radio /gadgets/Greek ethics

This girl needs your help

2011-10-08T14:27:00.003+03:00

This girl needs your help ! This title might be somehow misleading as in the reality this girl is not a real person , but mere a fiction person designed by a frnd of me who is intending to prepare a fiction story based on the survey I just carried out

A second person made several additions (little exaggerated )to make same levels tensions between the interested members of the story
In my part I only conveyed this research and just compiled the statistical results।
Before of everything let me first describe for what the story stands by posting the translated the text into English
-------------------

Here is an interesting story tçat came after a discussion between my cousin - the founder if the idea - and other friends and I just share to you!

Please read the story very carefully before replying ! (otherwise you l not get the story -it is condensed wording )

In our story, imagine a girl of ca 20 years of age with a big dilemma to define her life’s future (and career)

She has the opportunity to manage a group of companies from her father ,as she is for the moment honorary manager. She studies now marketing /management and already has offered many interesting proposals.

Her mother is a tremendous beauty and excellent singer and instrument player (violin). She inherited both characteristics of her. Her first music album won great sales. As even nicer than her mom she has been picked and photographed for a magazine (and sharply raised the sales of that magazine) became Mrs Young and very shortly a supermodel. She now under accepting a proposal from an international modeling house

She now has a dilemma which way to follow. If she accepts the proposal her career will go international (and possible live abroad ). As a singer she already had many proposals including singing for Eurovision. Her business abilities helped also the company group well . Or in two words she is ‘the absolute star’. (ie all need her same level )

You are now under the help of her. Which way do you suggest to choose?
1. Become a manager (business woman).
2. Follow modeling.
3. Follow singing.
4. Find a solution to do all together???
5 Any other solution?

added :
0: your rating of the subject ........../10

Profession: ………………………..

------------------

This was the text made in A6 papers for filling out by the persons questioned . My method to do this survey is a bit weird

-asking first my friends
-asking people ‘in the roads’ ie unknown to me , especially the times I and my family enjoyed outside or afternoons, ie hobby wise
-asking students as they are closer to the age of the girls in reference (a more systematic approach also by time ) . I lived near the university before marrying . And my aim was to stop after carrying out 150 leaflets .
- and several people via internet . This was the lowest response rate as only 6 from 25 person s asked replied
Below are the results of this survey for a total of 151 leafs:

A 53% (business woman )
B: 5.9% (top model )
C: 12.5% (singer )
D: 23% (combination )
E: 7% (other solution )

There were several cases in E showing by time combination eg first to do C then A that I added to the D case BY the way here are several of the [OTHER ] replies and I keep them all regardless of the stupidness of the reply :
1। Mother (comment :possibly the most serious of all, but she will have any career future? )
2. Do charity (a response from a Theology student, still accepted but the questions remains for her career )
3. Escape from everything And two stupid replies !
4. Become porn star !! (as Janne Jameson for example )
5. Become …….my girl friend !!! (haha )

Something about the option 4 : I had 3 replies ! Now it is a common sense that the newly born porn industry will be possibly the only profiteering , as most of the other business are gradually lowering । We are now in the most difficult crisis ever

Mean rating : 7.1

Students:
48 responses from the above come from undergraduate students Here are the results:

A: 58% (business woman )
B: 18,3% (top model )
C: 10% (singer )
D: 16% (combination )
E: 6% (other ) [are the 1-4 replies from the above OTHER listing ]

Mean rating : 7।4

As in result the students shown a bigger interest for top model career though combination number declines

In the comments you will find my opinion too

Μια κοπελα χρειαzεται τη βοηθεια σας (μια ερευνα !)

2011-10-08T13:48:00.008+03:00

Μια διαφορετική έρευνα !!

Πριν από περίπου 1 μήνα και κάτι πραγματοποίησα μια πρωτότυπη έρευνα μετα από τμια αρκετά παράξενη ιδέα που είχε ένας φίλος μου .
Για να μην μακρηγορώ παρακάτω αναφέρω το χαρτάκι της έρευνας, όπου περιγράφεται αρκετά αναλυτικά και η ιδέα του :

Μετά από μια συζήτηση που είχε η τρελοπαρέα μας, μας ήρθε μια φαεινή ιδέα και ζητούμε την βοήθεια σας

Σημ ¨Οπου τρελο-παρέα εννοεί την συμμετοχή 3 ατόμων Ο φίλος μου , ένας κοινός φίλος και εγω που κατέγραψα και συμπύκνωσα της ιδέα σε ένα μικρό χαρτάκι (4 χαρτάκια στο Α4 ) . Γραμμένο έτσι για να προϊδεάσει με χιούμορ

Μια κοπέλα ας την ονομάσουμε Κάτια είναι περίπου 20 ετών και βρίσκεται σε ένα ‘τρι’λημα:

Τριλημα: δίλλημα με τρεις επιλογές. Λεξη γραμμένη επίτηδες για να δημιουργήσει εντυπώσεις! (ψυχολογικό κόλπο!)

