FM Radio for ZTE Blade/SF

[Guest andorko]

When I tune in to a station I can't hear anything ....... a local station to me is on 105.2 fm which you can normally get with a very strong signal and perfect reception. On the radio on the SF .... can hardly hear it. Moving the headphone lead towards the sky helps a bit but not much. The only clear stations are 100.3 and 98.2.

Wondered is app problem or RDS problem with phone.

Steve

which kernel do you have? Is it the same with the original ZTE FM app?

[Guest robinhud2010]

Hey just wanted to know if v0.5.3 works on japanese jellyfish rls9 rom and whether the loudspeaker works as well :lol:

[Guest andorko]

Hey just wanted to know if v0.5.3 works on japanese jellyfish rls9 rom and whether the loudspeaker works as well :lol:

loudspeaker still not working and RDS feature works just with my kernel

[Guest wishmasterf]

So. RDS data is coming in packages. In every package there is a part of a stationID or a RadioText or TMC etc. But there are just part of them in every package. The packages not coming in order and there is a heavy loss in the packages.

eg.: a package contains just 4 characters of the radiotext (in RDSA), so i have to join them. But not every radioStation is sending the full 64 character. Some are sending just 20 or whatever length the text has.

Because of this i don't know if they changed the text or not. If you switch channel the radiotext and stationid is cleared, but if there is just a change in stationtext i don't know how could i determine it.

Can anyone explane me what car-radios do with that? I know that i havent see anything like that there, but i dont have a car-radio or another radio with rds.

In german wikipedia (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Data_System#Radio_Text_.28RT.2C_GT_2A.2C_2B.29) you can read following lines (translated by me):

--snip--

Radio Text (RT) provided additional information such as the current song and artist or contact the sender. The text is transmitted line by line, a line has a maximum of 64 characters.

--snip--

If i understand right rds is a continuous data stream, so evertime you get the first character you can delete the line. Do i understand anything wrong?

How to i override the system app with version 0.5.3? For me this version is stable enough to use it every day, so do not want to install again every reboot.

Edited January 26, 2011 by wishmasterf

[Guest Paul K]

loudspeaker still not working and RDS feature works just with my kernel

Which kernel is that. I am using r11 of Pauls 2.2 ROM. Will it work OK with that ??

[Guest wishmasterf]

Which kernel is that. I am using r11 of Pauls 2.2 ROM. Will it work OK with that ??

See the first post. follow the link. scroll to bottom an read ;-)

[Guest andorko]

Can anyone explane me what car-radios do with that? I know that i havent see anything like that there, but i dont have a car-radio or another radio with rds.

In german wikipedia (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Data_System#Radio_Text_.28RT.2C_GT_2A.2C_2B.29) you can read following lines (translated by me):

--snip--

Radio Text (RT) provided additional information such as the current song and artist or contact the sender. The text is transmitted line by line, a line has a maximum of 64 characters.

--snip--

If i understand right rds is a continuous data stream, so evertime you get the first character you can delete the line. Do i understand anything wrong?

How to i override the system app with version 0.5.3? For me this version is stable enough to use it every day, so do not want to install again every reboot.

RDS is a continous data stream , but there is a loss in the stream. So in your solution:

i get packet #2, #5, #7,#8,#1 (deleting line),#3,#4,#5,#8,#1(deleting line) -> you never see the complete text

I think you should replace the FMRadio.apk with the selected one in the /system/app

Edited January 27, 2011 by andorko

[Guest wishmasterf]

RDS is a continous data stream , but there is a loss in the stream. So in your solution:

i get packet #2, #5, #7,#8,#1 (deleting line),#3,#4,#5,#8,#1(deleting line) -> you never see the complete text

I think you should replace the FMRadio.apk with the selected one in the /system/app

As i understand right, there is a errorcorrection in rds. there is a good explanation in german wikipedia about that (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Data_System). I do not know if that help.

About the loudspeaker probelm: whats exactly the problem? only a programming problem or a bug?

[Guest oh!dougal]

As i understand right, there is a errorcorrection in rds. there is a good explanation in german wikipedia about that (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Data_System). I do not know if that help.

Error correction and reading the data into a multi-line buffer should help in allowing you to clean up the data somewhat before display.

About the loudspeaker probelm: whats exactly the problem? only a programming problem or a bug?

