FM/DAB digital radio - THAT WORKS!!

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Originally Posted by tickertapes

It's quite a shame really after all the hard work that's gone into this project that it could now die off for Centrafuse users.

I'm going to start playing with Riderunner now as Venice support is standard.
Radio is still comes 1st on my list of requirements and as far as I'm concerned, the venice module is the only real solution. I have tried Silabs and HQCT and they were all quite simply CRAP.

Come on CF, get your act together and support the UK, EU, AUS and CAN users directly, there's no Sirius or XM over here :-(

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I think some of what you're saying needs clarification.

There are currently three types of Venice in the wild.

1. Venice 5 with slave firmware.
2. Venice 7 with master firmware.
3. Venice 7 with slave firmware.

All of these are different, all are not compatible with one another and none of these would excite CF even if they had a pair of 34DD boobs attached!

Additionally, the manufacturer of the Venice chips appears to keep the serial protocol very close to its chest and charges a lot (many thousands) for access to it. All information there is is guarded by a NDA, so anyone who has anything is frightened to share it anyway.

For the DIY scene, the slave series of firmware will be supported as part of any spare time the developers have.

For the commercial side of things, i.e. the master firmware, it is not part of the DIY scene. Therefore, there is no real motivation for us develop anything for it; especially as there was/is already a CF plugin available. It is all about motivation; speaking personally, I have absolutely nothing against CB (he has always been more than helpful to me) but why would any of the DIY slave firmware team develop for something they don't use (nor want to)?

Saying all that, you never know what the future might bring.... :whistle:

A few you've missed.

Venice 5 with master firmware
Venice 5.1 with slave firmware
Venice 5.1 with master firmware

There also appears to be more than one version of the Venice 7 slave out there.

And another one, I have a Venice 6.1 as well, although unsure what firmware is on it....I ended up going a PCI DAB+ and DTV card that cost me 30 bucks, and works perfectly to pick up DAB+ signals. I do know I couldn't use the same board as the V5/V7, as the pinout was much longer, probably due to the inbuilt wifi on it.

I just don't have the programming expertise to integrate it into CF, so I just minimise CF and use TotalMedia 3.5 that came with the card to listen to DAB+ radio on the go, and watch a bit of tellie when the car is stationary.

Hi,

I encounter some problems when I'm trying to implement the Ultimate Radio Plugin in Centrafuse 3.1

I installed as described in the manual the drivers, copied the unzipped UltimateRadio folder into the Plugins folder but the plugin remains hidden for Centrafuse.

I had it running once with .NET v3.5 installed but this is no option, because this version slows down the whole system. Moreover, some guys from the german Centrafuse forum told me, the Plugin is running on their machines with only .NET v2 installed (the one which came with the Centrafuse installer). That means, the problem is not .NET, right?

What could be the problem in my case?

Thanks,

Bert

So has CB finally disappeared up his own rear end? Would be good to see the community pulling together again and pushing the DAB thing forwards. V7 slave in RR would be lush! :)

Has anyone tried one of these yet to improve the SNR?

http://www.olimex.com/dev/pdf/OTHER/USB-ISO.pdf



Was tinkering over the weekend and discovered that there is a massive ground loop between my antenna & USB. I thought reception was good until I plugged into a floating laptop.

Available from Farnell and RS for a mere £35 :-)

Not enough info to tell if the ground is actually isolated. Maybe someone else has more info on this.

I have a feeling that there is a problem with the USB interface layout on these DAB-FM units. It appears to be only the USB port ground lead that is causing the problem. Breaking the ground lead on the USB cable and running a separate ground lead from a different ground point back to the PC solved my noise issue.

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Originally Posted by mitchjs

and E, that has nothing to do with riderunner!
my designed hw doesnt blow out USB Ports

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I'm just getting round to building my carPC and i think i have one of the original modules with the 4 large capaciters??
Should i be worried about it?

I also have one of the original modules and it works beautifully. Tested on three different motherboards from Asus and Gigabyte. I'm ipressed with the DAB-reception even with a standard dipole FM antenna. No noise problems and no blown USB-ports. Only problem is the missing CF3.5 plug-in.

I guess that there will be no more modules made and none are willing to make a new plug-in for the relative small number of modules that have bee sold. It's a shame really that this project seems to have come to its end.

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Originally Posted by Sledge1

I'm just getting round to building my carPC and i think i have one of the original modules with the 4 large capaciters??
Should i be worried about it?

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Depends on the MB, most don’t have a problem, some can take out a PCB mount fuse, if you’re unsure or want to play it safe, you could always plug it into a small external powered USB HUB run with the appropriate voltage rail from the PSU.