Από τον πατέρα της έχει κληρονομήσει μια σειρά επιχειρήσεων των οποίων είναι επίτιμη πρόεδρος . Γι’ αυτό τον λόγο σπούδασε μάρκετινγκ και εντυπωσίασε με την ικανότητα της στις διοικητικές της επιλογές
Από την μητέρα της έχει κληρονομήσει την εμφάνιση και την φωνή της. (Η μάνα της είναι φοβερή τραγουδίστρια) Με την άριστη φωνή της έκανε ένα άλμπουμ με μεγάλες πωλήσεις Από εμφάνιση ξεπερνάει σε ομορφιά την γνωστή μας Τζούλια . Στο ήδη μεγάλο ‘βιογραφικό’ της είχε κάνει εξώφυλλο σε περιοδικό (που αίφνης πούλησε πολλές χιλιάδες φύλλα), πέτυχε τον τίτλο της μις Γιαγκ και έκανε εμφανίσεις σαν top model. Ήδη της έκαναν πρόταση από το εξωτερικό

Σημ:περιττό να αναφέρω ότι η υπόθεση αυτή είναι εντελώς θεωρητική । δηλ η κύπελλα είναι φαντιαστικο ατομο । Από την έρευνα που έκανα , κάποιος ερωτηθείς θεώρησε πολύ υπερβολική την υπόθεση , κυττα και στην επομενη σημνειωση

Στην ηλικία αυτή ,λίγο πριν τελειώσει τις σπουδές της, σκεφτόταν ποιόν δρόμο καριέρας να διαλέξει .
Σαν φωτομοντέλο πετυχαίνει διεθνή καριέρα. Σαν τραγουδίστρια έχει ήδη προτάσεις ακόμη και να συμμετάσχει στην Eurovision. Σαν επιχειρηματίας , ο όμιλος των επιχειρήσεων περιμένει τις ιδέες της.¨

Νέα σημ :Η Ιδέα του ενδιαμέσου φίλου ήταν να μεγεθύνει το πρόβλημα έτσι ώστε οι τάσεις υποχρέωσης της κοπέλας να είναι σχεδόν ίσες .

Εσείς πιο δρόμο προτείνετε?

Α: Business woman ? Βαθμολογήστε το θεμα ! ............./10
B: Top model
Γ: τραγουδίστρια
Δ: και τα τρία !
Ε: άλλο (τι? )………………………………

Η έρευνα αυτή πραγματοποιήθηκε σε διάφορα σημεία της Θες/νικης , κυρίως στο πανεπιστήμιο , σε φοιτητές, γιατί υποθέτω είναι πιο κοντά στην ηλικία και νοοτροοπια της , στην περιοχή Συντριβανιου και στο Ρετζικι ΟΙ Ερωτηθέντες ήταν (αρκετοί) γνωστοί μου αλλά και αγνωστοι … Περίοδος περίπου ένας μήνας (αρχή με τέλος Σεπτέμβρη ), με στόχο να συγκεντρωθούν 150 χαρτάκια!

Τελικά αποτελέσματα σε 151 χαρτάκια ¨

Α 53% (business woman )
Β: 5.9% (top model )
Γ: 12.5% (τραγουδίστρια )
Δ: 23% (συνδυασμός )
Ε: 7% (άλλο )

Στο Δ συγχώνευσα και τις περιπτώσεις (περ 4) που κάποιος έβαζε πχ Γ μετα Α

Τα άλλα (ολες οι απαντησεις σοβαρες η ανοητες ) :
1 Τζούλια !! (3 ατομα ! )
2 ……γκόμενα μου!!!! (η πιο απρόβλεπτη απάντηση από ένα τραπεζικό υπάλληλο )
3 μητέρα
4 charity –κοινωφελής σκοπός (αναμενόμενη απάντηση από μια φοιτ Θεολογιας! )
5 ξεφύγει από όλα και ζει ηρεμη ζωη
Τα 2 ,3 4 βέβαια δεν δίνουν ουσιώδη απάντηση , αλλά τέλος πάντων. Πάντως τα 3&4 το θεωρώ από το πιο σοβαρα

