[Gllug] Wavefinder? DAB under Linux?

[Richard Cohen]

On Tue, 3 Sep 2002, Rev Simon Rumble wrote:

> I note that Psion's Wavefinder digital radio receiver is coming down
> in price.  I've recently become quite keen on this digital radio
> malarky.  The Beeb's 6 Music station is really really good.

Indeed - I listen to it all the time... Got a parcel from Jaffa this morning
with some videos, couple of car stickers, signed photo of Phil Jupitus and a
mouse mat (which is now on my desk at work).  I didn't even realise I'd won
the compo - I listen on the PC, and I must have been in the shower when they
announced it :-)  I won some DVDs - not yet arrived - on the Saturday
afternoon show a couple of weeks ago, too...

The music/interviews/etc. are pretty good too :-)

> http://213.38.235.185/frHome.asp?page=home.asp
>
> Sooo...  I imagine this piece of kit is pretty simple, a receiver and
> demodulator with the decoding all done in software.  It plugs into the
> USB bus.

It's a WinRadio :-(

> The software, by the look of it, is Java
> based. (http://213.38.235.185/updates/) with, I imagine, some extra
> component that does the hardware interface.
>
> So does anyone know if anyone's working on a driver?  Anyone have one
> (even running under that other OS)?

I bought on for £40 a while back - plugged it into my Linux box, and nothing
happened... went looking around on-line, and the only info I could find said
effectively "this is a WinRadio - it would take a huge amount of
knowledgable work to make it run under Linux, and no-one is working on it".
I sold it on to my manager (we'd agreed before I bought it that if I
couldn't get it working he'd buy if off me) and he's using it with a Windows
machine very happily.  Apparently it works pretty well, and there are a
couple of alternate, community-developed front-ends which are nicer than the
Psion-supplied one.  I had a look - they actually provide quite a nice API
to their driver, so it would be quite easy to write your own interface, but
theres no info for lower levels that that.

In summary - nice, relatively cheap digital radio, but Windows-only :-(

Cheers
Richard


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