Thread: A SIRIUS discussion about controlling SIRIUS with a computer.

Good morning all, as my first post to this board, I hope you'll find this all very enlighting. I'm the one who wrote http://www.ItsOnSIRIUS.com and probably know the most about the tuners themselves and have written a couple apps that actually do control a tuner through a computer.

Okay, now hooking up a radio to a computer. If you want to take a radio apart, you can easily put in an AND gate and a RS232 to TTL converter chip in and you'll have access to the tuner communication, this is how the radios that operate http://www.ItsOnSIRIUS.com operate.

In the end though, the trick is to use an existing tuner without having to modify it in any way, just hook a cable to it and away you go. Unfortunately there are some issues doing that.

The first issue is that to this point, there are no tuners which allow you to look at what's playing on another channel while you are on the channel you are on. There are some ways to overcome this limitation, the first is to run something like ItsOnSIRIUS Radio which uses the data from my site to tell you what is playing on the other stations (this application is specifically for the online streaming for SIRIUS, but was written to be easily expanded for other tuners if needed.) Then again, this requires an active internet connection (not aviable in a car) and makes the data a bit behind (about 10 seconds or so at the most)

The second issue is that to this point, nobody has made publically avaible how you can hook up any tuner module to a PC. Now, I have a Alpine unit here, but I'm not paying $300 for a crappy Alpine Head Unit just to test it with. I know Timetrax has connected to the Kenwood 903 unit, so I figure if they can do it, so can I. I'll have my 903 by the end of the week I hope. It shouldn't be hard to figure out what's going on and post some specs.

What about the Timetrax adapter? Well, last I talked with them (@ CES) they are still unable to get the 903 tuner to view what's playing on other channels. Now considering I visited the Kenwood booth at CES and we looked at the high end Kenwood Head Units (DVD/Nav Units) and they couldn't even do this, I don't think it's possible with the 903, however Timetrax maintains they have been told there is a way. I think the confustion is that the Generation 2 SIRIUS chipset in the 903 has the ability, however the interface ciruitry from the tuner to the head unit doesn't support it. But only time will tell. I kinda hope it does...

As for software, well, ItsOnSIRIUS.com Raido is controllable over a TCP connection, so if someone wants to write plug ins, etc, the protocal is posted here: http://www.ItsOnSIRIUS.com/radio.php

If anyone has any questions about any of this, let me know, I'd be glad to help out however I can.

Jeremy
Webmaster - ItsOnSIRIUS.com