Κάποια άτομα θεώρησαν την υπόθεση ιδιαίτερα επικαιρη। 2-3 άτομα την θεώρησαν ανόητη

Μέση τελική βαθμολογία 7.1

Φοιτητες:
Από αυτά τα 48 χαρτάκια ήταν από φοιτητές। Επιπλεον 10 ατομα δεν απαντησαν
Τα αποτελέσματα των φοιτητών φθέχουν ως εξής :
Α: 58% (business woman )
Β: 18,3% (top model )
Γ: 10% (τραγουδίστρια )
Δ: 16% (συνδυασμός )
Ε: 6% (άλλο )

Μέση τελική βαθμολογία 7.4

ΟΠως φαινεται οι φοιτητες εβαλαν σε ψηλοτερη βαθμολογια το top model

Several ideas for improving the e-readers

2010-12-11T16:47:00.000+02:00

Several ideas for improving the e-readers

After using this e-reader I had several ideas for improving it but I am not sure on how much these idas could be feasible

1. Improve the contrast of the back screen providing that e-ink tech permits :

a) by making the display be more whiter . This display is relatively gray

b) the black to be even darker to 100%

2. Using zoom, un-zoom instead of the font resize (font resize to work as secondary feature ):

3. Touch screen as added feature to the e-ink tech , for a easier navigation , and more compatible to the Ipad

4. And search function to work quite fast . The E600 worked very slowly , tested the E1200 in the space of ?? but did nt work properly

And notice that the idea of thin card displays was one of my ideas of mid 80s .

e-reader turbo X EB600 review

2010-11-20T12:32:00.002+02:00

Notice: this blog originally has been published /uploaded to my main multiply site , with updates kept in the end as follow up mesages and here is just for a special reason

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Very important : Please look at the coments on the end with many updates

You may not know that I am a avid book reader. Since I was young I was advanced by two yeas in the high school reading books on maths and chemistry of the university . by the time , as student of marketing and economics and the time I was learning English language I was reading American books of marketing advertising and public relations and nearly little later with books on selling which was my favorite reading . Since then upon the times I was adding in reading to some other specialized book areas such as related to radio and electronics , food and nutrition (a subject that I am still interested) computer techniques and programs with some interest in photopaint etc , and till now with some interest in baby caring , by reading magazines and books

With the advent of book searching via the net I have collected some vey interesting books that some of them have already been printed …..

… until IO have bought very recently a e-book reader that is supposed to stop printing !

This e reader have been bought from Plaisio , a chain store of computer systems and peripherals sold under the name turbo x E B600 , which is the brand name of mostly OEM products from supposedly China . This e reader uses the e ink technology a property patent from E ink company using micro bubbles to orientate in a thin film screen

More onfo can be obtained from these sites : http://www.eink.com/technology/howitworks.html and here http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/high-tech-gadgets/e-ink.htm/printable which is more analytical (the copany making this film )

In this article I will analyze my impressions of this small and tiny reader

This reader is quite small , smaller than A5 paper and quite thin , thinner than my mobile phone using a 6 inch screen

(

Its format is very minimal using 4+1 navigation buttons. At the right of this picutre there ar the buttons for font sizing

And hereis a picture with the buttons on the left pane : First button goes for multimendia (smething i am not interested ), lanscape mode , exit mode(frm eradding mode ) and property mode (all adjustments including status bar etc )

The company claims that a power charge can support ca 7000 pages or 30 hours of button operation …

Its inside memory of ca 375MB contains the ebook guide in the main directory and n separate directory ca 60 books in pdf format , which are under the public domain . Several of them are Shakespeare’s Romeo nd Juliet , Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, The art of war and many others and only two Greek e-books .