The stuff that the app talks to isn't exactly documented, so how alternatives can be handled isn't straightforward.

Perhaps the thing to do would be to look at a music-player app that does output to phones/speaker or bluetooth and see how it offloads its audio stream? Doing the output like the music app might be an easy way forward.

Presumably the main difficulty would be in disentangling the headphone_antenna_remains_ok code from the productive send_sound_to_headphone code (in the fm radio app) ... The impression I have from this thread is that these are handled together, outside the app.

Edited January 27, 2011 by oh!dougal

[Guest sfjnet]

Awesome work, this was the only gripe I had with 2.2, crappy radio, and now it's fixed thanks to this awesome app!

Agree 100% - absolutely excellent work. I too was shocked at how bad the radio was in 2.2, but this app has solved my problem. Thanks

[Guest taannuk]

Agree 100% - absolutely excellent work. I too was shocked at how bad the radio was in 2.2, but this app has solved my problem. Thanks

What ROM are you using? Thank you!

[Guest samjam]

Error correction and reading the data into a multi-line buffer should help in allowing you to clean up the data somewhat before display.

The stuff that the app talks to isn't exactly documented, so how alternatives can be handled isn't straightforward.

Perhaps the thing to do would be to look at a music-player app that does output to phones/speaker or bluetooth and see how it offloads its audio stream? Doing the output like the music app might be an easy way forward.

Presumably the main difficulty would be in disentangling the headphone_antenna_remains_ok code from the productive send_sound_to_headphone code (in the fm radio app) ... The impression I have from this thread is that these are handled together, outside the app.

Music player apps have digital audio which is converted to analogue in the sound-chip with a choice of outputs.

The output of the radio chip is analogue, and so doesn't go through the same routing.

There may or may not be the chance to route the radio analogue audio signal to the speaker. (Or an audio input so it can be digitized and then routed to the speaker)

[Guest wishmasterf]

Music player apps have digital audio which is converted to analogue in the sound-chip with a choice of outputs.

The output of the radio chip is analogue, and so doesn't go through the same routing.

There may or may not be the chance to route the radio analogue audio signal to the speaker. (Or an audio input so it can be digitized and then routed to the speaker)

I cant believe that there is not anyone who knows how that could get working. As i understand, the problem is that the signal we get from the fm-chip isnt digitlal, so it cant be converted to analog. there is no software-interface for analog signal isnt it?

[Guest vulpy]

@ andorko: Tried your kernel update on my UK OLED Blade and it screwed my instal BADLY to thje point where I had to re-install the whole stuff again (even the Nandroid restore failed to bring it back to normal, thnak god for Titanium) :lol:

This happened on both JJ RLS8 and RLS9

I still wish I could install the RDS feature but no clue how to get there withour screwing everything up again... ANy ideas here?

[Guest Frankish]

@ andorko: Tried your kernel update on my UK OLED Blade and it screwed my instal BADLY to thje point where I had to re-install the whole stuff again (even the Nandroid restore failed to bring it back to normal, thnak god for Titanium) :)

This happened on both JJ RLS8 and RLS9

I still wish I could install the RDS feature but no clue how to get there withour screwing everything up again... ANy ideas here?

Why not just reinstall the boot.img from JJ? :lol: That's the only thing his kernel update changes afaik.

[Guest vulpy]

Why not just reinstall the boot.img from JJ? :lol: That's the only thing his kernel update changes afaik.

Good point man, I think I was just too lazy to go command line way :) anyway, I will try the RDS feature again when one of our guys implement the kernel updates in one of their future ROMs.

Andorko, great effort thank you for that... RDS is the icing on the cake for Blade, without it it's like shooting in the dark looking for your favorite radio station !

Edited January 28, 2011 by vulpy

[Guest wishmasterf]

whats about the loudspeaker problem? not fixable?

[Guest reallordx]

whats about the loudspeaker problem? not fixable?

Not at the moment.

Possible solutions (posted some posts ago by somebody):

- Capture radio stream, write to mp3 file, playback file instead of stream and re-route this to loudspeaker

- Re-route fm-radio directly (must be possible, dunno how)

A friend of mine has a desire, which can use the loudspeaker with his fm-radio. As he's on froyo too, our problem has to be solvable (somehow).

