RDS with a Ramsey FM100B

[Greg]

steven,

Good Info here!! I never realized it myself that it wasn't normal 232 communication, probably because I made up my own cable but it is good to know for future remerence.

[lleibeck]

Does anyone have any comments on the EDM-LCD-RDS?

My soldering skills limited so by time I purchase a RDS and pay someone to modify my transmitter, I am probably better off to buy a complete unit.

Lee

[Greg Young]

lleibeck wrote:

Does anyone have any comments on the EDM-LCD-RDS?

My soldering skills limited so by time I purchase a RDS and pay someone to modify my transmitter, I am probably better off to buy a complete unit.

Lee

Yes, but that will cost you $220 plus shipping!

Interfacing the chip (board) is really straight forward. There may be some adjustments on the levels needed to be sure the RDS data is sent out with the FM signal, and is decoded reliably, but even without the right gear, it may work fine by some trial and error.

Greg

PS I decided to go another route- instead of the USB-> serial port adapter, I am installing a 2 serial, one parallel card in an unused PCI slot on the motherboard. This should address any usb related timing issues..

[Greg Young]

Problem solved - Adding a real serial port to the pc corrected the issues the minirds software was having, and everything is now working 100%!

So for those of you having issues, try a serial port card, which eliminates the usb to serial issues that miniRDS seems to have problems with, at least for some folks...

Greg

I should have a chance after the Chicago mini to do a side by side comparison of the EDM LCD unit with the Ramsey 100B. Will report back on what I find!

[RickWIlliams]

We tried the USB to Serial adapter from Cables to Go with the EDM-LCD-RDS, and still could not get the RDS to transmit unless we manually pushed the data. We are using a laptop as our host and it has only one serial port built in, so we needed the USB adapter to add another serial port. I haven't tried adjusting the speed settings in the miniRDS software yet, I will tinker with that and see what happens.

[Greg Young]

Set it to slow, but you will get the same problem - the minirds gets the change in song text when LOR calls the batch file, but won't transmit it to the chip in the transmitter with other software running.

Switch to a dedicated serial port, and you are done!

Steve I believe used an airlink usb to serial cable, which worked for him, so you can try different usb to serial cables...

With a laptop you certainly have less flexibility, as it's difficult to install additional serial ports!!

Greg

[pdowns]

My laptops' only serial port includes a modem and has an RJ-11 plug. :-) I too, was using a usb to serial converter. Sounds like that's my problem too.

I'm going to get a genuine PCMCIA serial adapter. They only cost about $20.

I am concerned about the number of wires coming out of my poor laptop and so many of them claim to be serial ports. We'll see what happens.

Thanks for the tip.

[RickWIlliams]

Greg Young wrote:

but won't transmit it to the chip in the transmitter with other software running.

Greg

OK, So I gave up on the laptop and bought a new PC with real serial ports (2) to host the LOR Display software. I set every thing up again and LOR calls the BAT file as designed, the miniRDS loads the information as expected in tab 2 (Dynamic PS), but I can't get anything 'at all' to transmit.

This has me baffled and frustrated.....good exercise though (running to the car and back).

I have signed up for the EDM Yahoo forum group hopping to find something there, but waiting for approval.

Greg, you mentioned that EDM will not transmit if other software is running, can you clarify what you mean? I'm guessing this does not apply to the system tray where LOR Control panel is?

Again, Thanks for all the suggestions.

[Steven]

RickWIlliams wrote:

but I can't get anything 'at all' to transmit.

I seem to remember a problem like this that was caused by putting something that seemed harmless in one of the fields in the miniRDS software. I think I put a 0 where there needed to be a -1. There was no error message, but it didn't transmit.

Sorry I can't remember offhand where it was.

[pdowns]

Exactly where did you make the "change in the software commands." I have this same symptom.

Thanks,

[Steven]

pdowns wrote:

Exactly where did you make the "change in the software commands." I have this same symptom.

In the main "Program" tab, there is a field called "PI" that is initialized to FFFF. I thought it would be OK to put '0000' there, but it wasn't, and there were no messages telling me that.

The 'Help' tab doesn't.

The MiniRDS program will not tell you when it can't communicate with the transmitter. In fact, I just ran it here at work. I have a serial port on this computer, but nothing is plugged in. The MiniRDS program ran without any error.

In the 'Preferences' tab, there's a button "Port Access TEST". Apparently this simply sends stuff on the serial port, but requires you to connect an LED to the port to determine if the test is successful or not.

Here's the real test: Go to the "System" tab and click "Read Status". It will show a popup window with a status byte value and pilot tone. If these are 0, then miniRDS is not talking to the transmitter. I just tried it here with no transmitter in sight and it came up with zeros. No error, just zeros.

Many users will figure the best thing to do is start the miniRDS program, then click "Receive" to get the current settings from the transmitter. However, if your serial port, or cable, is bad, or if your transmitter is turned off, pressing "Receive" will read all zeros! Not only that, but it will then store these zeros in the minirds.rds file, which will be read when you start miniRDS the next time! Note that the "Store" button does not store the current settings in a file on your computer - that happens automatically. The "Store" button stores the settings in the EEPROM in the transmitter. But only if the transmitter is plugged in! If you do get it plugged in, and send the zeros, then it won't work, because apparently 0000 is not a valid PI.

So here's how to fix the problem. First, exit miniRDS.exe. Then find the minirds.rds file where it's state is stored. Delete this file! Now start miniRDS.exe again. This will get you back to reasonable defaults. Next, go to the "Dynamic PS" and "Text Sources" tabs to get it back to your text files where you store the names of the songs.

Go to the "System" tab. Click "Switch On" to tell the transmitter to send RDS, then click "Read Status". If you still get zeros, then miniRDS is not talking to the transmitter and you need to fix that problem first.

[pdowns]

Sheesh! Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I had nothing but trouble with EDM RDS last year. I see I'm not alone. Some day I may buy a better transmitter. In the meantime, I'm also considering the RDS alternative of sending the song names to my Betabrite LED message sign.

But in the spirit of hacking, I'll experiment with EDM some more.

[RickWIlliams]

Thanks Steven, your explanation helps me understand a little more. I spent over an hour the other night running back-and-forth to the car to check.

The RDS is communicating with the transmitter, the transmitter has an LED on the board that goes solid when data is sent. I was able to get the default PS to show on the radio that night, but I must have messed it up tinkering with all the settings.

The read status does give me values:
Status byte value: 5
Pilot Tone: 1
TA: 0

I'll mess around with it again tonight.

Thanks again Steven



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