Navigation is quite simple

- the reader is normally set to being switched always on . This is in contrast to most electronic appliances m because once a page is applied , no electricity required to keep the bubbles in their position ! In its off condition there is still a picture on the screen

- A memory slot is also available using SD cards with memories up to 4 GB, The company Plaisio suggests to insert the SD card with the power off …

- These are the file formats that the reader supports : pdf , epub, html ,chm ,txt , rtf ,prc and image files as bmp lpg and gif

-Directory listing is of 3 modes , the basic can show only the titles , the second shows the page name and a thumbnail of the file and the third does it on two columns

This is the analytical mode

THis is the landscape file mode

-Directory listing also supports direct access to the flash memory and files are shown mixed with a descriptive mark on the screen. ON the above picture is this shown on the exterme right of the dir listing There is ability to sort files by title , by author

-Opening a file is quite simple by just pressing the [enter ] in a file . In just 1-3 seconds most files have been loaded, depending on the file size . chm files however require much more time , a 3.5 MB file requires about 40 secs!

Once a file is opened , there is the ability to change the font size with the buttons located in the right part of the reader . The correct page layout can be seen using the font off or size ‘1’ .
The 2^nd button from the left can turn the view into landscape . This happens also in the dir listing.

Navigation is made with the 4 buttons . Left and right up and down work correctly for the directory listings but in reading mode left/up and right/down arrows do same work . Could expect a better solution

Now , testing the reader I have found several interesting and peculiar things a follows:

First e ink is not 100% white . See this picture :

It seems eink is 60% gray leveled comapring to the pure white

-Resizing fonts (numbers 2-7 )in pdfs with layouts , destroys the format in full separating the pictures at the ‘end’ of the virtual page . Landscaping retains the format in the font off option (1) but splits the page into two parts upper and lower. Pages with very small upper and lower margins suffer from truncation ….(and that’s still debating in several cases )

For example this page

wit font resizing pctures beasme this way . I think that Adibe erader which is built in did this fault

In most cases the fonts this way are still quite small , at least 4-5 pixels . Possibly better results could be made if the screen could be 9 or more inches But since these big models require more than …..€600 you can say this is sufficient . Sometimes a…. magnifying glass can help a lot!!!

-Pdfs with scanned pictures result in just page resize . Lanscape orientation can show normally the upper and the lower half into page parts

-Landscape pdfs are correctly shown in the landscape mode

-IN a very condensed , small font , 3 column file , resizing it causes more small-ling of the characters size !!

- Table layout once font is increased from off , is destroyed and text is shown as it was a copy paste from a html file into wordpad

- Most photos can be shown correctly !

- Since the purchase I have used for ca 6 hours with continous play . The battery was on the half charge as shown in the screen but in this time the battery was drained off though on screen it shown a ¼ charge ratio.I then charged for cxa 1,5 hr time and shown a full battery but with just 3 minutes of button play the battery level was back to the middle!!!

And on the end this is the question : to e read or not to e-read ? As for the moment I am with mixed impressions . Have seen some more moels on another chain store with somehow very small price differences and on other models (Cool reader , be book )

Μια μουσικη ερευνα

2009-02-07T20:06:00.004+02:00

Σχετικα με μια ερευνα ...

Πριν απο λιγοκαιρο εκανα μια ερευνα σε μια μικρη περιοχη της θεσσαλονικης μουσικου τυπου , με στοχο να παρατηρησω κατα ποσο γνωστοι ειναι καποιοι παλιοι καλλιτεχνες κυριως στις νεωτερες ηλικιες

Κατ αρχην μη νομιζετε οτι ολα τα παρακατω ονοματα τα εχω υποψη. γμωριζω τους περισσοτερους εκτος απο τους 2 ρεμπετες αν και για τους συγκεκριμενους δεν ειμαι σιγουρος αν ειναι παλιοι η καινουργιοι .Περιμενω απο εσας το σχολιο σας !

Λοιπον τι ειναι αυτη η ερευνα:
1. Η αρχικη ιδεα αναφερθηκε παραπανω. το αρχικο εναυσμα ηταν πολυ περιερο. Δυο μερες νωριτερα ειχα διαβασει καπου το ονομα Μai Κuraki μια αποτις γνωστοτερες τραγουδιστριες στην Ιαπωνια . Ανακλαστικα το ονομα αυτο μου θυμισε μια παλια ηθοποιο του 60 ονοματι Μαριαννα Κουρακου (την θυμαται κανενας σας; ) , την οποια συχνα η γυναικα μου την βλεπει κυριως σε ταινιες του Ξανθοπουλου ....Ετσι συνειρμικα θυμηθηκα τα παιδικα μου χρονια με καπιους τραγουδιστες της εποχης εκεινης και ισως λιγο πιο μετα