Anyway, we would need working sourcecode of a fm-radio app, so other devs can have a look at it. Atm only andorko is working on this.

[Guest wishmasterf]

Not at the moment.

Possible solutions (posted some posts ago by somebody):

- Capture radio stream, write to mp3 file, playback file instead of stream and re-route this to loudspeaker

- Re-route fm-radio directly (must be possible, dunno how)

A friend of mine has a desire, which can use the loudspeaker with his fm-radio. As he's on froyo too, our problem has to be solvable (somehow).

Anyway, we would need working sourcecode of a fm-radio app, so other devs can have a look at it. Atm only andorko is working on this.

i think the first solution should be possible because we know enough about isnt it?

about the second solution: has the original zte-radio app the possibility to use loudspeaker? mybe we could try to ask them, or we ask htc ... maybe there is a possibility to ask google.

I found a bug: german umlauts (äüö) and ß are not displayed, there is only a questionmark(?) where the char should be.

[Guest masajr]

Si4708/09-B specsheet on page 25:

7:6 BAND[1:0] Band Select.

00 = 87.5–108 MHz (US/Europe, Default).

01 = 76–108 MHz (Japan wide band).

10 = 76–90 MHz (Japan).

11 = Reserved.

5:4 SPACE[1:0] Channel Spacing.

00 = 200 kHz (USA, Australia) (default).

01 = 100 kHz (Europe, Japan).

10 = 50 kHz

Just wondering what happens with bits 11 as Band Select and 10 as Channel Spacing?

Could we have Air Band Radio on ZTE Blade?

[Guest samjam]

I cant believe that there is not anyone who knows how that could get working. As i understand, the problem is that the signal we get from the fm-chip isnt digitlal, so it cant be converted to analog. there is no software-interface for analog signal isnt it?

It all depends where the audio-out of the radio chip is connected.

If it connects to an amplifier input that can only go to the headphones, then nothing can be done.

If it connects to an audio switch so it can be switched to somewhere else, then we need to know how to control the switch.

Maybe it will switch to come out the speaker.

Maybe it will switch to an input in which case it can be captured and the captured sound played by software in the usual way and routed to the speaker.

So forst we need to know what chip and pin the audio-out of the FM radio is connected to. Then we can work out the possibilities.

[Guest Lew247]

Could we have Air Band Radio on ZTE Blade?

Other than the fact "air band" is 108 - 136Mhz its AM not FM

FM does NOT mean 88-108Mhz, it's a mode Frequency modulation

Air band uses Amplitude Modulation - you'd hear something but nothing like it's meant to be unless the tuning steps are small enough but it just wil not sound like it should

Also in case you don't know it's actually illegal in Europe to listen to air traffic control (they don't usually do anything about it, but technically it is illegal)

[Guest wishmasterf]

Other than the fact "air band" is 108 - 136Mhz its AM not FM

FM does NOT mean 88-108Mhz, it's a mode Frequency modulation

Air band uses Amplitude Modulation - you'd hear something but nothing like it's meant to be unless the tuning steps are small enough but it just wil not sound like it should

Also in case you don't know it's actually illegal in Europe to listen to air traffic control (they don't usually do anything about it, but technically it is illegal)

I use that rom: http://android.modaco.com/content-page/323...0/#entry1588456

with the rev6 of the rom i can use your kernel changes. with latest rev7a the rom will not boot with your changes. :-(

i love your radio app with rds, so i went back to rev6 because of your radio.

Can you help me?

[Guest samjam]

I use that rom: http://android.modaco.com/content-page/323...0/#entry1588456

with the rev6 of the rom i can use your kernel changes. with latest rev7a the rom will not boot with your changes. :-(

i love your radio app with rds, so i went back to rev6 because of your radio.

Can you help me?

I think Andorko needs to offer his patches as a patch to the different ROM devs so they can put them in their next kernel.

[Guest oh!dougal]

I think Andorko needs to offer his patches as a patch to the different ROM devs so they can put them in their next kernel.

Or rather our devs need to co-operate and USE a common github for kernel source, so that the latest tweaks and fixes are available as options for all to use when compiling a custom kernel.

This seems to be an excellent example of something that really isn't going to be addable without being compiled into the kernel.

And it should also be extremely self-contained - highly unlikely to impact anything else (as long as, like any other kernel tweak, it doesn't actually crash the whole thing ...!)