| Product: |
Wavefinder interactive digital radio |
| Date: |
23/12/01 (225 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Clarity of sound
Disadvantages: Is a bit of a devil to install
James Cridland's entry is so exhaustive that I have little to add! I have been trying to get one of these beasts to work for 2 weeks now, my next step in getting "Cyclops" to work is to get an outside aerial installed (or should that be outstalled?)
A few points, though. Although you can record direct from the application in, as you say, MP2 pr MP3, there is no reason why you shouldn't use whatever recorder you normally use and so end up with an editable .WAV file. Both MP2 and MP3 are encoded at 192kbps which, in MP3 terms, makes them a bit big - represents a compression ratio of about 7:1.
Regarding the software, there are 2 alternative versions available now, DAB BAR and WAVELIGHT (or WAVELITE) the former being free the latter £25.00 to register. Both get approval by users and are preferred to the supplied stuff which quite apart from anything else, takes up far too much room. If you go to www.wavefinder.com and look at the chat room, all sorts of hints are available.
As I say, I have been doing battle with the beast for 2 weeks but despite the maps published by BBC and Psion which assure me I am in a strong signal area, I am not. I have had it working for a short time first thing in the morning and from this have discovered the superiority of the sound. FM was vaunted as the great system for noise-free sound when it first came out - wrong. Just as analogue TV suffers from co-channel interference in certain weather conditions, so does FM radio. Added to that are the clicks and buzzes picked up on the mains from domestic stuff switching in and out (maybe curable by using a mains surge protector), and the result can be pretty awful.
But my experience in installing the hardware and software is pretty much the same as James's, it took a few attempts but in the end, the system knows it's there and does its level best to get a signal. It is odd having normal FM and DAB on at the same time, DAB lags
behind - so don't set your watch by the DAB time signal!
Regading price, PCWorld have been selling them at £100 and had a special offer at half that a couple of weeks back. Dig around using Yellow Pages and you might find a few are still available, but Psion don't make them any more (they were made in Austria). eBay usually has a few on offer (search for "Psion Wavefinder)" and they seem to go for about £60-£70 plus carriage each.
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