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bluegras

Last reply Apr 7, 2016 · posted in Local Radio Discussion

[Other Topic] DTS: Use Expanded Band for All-Digital AM

The earlier rollout of HD Radio services on the U.S. AM radio band was abortive; but that experience involved only the so-called hybrid mode of HD Radio. Now the company that makes the technology thinks the expanded part of the AM band (1605–1705 kHz) would be a good place for the industry to introduce all-digital broadcasts.

http://www.radioworld.com/article/dts-use-expanded-band-for-all-digital-am/278489

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harshness

Apr 5, 2016

Why I have a tough time being enthusiastic about commercial AM radio:

Modern family vehicles typically lack a provisions for a proper AM antenna
Wireless phones feature an FM tuner if they have a tuner at all and good AM radios aren't cheap or easy to find
The public safety value of a distant AM station isn't all that compelling
Finally, as Radio asserts, pretty much everything must be "right" (from hardware to management to environment) for AM to provide a great listening experience

radio

Apr 6, 2016

harshness said:
Why I have a tough time being enthusiastic about commercial AM radio:

Modern family vehicles typically lack a provisions for a proper AM antenna

Wireless phones feature an FM tuner if they have a tuner at all and good AM radios aren't cheap or easy to find

FM tuners should NEVER be included in cellphones. It's a sham. Advertising by Sprint has been heavy because THEY bought into it...The antenna is the headphones, many people won't carry headphones,and when consumers cannot receive their favorite local 6kw station,(meaning anything but a blowtorch 20-50kw one) they'll blame the station, not their $300 new "best of the best" phone, when really the tuners included in them are crap. This endeavor by cellphone manufacturers and carriers makes broadcasters look BAD and this time, it's not the fault of the broadcaster. Believe it or not, the NAB and other organizations petitioned almost every station to run "free" ads for this endorsing Sprint. Um, NO.

Addressing the antenna situation, actually with a good tuner, some of the amplified shorter ones have great range, though a tuned 31" whip is centered for the FM band and more than adequate on AM. Too bad our nation's vanity as consumers cant possibly have a "real" antenna on the car. But...don't discount what the smaller ones do. I'm very "in tune" with this as a broadcaster, I do signal drives under many conditions, and I have a very small, amplified combo antenna on the Jeep Renegade. The tuner's bandwidth sucks. Chrysler Jeep should be ashamed, but the distance from which I can receive my station and others is impressive.

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Mr Tony

Apr 6, 2016

On my Moto E phone (which has no service on it anymore...I just use it for apps) the headphones are basically required. Without it I get no stations on it.
The seek option sucks. Bypasses even the 100kw Class C stations here in Minneapolis. It does have manual tune though.

For fun when I was at the lake last weekend I tried to see what it would pick up. And depending on where in the house I was gave me varied results. Literally walking from the bedroom into the bathroom made stations drop.

harshness

Apr 7, 2016

radio said:
FM tuners should NEVER be included in cellphones. It's a sham.

Surely, the carriers wanted an option to give customers streaming audio and FM is a 6" putt that doesn't require a lot of additional hardware. AM would require dozens of dollars of hardware and prohibitive acreage.

The antenna is the headphones, many people won't carry headphones,and when consumers cannot receive their favorite local 6kw station,(meaning anything but a blowtorch 20-50kw one) they'll blame the station, not their $300 new "best of the best" phone, when really the tuners included in them are crap.

Even a "crap" FM tuner can deliver great sound. Do you know a lot of people that use their phones like a boom box?!?!?!

Too bad our nation's vanity as consumers cant possibly have a "real" antenna on the car.

I suspect it has more to do with economy (the sheet metal isn't thick enough to support a fender or A-pillar mounted whip) and vandalism than vanity, but be that as it may, factory AM antennas are history and we have to move forward with what we've got. Few modern vehicles can reasonably support a proper ground plane antenna. As an example, most of the horizontal body panels on my car are aluminum and magnetic base antennas won't "stick". Quite a few cars have other non-ferrous materials (plastics, carbon fiber, etc.) in the bodywork.

Mr Tony

Apr 7, 2016

harshness said:
.Even a "crap" FM tuner can deliver great sound. Do you know a lot of people that use their phones like a boom box?!?!?!I.

and how many of them are using a FM radio for the music?

most are using downloaded music onto their phone.

harshness

Apr 7, 2016

Iceberg said:
and how many of them are using a FM radio for the music?

Boom boxes are used for more than just music. The point I was trying to make is that listening carefully is quite often done with headphones/buds, contrary to what was asserted earlier by Radio.

A Bluetooth connection or docking station still works if the headphones are connected, doesn't it?

