WEBVTT

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Hello, I'm James Criddon, the radio futurologist,

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and this is my latest blog post from October

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the 4th. It's a review of the Deep Elec DP666

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radio receiver. Yes, I blame radio's Steve Martin,

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not that one, for this. I've been looking for

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a little travel radio for a while now, and I'd

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like something with FM and AM and shortwave on

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it. Ideally DAB and HD. This sadly has neither

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of them. I'd also like some RDS as well, so I

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know what I've tuned into in a foreign land.

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I'd like it to be small, and I'd like it to charge

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off USB -C, please. Now, I mentioned this on

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Blue Sky, and Radio's Steve Martin, that one

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but not that one, responded and recommended me

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this one, the DeepElec DP666. He said it had

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quite a few geeky settings or words to that effect,

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and my goodness, he wasn't wrong. It's about

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£55 or about $108 Australian dollars from AliExpress,

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where I bought it. It's based on a NXP TEF6686

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chip, which is a software -controlled radio.

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It comes in a little carry case. It's got a screw

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-in FM antenna. And yes, it's got a USB charging

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cable. And my goodness, is it geeky. So on my

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blog, you can see a picture of it tuned into

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triple M. And it's telling me, well, it's telling

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me various things. It's telling me that the signal

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strength is 67 .1 dB microvolts. It's got a CN.

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What's that? Something noise. Anyway, that's

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set to 41 dB at the moment for some reason. It's

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broadcasting on 104 .5 on the FM band. Its bandwidth

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is 236 kilohertz. It's got a program type of

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rock music. It's got a PS, a program segment.

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Program segment? Is that what PS stands for?

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Anyway, it's a triple M. And it's got radio text

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on there as well. Elton John on 104 .5 triple

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M, it says. And it tells me what the time is.

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And it tells me all kinds of other stuff. My

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goodness, it's geeky. And the big color touchscreen

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that it has. if you press different elements

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of the screen, you turn on different things as

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well. So it's a stereo radio station, obviously,

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but I've told it not to bother decoding the stereo

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bit. because I touched the stereo signal indicator

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to turn it into mono. And so that's what it did.

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It's got all the bands on there, lots of the

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short waves, long wave, AM, even L -band FM,

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which is empty here in Australia. You can control

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almost everything that you'd want from there.

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You can control the de -emphasis for FM. You

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can control the step and the bandwidth for AM.

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All types of things. If you tuned in to ABC Radio

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Brisbane on medium wave, it behaves OK. It's

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got a telescopic antenna. I suspect for better

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medium wave reception, you probably want a proper

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AM antenna, but it worked fine for all of the

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AM stations that I would expect to listen to.

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It suffers a little from some whistly interference

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from somewhere, but given that my house may have

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just a few microprocessors in it, frankly, it's

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not doing too badly. If you touch the RDS icon

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on the screen, it gives you even more information.

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My goodness, with lots of additional information.

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So, for example, 4ZZZ, the community station

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here, they use RDS very nicely. Dynamic program

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type for each program, although 4ZZZ do have

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a little bit of fun deliberately setting heavy

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rock shows as easy listening, which is a little

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joke of theirs, I understand. There's no EON

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or RT plus being broadcast on four triple Z.

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B105 and triple M do broadcast RT plus, but it's

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just blank. Good job, SCA. It would support alternative

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frequency. And if I turn the feature on, it would

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also switch to the best signal as well. If I

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wanted it to, it's very smart. The FM receiver

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in this radio is brilliant. It picks up all kinds

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of radio stations here, stations that I've never

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received before on any other FM tuners I own,

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many from the Gold Coast and further away, most

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with full RDS. It's a very good FM receiver indeed,

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and the additional information on the big screen

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is lovely. I listened in Canada to CBC Radio

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1 Calgary, where it worked excellently. It sounded

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just as fine as a little portable radio will,

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with a surprisingly decent speaker. There's a

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headphone socket on one side. There's a full

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physical power switch underneath, so you don't

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need to worry about the power button being pressed

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accidentally. running down the battery, which

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I believe lasts for 17 hours, so that's not too

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bad. The volume control and the tuning knob are

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both physical. The tuning knob is also used to

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navigate through the menus. The build is a bit

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weird. The case is made out of the same material

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that PCBs are made from, and I'm not quite sure

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how long -lasting that would be. It feels quite

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brittle to me. Perhaps that's why it comes with

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a nicely padded travel case. Who knows? And anyway,

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that's not all. The unit has Bluetooth inside

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for a reason I haven't got any understanding

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of. I can't seem to pair it to anything. The

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manual doesn't mention it other than says that

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it's got Bluetooth inside. So that's nice. But

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the unit also has Wi -Fi inside, which is relatively

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easy to set up. And that enables you to connect

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this radio to some open software called XDR -GTK,

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which allows you to control the radio receiver.

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from a computer. And if you use that computer,

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if you use that software on a Mac, then, well,

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firstly, I had to build it from source, which

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was surprisingly unpainful. But it gives you

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all kinds of information on the screen as well,

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which is very nice. You can use that to switch

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stations and view RDS information. I believe

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you can get it to tune into AM. on there as well.

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I couldn't quite make that work, but I'm sure

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that it's possible. The USB -C port lets you

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charge the device. You can run the radio under

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USB -C power as well. It's also capable of communications,

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and I don't know quite what you can do with it

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other than use XDRGTK on a wired connection.

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I believe you can also use a piece of software

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called RDS Spy. Interestingly, it's got firmware,

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which is open, open source firmware. I'm using

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the firmware, which is called Megatron Mod 17,

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which came on the device. But that's not the

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official firmware. The official firmware was

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from March, but some folks worked out how to

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get both the buttons and the touchscreen working

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on the device. So the new firmware, which is

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installed when you buy it from DeepElec directly,

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now works with the touchscreen as well as the

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buttons. So that's very cool. Now, I believe

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that this radio receiver may also be able to

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power one of the FMDX web servers. Now, if you've

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not discovered those, These are really cool.

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They are radio tuners plugged into the internet.

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Go to servers .fmdx .org. So you can just listen

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to the radio wherever you'd like. It's not very

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obvious when you connect to one, but if you press

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the play button, then you get to hear the audio,

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obviously, as well. I'm guessing that you probably

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need to plug the radio into an always -connected

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computer like a Raspberry Pi. But yeah, you could

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potentially do that. And the open source firmware

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for this chipset is by a team called FMDX. They

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take donations, by the way, at buymeacoffee .com

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slash FMDX. And the team behind it have been

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featured in Radio World magazine as well. So

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you know that they're pucker. And now what I

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was hoping is that this radio could also be used

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somehow to decode DAB. Sadly, it can't. But the

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Radio World article says that they are working

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on developing a DAB Plus tuner. And there is

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a separate DAB Plus device which uses a different

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chipset. But wouldn't it be excellent if it was

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all in the one box? So it probably doesn't come

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as a surprise that I would love to learn how

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to help to add DAB Plus to this device or something

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similar, because that would make this radio absolutely

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perfect. If you want to see pictures of it, you'll

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find it linked from the show notes. And as ever,

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keep listening.