iPod FM -- outstanding!!!!

[TexasRockbox]

Thank you so much for adding the FM tuner function, generally it works great.

Ipod 5.5g 120GB, Rockbox version: r23808

Some items:

1. In "Scan" mode: when selecting play/pause the sound mutes but when unmuting the station is not received, I have to change frequency and back to the station to receive it.

2. The scans for presets went very fast and only found one station.  The earphones were plugged into the remote headphone jack.

3. Sometimes when plugging in the FM remote, the station is not received in stereo.  Unplugging and replugging in the remote usually corrects the problem.

4. Is it possible to adjust the "stereo switching threshold" .  Strong stations above about 101.MHz seem to not be in stereo.  RDS information is received though.

5. The Auto scan sometimes bypasses every station not in stereo -- maybe because of item #4.  Sometimes it work, though.

6. The Volume control does not seem to work either at the remote or the main jack

[Creposucre]

You got almost 100%  , you just missed the radio menu item not displayed if you plug the remote in this menu (work in progress) and the equalizer that does not affects sound (may be impossible due to the codec hardware). But I thought it's quite usable and it would be easier to commit and fix that later.

For the items:
1: work in progress
2: the headphones act as the remote tuner antenna, so it's a normal behaviour.
3-4: the radio is always in stereo, but the tuner switch itself to mono depending on signal quality. So the stereo/mono label is only affected by the "force mono mode". I'm working on this label to reflect the actual radio mode.
5: this can be due to signal quality, but I also met a case were the iap packets were cutted: this lead to that behaviour.
6: the remote can control at the moment the main jack volume, but the ipod volume control doesn't affect yet the remote volume in real time, only at the start-up.

Thank you for your report! I'm glad you like it 

[TexasRockbox]

You're very welcome!  I didn't know if we'd ever see this function for the iPod but you did excellent work.  Thank you for implementing the RDS function.  The USA was slow to adopt RDS but it seems to be used much more now than it was five years ago.  Most of my local stations now utilize RDS.

The Tuner is configured for the USA region.

A little more information on #1:  When muting a station at 93.7 and then unmuting I was receiving a station at 88.1.  Changing the frequency to 93.9 and back to 93.7 worked around the problem.

[playitleo]

I have been reading all day about trying to get FM Radio to work on my 5.5G Rockbox'd Ipod. 

So if I am interpreting this right, I need an accessory from Apple to get FM Radio to work?  Or is this a special patch or plugin?

[Creposucre]

Yes, you need a FM remote (the tuner hardware is in this remote) like this one: http://www.ipodtips.com/ipoders/jake/ipod_reviews/2006113_ipod_fm_remote/ and a normal build, no extra patch needed.

[playitleo]

Thanks so much.  I also found this one:

 http://www.amazon.com/Griffin-Connector-Radio-Remote-Control/dp/B000BRJDB4/ref=dp_cp_ob_e_title_2,

very cheap!!

[Creposucre]

I can't promiss that it will work correctly, though.

FM remote SVN code is based on the apple FM remote, but it should work fine. You won't get RDS text, according to the description.

Anyway, at this price it's not risky

[nls]

the equalizer that does not affects sound (may be impossible due to the codec hardware).

DSP does not work on fm audio on any of our targets AFAIK since the output audio from the fm chip is usally just routed directly to an output in the codec. To be able to use DSP on fm audio you would need to change that system to work more like recording wher you would "record" a chunk of audio to a buffer, run whatever DSP you want on that and then play it back, quite a bit more complex.

[Creposucre]

I came to this conclusion too and like you said, it's a bit complex. I don't think it worth the expense.