[BC] FM Modulators for Satellite Radio

[Mark Humphrey]

Yes, USB would be ideal.

I'm just trying to reconcile promotional hype with reality.  We've
heard a lot of neat ideas to exploit iBiquity's "data broadcasting"
capability, but how does the consumer take advantage of them without
buying a whole new radio?  It's like selling a PC without any card
slots or data ports -- other than the usual KVM and (maybe) speakers.

Well, I just took a leap of faith and installed a JVC digital radio in
my truck last weekend.  (Model  KD-HDR1, $199.95 with free shipping
from buy.com, plus I'm supposed to get $25 back from The Alliance.)
No way to access the digital radio data other than opening the case
and hacking... but  -- guess what? -- JVC does give you an iPod
adapter port!   With an accessory cable, this allows access to the
iPod's library from the front panel of the radio.  (The internal MP3
disc player sounds so good that I'll probably not bother hooking up an
iPod.)  And, of course, there's another port to allow connection of an
XM or Sirius tuner.

As Rich points out, the laywers who apparently nixed the idea of
offering a "raw IBOC data" access port (due to copyright violation
fears) missed the fact that it's so much simpler to record "HD" audio
through the receiver's analog output ports.  Why buy a decoder to
extract the encoded audio from raw data when all you need is a
standard audio cable?   The JVC provides a set of RCA output
connectors that do the job just fine.  I recognize this introduces a
D/A,A/D conversion, which theoretically degrades sound quality, but
considering the source material has already been run through a very
lossy codec, who cares?

BTW, I logged my first "digital DX" last Sunday during an E-skip
opening:  WUWF-HD1 and HD2 from Pensacola, which briefly "hijacked"
our local WZZD 88.1 in Warwick, PA (south of Reading)

Mark

On 6/24/06, DHultsman5 at aol.com <DHultsman5 at aol.com> wrote:

> Even better would be a USB port for updating software or a  memory  card slot
> for updating software and a couple of buttons so you could record to a
> memory stick a music selection or program as well as download any new software
> upgrades to the receiver...
>