2. H διαδικασια μου:
Κατ αρχην εφτιαξα χαρτακια σχηματος Α7 (μισες διαστασεις του Α5 ) με την παρακατω λιστα .
Η ερευνα κρατησε 2 μερες ρωτωντας ατομα απο το κεντρο της Θεσ/νικης, κυριως γνωστους . Σε συνολο 56 ατομα , 3 απο αυτα δεν ηταν γνωστοι μου.
Την πρωτη μερα τα χαρτακια εγραφαν μονο την παρακατω λιστα , και τους ρωτουσα την ακριβη τους ηλικια (τους αντρες!) .Την δευτερη μερα διορθωσα τον πινακα βαζοντας ηλικιακες ομαδες , οπου τσεκαραν κυριως οι συνεντευξιαζομενοι . Αυτο εγινε κυριως για τις κυριες !(δηλ για να μην αποκαλυψουν την ηλικια τους ... )

Απο τα 56 χαρτακια , ακυρωσα 5 λογω ελλειψης ηλικιας (ηταν απο την πρωτη μερα )

Λοιπον η λιστα αποτελεσματων με βαση την ηλικιακη κατηγορια¨

Ηλικια	20-30	30-40	40-50	50-60	> 60	Hits
Κατερίνα Κανάρη		1		2	2	5
Μπαμπης Γκολες	3	5	6	10	2	26
Γωργος Σαλαμπασης	4	3	6	9	2	24
Πολυς Κερμανιδης	2	2	7	1	3	25
Μαριαννα Κουρακου	1	2	5	6	2	16
Μαρινα Γιαννοπουλου			1	2		3
Κωστης Χρηστου		1	3	9	3	16
Θανασης Χαρος				2	1	3
Τερης Χρησος	5	6	8	13	3	35
Ανδρεας Ζακυνθυνακης	1			3	1	5
Λιζα Κατικαριδου				1	1	2
Ριτα Αμπατζη			1	3		4
Ατομα που ερωτηθηκαν	11	13	12	12	3	51

Στην λιστα δεν εχω βαλει την σφραγιδα μου !
Απο οτι φαινεται για την ηλικια των 20 υπηρξαν περιπου οι μισοι που γνωριζαν
Τα πραματα ηταν καλυτερα για την ηλικια των 30 και λιγο καλυτερα για την ηλικια των 40 .
Αλλα οι 50ρηδες ηταν οι πλεον γνώστες .

Μια συντομη περιγραφη για τα ονοματα, απο οσο γνωριζω . Αν καποιος ξερει κατι παραπανω ας μου στειλει μια απαντηση / αποψη με reply εδω .

Κατερινα Καναρη / Μαρινα Γιαννοπουλου: τραγουδιστριες στυλ Μανωλη Αγγελοπουλου /πανυγηρτζιδικα !
για καποιους αναρωτιεμαι μηπως μπερδευτικαν με την Μαρινα μια ποπ τραγουδιστρια του 60 (γιεγιεδικα )
Θανασης Χαρος :αυτος διαφημιζονταν 'το καλυτερο βιολι της εποχης' στο 80.Μουσικοσυνθετης για τις προαναφερομενες τραγουδιστριες.
Γιωργος Σαλαμπασης :λαικος του 70-80, γνωστος απο το 'σ αγαπαω μ ακους'.
Πολυς Κερμανιδης : γνωστος απο το τα πλοια πεθαινουν στα λιμανια ,περιπου ιδια εποχη.
Μαριανα Κουρακου : γνωστη ηθοποιος του 60 συμπρωταγωνιστρια (?) του Ξανθοπουλου σε πολλες ταινιες του .
Κωστης Χρηστου: τραγουδιστης της ποπ και ελαφριας απο την εποχη των 70 -80 . Αν δεν κανω λαθος πηρε βραβειο για το τραγουδι του 'χιλιες φορες' στο φεστιβαλ Θεσ/νικης στα μεσα 70
Τερης Χρυσος : σχετικα παλίοτερος απο τον Κωστη Χρηστου καπου μεσα στο 65 ?
Ανδρεας Ζακυνθινακης: βαρυ λαικος κατα το 80 . Το πιο γνωστο του 'επαναστατω' .
Λιζα Κατικαριδου : η Λιζετα Νικολαου στο πατρικο της ονομα. Μονο καπιοι ποντιοι γνωριζαν το πατρικο της.!

Τον Γκολε και την Αμπατζη δεν τους γνωριζω!

