivers with
digital ones. Pointless waste of money.

It simply stimulates the economy, unfortunately mainly the Chinese one
though.

MrT.

 

[Davo]

Clifford Heath wrote:

David wrote:
Leading Edge have a very nice little digital radio - the Digitech AR1745

Looks nice, is also sold under its original branding as Redsun RP300,
but it's a digitally-tuned analog radio, not a digital radio.

Frankly I can't for the life of me work out what's wrong with analog
radio that we need to ditch it and replace all our old receivers with
digital ones. Pointless waste of money.

Clifford Heath, VK3CLF.

It all started to go downhill when they went from Morse code to analog.
The world is doomed!

 

[Bruce Varley]

"Phil Allison" <phil_a@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
news:7caa2oF25r3vpU1@mid.individual.net...

"Clifford Heath"

Frankly I can't for the life of me work out what's wrong with analog
radio that we need to ditch it and replace all our old receivers with
digital ones. Pointless waste of money.


** Analogue radio (FM) is very wasteful of bandwidth - just like analogue
TV is too.

Changing to DTV has allowed a 5 or 6 fold increase in the number of high
quality TV signals available in the same parts of RF spectrum. It has
also eliminated "ghosting" and noise in the picture plus and most
electrical inteference annoyances caused by the fact the signal is
analogue. Antennas are also much smaller in capital city locations.

Digital radio provides similar advantages in economy of spectrum use and
signal quality. It will also eventually allow a big chunk of the VHF band
( 88 to 108MHz) to be put to other uses.

Be a shame to lose AM band radio though, would mean the end of super
simple recivers like "crystal sets".

Every second kid still builds one of them - right ???



.... Phil

If only. I spent weeks trying to enthuse a young relative with electronics.

Things like flashing LEDs and PIC programming didn't cut it. Nothing other
than a fully fledged robot would do.

It's a whole new world guys. Get used to it.

 

[David]

In article <4a5ffd4a$0$9666$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>,
John Tserkezis <jt@techniciansyndrome.org.invalid> wrote:

Phil Allison wrote:

Be a shame to lose AM band radio though, would mean the end of super
simple
recivers like "crystal sets".

Every second kid still builds one of them - right ???

You bring up an interesting point. What will the schools of tomorrow
bring?

Ok boys and girls, today, we're going to build a digital radio receiver:
First we have to learn about radio theory,
Then digital.
Then RF design in the commercial radio band
Digital design in logic, microprocessor, and DSP.
Embedded software design, and audio stream decompression techniques.
On the hardware side, first we learn about basic soldering.
Then PCB manufacture,
Then surface mount soldering.
Easy, that bit should only take about a decade or so.

The hard bit is the encryption, because we would be violating any number of
licences to teach you about the very last critical bit that would make your
radio useful at all.



Since that technique is not viable, we'll do it the easy way.
We'll get you to go to the Aldi's around the corner and buy a $25 receiver
from them.

If you manage installing the batteries and getting it to work, we'll
consider it a pass.

I agree with there Phil, but fortunately some schools seem to have even
taken a step up from the humble crystal set as a project - I note that
some are setting projects for kids using a PicAxe - great stuff as these
projects encourage the basic skills of soldering, and electromechanical
design and construction etc (eg making a PicAxe controlled robot) as
well as programming.

David

 

[David L. Jones]

Bruce Varley wrote:

"Phil Allison" <phil_a@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
news:7caa2oF25r3vpU1@mid.individual.net...

"Clifford Heath"

Frankly I can't for the life of me work out what's wrong with analog
radio that we need to ditch it and replace all our old receivers
with digital ones. Pointless waste of money.


** Analogue radio (FM) is very wasteful of bandwidth - just like
analogue TV is too.

Changing to DTV has allowed a 5 or 6 fold increase in the number of
high quality TV signals available in the same parts of RF spectrum. It
has also eliminated "ghosting" and noise in the picture plus and
most electrical inteference annoyances caused by the fact the signal
is analogue. Antennas are also much smaller in capital city
locations. Digital radio provides similar advantages in economy of
spectrum use
and signal quality. It will also eventually allow a big chunk of the
VHF band ( 88 to 108MHz) to be put to other uses.

Be a shame to lose AM band radio though, would mean the end of super
simple recivers like "crystal sets".

Every second kid still builds one of them - right ???



.... Phil

If only. I spent weeks trying to enthuse a young relative with
electronics. Things like flashing LEDs and PIC programming didn't cut
it. Nothing other than a fully fledged robot would do.

It's a whole new world guys. Get used to it.

Yeah, kinda sad, but times move on.
Actually hacking and DIY projects are gaining a HUGE following again, not
pure electronics hobby stuff as such, but there is at least some of that.
Just look at the massive popularity of MAKE magazine, the Maker faire each
year, various hacked gadget forums, Hack-a-Day etc. An impressive number of
these people are young kids, and plenty of girls too! It seems trendy to
take stuff apart, hack things, and build your own stuff etc. This seemed to
have only happened in the last 5 years or so, it seemed practically
non-existant to the mainstream kids before then.

Dave.

--
================================================
Check out my Electronics Engineering Video Blog & Podcast:
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