Mr Tony

Apr 7, 2016

harshness said:
Boom boxes are used for more than just music. The point I was trying to make is that listening carefully is quite often done with headphones/buds, contrary to what was asserted earlier by Radio.

I guess I will disagree. Here at the school I see kids listening to music on their device without headphones/earbuds (most of them). The ones that do I can assure you are not listening to the local FM stations. They probably have a bunch of music downloaded into it.

A Bluetooth connection or docking station still works if the headphones are connected, doesn't it?

I have no bluetooth here so I dont know. But again I dont see kids with bluetooth devices listening to FM radio on it

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dfergie

Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU!

Last reply A moment ago · posted in What's Cooking?

What's For Lunch?

We have a Breakfast and Dinner thread so...

Continuing from the Breakfast thread, found Cornbread mix so ...
Yellow Cornbread Mix
2 Hatch Green Chiles -diced
1 Egg
2/3 cup of milk
add to greased pan
Bake for 400f 20-25 minutes(From instructions)
now to put together and try... this to go with pinto beans...

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Mr Tony

Oct 19, 2026

Garlic cheese bread
Green beans
Apples
Chocolate Milk
Some weird noodles.

(They have salad and a couple other fruits if wanted)

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TRG

Oct 19, 2026

Club sandwich and corn chowder. Iced tea.

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dfergie

Oct 19, 2026

Chili dog bowl, water… (homemade chili)

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TRG

Monday at 2:53 PM

Leftover wanton soup and pork fried rice. Water.

dfergie

A moment ago

Sweet tea…

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iJustine

5 minutes ago · posted in iJustine

iPhone Duo's First Concert! Revis!

Time for another AWESOME video from iJustine!

View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yj3f7ab5pBI

Direct YouTube Link - iPhone Duo's First Concert! Revis!
The official iJustine Website's Website
Buy her book!

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TWiT Tech Podcast Network

5 minutes ago · posted in TWiT Tech Podcast Network

New iPad mini Announced... at $699?

Time for another AWESOME video from the TWIT Network!

View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7NJXMnbT1Mk

Direct YouTube Link - New iPad mini Announced... at $699?
TWIT's Website
TWIT Live Feed

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Scott Greczkowski

Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU! Cutting Edge

Last reply 53 minutes ago · posted in The Chit Chat Club

Song Name Game Part 3!

Sometimes a thread gets so many posts in it that is can cause issues for the server so that why today we introduce The Song Name Game Part 3!

So let the game continue!

The last song was added by Bobby who posted...

One Meat Ball - Andrews Sisters

CONTINUE ON AND HAVE FUN! WELCOME HOME TO SATELLITEGUYS.US!

Here are the original rules for the game as posted by WebbyDude back in 2006. http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/68645-Song-Name-Game

Just name a song title and the band who performed it. The next person does the same thing, but needs to list a song title or band name which includes a word from the previous entry. Pick songs from any genre.

Example:

Long Live Rock and Roll -- Rainbow

Rainbow in the Dark -- Dio

Another example:

Ride the Lightning -- Metallica

Lightning Strikes -- Ozzy Osbourne

Get it?

An additional note: we all know that song titles, sometimes, use profane words. Because this is a family friendly website it is advised that you clean up that title up a bit. This is accomplished by using something like sh!t instead of the real word. Thanks....

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dishstaller

Today at 10:32 AM

I Wanna Talk About Me - Toby Keith

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Bobby

Today at 10:51 AM

98.6 - Keith

harshness

Today at 11:25 AM

I'm Easy - Keith Carridine

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gms49ers

Today at 11:41 AM

It's Easy - Boston

RaiderPower

53 minutes ago

Take It Easy On Me - Little River Band

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reubenray

Last reply Today at 10:36 AM · posted in Computers and Gadgets

Laptop Shutting Off When On Battery?

Lately my eight year old Dell laptop has been shutting off even when I have a full battery. I have had to keep it plugged up all the time to keep this from happening. Any idea what is causing this? I replaced the battery about three years ago.

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arlo

Today at 10:09 AM

A recalibration might be needed. Even if it shows full, the individual cells may have become unbalaced. And the BMS chip in the battery reports false information to the pc.
Try this. Start it up in the bios/uefi and leave it there until the battery dies and it shuts off.
It might just keep running longer than in Windows. Or run for a short while and shut off.
If it's the first case. Probably just needs a balancing. If the latter, the pack might just be dead.
Not throwing stones but perhaps just a cheaply constructed battery with substandard cells. Could be.

