Richard Hamilton Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 Dennis Laff wrote:Hi looked at serial port cards on websites prices are all over the place start at$15.00 up to hundreds any ideas on what type to buy for pc Thank DennisDennis, my bet is that practically any card is going to work for this purpose. I wouldn't spend a lot of money on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgrant Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 I agree...not much call for serial ports any more but in this case, its needed till they update the EDM design to something else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dennis Laff Posted February 19, 2012 Author Share Posted February 19, 2012 Thanks guys i also have a fry electonics store here in Chicago going to see what the got for serial port cards Dennis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Hamilton Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 dgrant wrote:I agree...not much call for serial ports any more but in this case, its needed till they update the EDM design to something else.Right. EDM really needs an updated interface, yet from what I can see on various forums, they don't seem to have a USB version in the works. If they haven't changed that terrible looking web site in 5 years, I'm not betting on any radical transmitter updates ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgrant Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 Dennis Laff wrote:Thanks guys i also have a fry electonics store here in Chicago going to see what the got for serial port cards DennisMake sure you know the card buss type before you buy ... ISA, PCI and so on for your open computer slot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 Richard Hamilton wrote: I tried the USB route and was not able to get the transmitter to work.Mine works with an AirLink101 USB to serial adapter, which AirLink101 doesn't seem to make anymore, but you can still order from EPC.Right. EDM really needs an updated interface, yet from what I can see on various forums, they don't seem to have a USB version in the works.When EDM designed their RDS transmitter, the chip they used was the only (compact) one available, which was the MiniRDS Encoder. They only way to communicate with the MiniRDS is the IIC protocol, which is supposed to be used for chips to communicate among themselves on a single circuit board. It was not meant to be used over a cable, so they MacGyvered it by using some diodes and connecting it to the modem control pins of a serial port. One of the disadvantages of this is the timing requires that the MiniRDS program takes up all of the CPU while sending an update. This caused a problem in my show one year until I worked around it (another subject).Since then, the makers of the MiniRDS Encoder came up with an improved version, the MicroRDS Encoder. This chip allows the use of either IIC or RS232 for communication. It would be nice if the next version of the EDM transmitter used this new chip, plus a built-in USB serial chip. But as you said, we shouldn't expect anything in the near future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Maue Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 Richard Hamilton wrote: By the way Aaron, if you are thinking about gonig the serial route and you don't have a serial card, then I will be glad to remove the one from my computer and send it to you for free. I wasn't using it for anything else.PM sent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgrant Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 I do have another question in regards to the RDS on these. I could easily see how to manually specify which tune name is playing but how does someone make it read them automatically? I'm sure its something simple but its escaping me at this time and their instructions don't help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Maue Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 If you take a look at the 7th post in this thread, you'll see a link to another thread. There, you'll find instructions for setting this up. In the first post of that thread, there's a great .pdf tutorial. Pretty straightforward, but does require some command line and batch file use, which are explained in the tutorial. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgrant Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Thanks, will do that right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgrant Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Thanks Aaron, That was precisely what I needed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Hamilton Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Steven wrote:Richard Hamilton wrote: I tried the USB route and was not able to get the transmitter to work.Mine works with an AirLink101 USB to serial adapter, which AirLink101 doesn't seem to make anymore, but you can still order from EPC.Right. EDM really needs an updated interface, yet from what I can see on various forums, they don't seem to have a USB version in the works.When EDM designed their RDS transmitter, the chip they used was the only (compact) one available, which was the MiniRDS Encoder. They only way to communicate with the MiniRDS is the IIC protocol, which is supposed to be used for chips to communicate among themselves on a single circuit board. It was not meant to be used over a cable, so they MacGyvered it by using some diodes and connecting it to the modem control pins of a serial port. One of the disadvantages of this is the timing requires that the MiniRDS program takes up all of the CPU while sending an update. This caused a problem in my show one year until I worked around it (another subject).Since then, the makers of the MiniRDS Encoder came up with an improved version, the MicroRDS Encoder. This chip allows the use of either IIC or RS232 for communication. It would be nice if the next version of the EDM transmitter used this new chip, plus a built-in USB serial chip. But as you said, we shouldn't expect anything in the near future.Really nice info Steven... Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Maue Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Steven wrote:One of the disadvantages of this is the timing requires that the MiniRDS program takes up all of the CPU while sending an update. This caused a problem in my show one year until I worked around it (another subject).Steven, how might I detect this? I used TinyRDS last year and didn't see any problems. What might cause that to change? Higher channel count (only 64 channels last year), and thus, maybe higher processor demands? I'm going to be over 200 channels this year and would like to anticipate and solve the problem now, rather than later. Just wondering what might cause my current setup to break down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Hamilton Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Aaron Maue wrote:Steven wrote:One of the disadvantages of this is the timing requires that the MiniRDS program takes up all of the CPU while sending an update. This caused a problem in my show one year until I worked around it (another subject).Steven, how might I detect this? I used TinyRDS last year and didn't see any problems. What might cause that to change? Higher channel count (only 64 channels last year), and thus, maybe higher processor demands? I'm going to be over 200 channels this year and would like to anticipate and solve the problem now, rather than later. Just wondering what might cause my current setup to break down.I am also interested in knowing how you saw this problem and what it did. I used MiniRDS and I never had an issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Aaron Maue wrote: Just wondering what might cause my current setup to break down.The problem happened when I was using the built-in serial port on my old Dell, with a Pentium 4. It doesn't happen when using the AirLink101 USB Serial cable, for some reason. (So now I'm using the built-in serial port to connect to my CM11B.)The symptom of the problem was that my "static" channels (like the stereo receiver with outdoor speakers, inflatables, "Tune Radio" sign) would shut down at the beginning of some sequences, but it wasn't consistent. I finally figured out that when the MiniRDS program was sending something big to the transmitter (including DPS and Radio Text), the LOR signal was suspended. If the signal was suspended long enough, controllers shut down.My first workaround was to turn off Dynamic Radio Text, which solved the problem, but since both of my cars show Radio Text as well as PS, I wanted it back on. By switching things around in various ways, I discovered that the problem didn't happen when MiniRDS was sending over the USB serial port. I don't know why this would make a difference, but it does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Maue Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Thanks for the info, Steven. I didn't turn on DPS last year, so maybe didn't see the problem. I may have to experiment a bit now to see if that happens for me. To avoid a situation where I accidentally enable it and then can't figure out why it's misbehaving. If I do it and something breaks, I'm much more likely to remember. Failure is a great teacher. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asetti Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 I bought:http://wholehousefmtransmitter.com/index100.phpnew on ebay for $74.Did some testing and it seems to work very well and has a range to the street in front of my house.Any one else use one of these for their show? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Hamilton Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 There is a lot of information about the Whole House Transmitter on here. If it works for you, then that is all that is important :-)As for me, I tried it a few years ago. I call it the Whole Garage Transmitter. That is about as far as it transmitted! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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