Patience. Keep restarting it in bios/uefi until it won't fire up anymore.
Then plug the charger in and let it complete a full charge. And see what happens. If it's better.
Do the same thing one more time. Run it until it dies dead-dead. Then just let it charge, pc shut off.
When charged, it might be better. It might not be.

There are bench jigs that read the actual BMS and override it to let a tech manually monitor and charge the separate packs. They can also reset any "time bombs" in it that cause an otherwise good pack to show bad.
Maybe Santa will be good to me some year.

You might just need a new battery. Maybe the PC power management chip is going. A Dell common thing.
Leaving a laptop plugged in with a full battery is known to reduce the life. Asus for one recommends that you don't leave the charger plugged in all of the time even when shut down. And setting Windows to charge the battery to 85% instead of 100% increases life.
That's all I got.

dishstaller

Today at 10:36 AM

arlo said:
That's all I got.

That was quite enough....I definitely learned something from your post. Thanks

TRG

Pub Member / Supporter

Last reply Today at 10:27 AM · posted in Computers and Gadgets

Starlink Router question

I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.

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b4pjoe

Saturday at 2:12 PM

TRG said:
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.

If you can't get into the router to reserve an IP address just don't use DHCP on the device that needs connected and assign it to a specific IP address in the network settings.

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HipKat

Saturday at 11:07 PM

TRG said:
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.

They are not. Your best bet is to set up a third-party router, attached to the Starlink for your server, that you can get into, like a Linksys, etc

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Foxbat

Sunday at 12:44 AM

TRG said:
…it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.

The Starlink V5 Install Kit I just got comes with the Mini Router. It is pretty limited in what it can do. For example, it can provide only one IP subnet at a time, no Guest Network, but it does support the pass-thru to a third-party Router. You can also split the Wi-Fi into separate 5 GHz & 2.4 GHz SSIDs to help some IoT devices that don't support 5 GHz bands to work.

The larger Starlink Router that still comes with the V4 Kit does support a Guest Network with separate IPv4 Subnet, but it's $120 from Starlink. And it still won't do DHCP Reservations.

harshness

Sunday at 11:46 AM

If you can restrict the DHCP address space to assign addresses to one end of the subnet (i.e. x.x.x.50+), you can manually assign the IP address on pretty much any operating system. This is a default behavior on several popular routers. As the Router Mini only supports 235 devices, I expect that's already done.

Another option is to use a router that supports PoE to power the antenna. This article discusses that option (under PoE Power heading):

Starlink V5 Is Here: What RVers Need to Know

Overview of the new Starlink V5 model along with comparison to the previous V4 model along with a recommended setup for mobile internet users.

mobilemusthave.com

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Foxbat

Today at 10:27 AM

Now that I've had the v5 kit with the Mini Router, it's not as bad as I first thought. Yes, no DHCP reservations, but you can set up multiple SSIDs that have separate IPv4 subnets, and like the big brother, you can select from 192.168.x.0/24 or 10.x.0.0/16 (where "x" is 1-4).

You can also split a subnet and have different SSIDs for the 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz channels to handle some IoT devices. I haven't discovered what subnet the 2nd NIC on the router assigns, I'm guessing it's the first subnet.

dishstaller

Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter

Last reply Today at 10:27 AM · posted in The Chit Chat Club

I think we could all use a laugh - Rodney Dangerfield on Carson

Good...simple humor. Enjoy

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E92AtfTLge4

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJy0WnejlF4

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Jimbo

Today at 12:37 AM

Not Rodney, but a laugh ...

View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WHEcmortfK0?feature=share

dishstaller

Today at 10:27 AM

Sorry for posting the wrong link. Just corrected it.

dishstaller

Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter

Last reply Today at 10:17 AM · posted in The Chit Chat Club

At least 64 dead in Spanish passenger train collision

Terrible tragedy. You would think that they would have safe guards in place that would prevent something like this from happening. I guess if you are going to ride in a passenger train it might be best to get a car near the rear.

At Least 64 Dead After Two High-Speed Trains Collide In Spain | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

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Jimbo

Yesterday at 11:24 AM

dishstaller said:
Terrible tragedy. You would think that they would have safe guards in place that would prevent something like this from happening. I guess if you are going to ride in a passenger train it might be best to get a car near the rear.

At Least 64 Dead After Two High-Speed Trains Collide In Spain | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

They will have to look at the switching sections to determine WHY 2 trains were on the same track ... at the same time.

dishstaller

Today at 10:17 AM

Thought this article might be of interest to some of you who might travel via train.

The safest seat to sit on in a train

Safety experts have shared top tips on train safety after a fatal railway crash in Spain killed 69 people, including where the safest place is in an emergency.

www.dailymail.com