Απο τα παραπανω οπως φαινεται ο πλεον γνωστος και σε ολες τις ηλικιες ειναι ο Τερης Χρυσος (35 ψηφοι ) , ακολουθουμενος απο τον Μπαπη Γκολε (26) , τον Κερμανιδη (25) και τον Σαλαμπαση (24)

Κανενα αλλο σχολιο . Περιμενω τις αποψεις σας !

MEDIA publication offers : a good solution against piracy?

2008-11-22T20:08:00.015+02:00

MEDIA publication offers : a good solution against piracy?

Printed media enclosures are a custom in Grece many years ago . Below you will find some of the facts concerned with the history of media enclosures , by the amateur view of a media observer looking regularly the local newsstands, and referring with approximate times

Here is a short parenthesis that refers to the status of piracy in Greece that explains in short the reasons media entered into these offers . In its 2006 edition IFPI showed a 50% level of music piracy for Greece , ranking them one of the top 10 countries in earth in piracy level. But considering that the lower salary todays in Greece is Eu 750 , the price of a legal CD is at least 20, is too expensive . The pirate CDs sell for Eu5 with pirate DVDs around 7-10.As far as I can remember this was also a quite long 'tradition' still from the cassette time , when tapes on 70s and 80s were sold in …baskets. But with the worst ever audio. Even music shops those old times had higher earnings selling cassettes recorded from LPs in their semipro decks . Today most of the market is driven by several mega stores in the main centre of the city and African people selling pirate copies Nearly all traditional music shops have been disappeared (except some selling only 'vintage' LPs )

The start of media enclosures came from 2 magazines of the early 90s using material in their monthly issues:

· A hard rock magazine of early 90s , offered one CD with full albums from alternative hard rock groups or mix material from various hard rock groups.

· A cinema magazine offered a video tape with selected movies of the artistic/alternative cinema. This magazine still continues

In about 95-96 a small size TV magazine was the first offering , a song collection, in each weekly issue , from popular singers in CD with full plastic cover . However in about 1- 1,5 year after , the magazine ceased its publications due to unknown reasons , possibly due to low market

Those times , if I am not wrong , was the times of coupons . One of them highest selling newspapers offered with ca 40 +10 spare coupons a big collection of classic music and little later another collection with operas,

A specialized magazine called Pista (stage ), same period , involved entirely in Greek folk music , offered one CD with 'underground' folk music promoting singers of the second and third class.

This practice arose the interest of other magazines and publications including … detergents and other commodities to sell music CDs from that time. As for example a newspaper called El Typos , offered for several weeks one Cd with traditional song collection. Dixan the well known detergent offered Latin hits.

IN ca 2004 Eleftherotypia a left wing newspaper, "offering for the knowledge", as per their motto, was the first newspaper offering one VCD for free, with documentaries from National Geographic channel, in its Saturday issue. CDs were offered in carton envelope designed with pictures of the documentary . This collection has been replaced with history documentaries from BBC and later with movies from alternative stage

Soon other newspapers offered nearly the same:

Imerisia , an economics newspaper, their offerings successor, in its Saturday issue offered DVDs from their collection ,mainly alternative movies , from the national and international cinema. This offer was with ca 2 Euro markup price , compared to the plain newspaper. It used the standard (thick )plastic DVD box

The next newspaper was Ethnos, offering selected movies from alternative stage , but soon changed the package into CD envelope with mainstream movies ..

From 2005-6 and then , nearly all newspapers and magazines (more particularly TV mags ) use CD/DVD offers in their weekend issues with mainly blockbuster movies :

The only exception is for Kathimerini , a center line -politically- newspaper that continues to use the traditional 40x 60 cm format , uses documentaries from various sources including National geographic /BBC.

And here are the most interesting cases form the nation-wide newspapers and magazines nowadays :

The listing is still not complete but will add a few more entries as ASAP

Newspapers:

Espresso , a gossip newspaper , in mid 2007 in its Sunday edition , started offering a compilation of hits from Greek singers and still continues .. From their 30^th iissue they offered a series of movies from classic comedians, as eg Luis de Funes . Starting March 2008 , its Saturday issue includes a full album from legendary western rock groups Among the groups are Boston , Judas Priest, Saxon and others

Thema , the highest sold Sunday newspaper, offers blockbusters and sporadically Greeks. Movies passed via this newspaper are Zorba the greek, Miss Congeniality , Lake house , Blue velvet , Finding Neverland, Die hard 1 / 2 , keeping mum, View from the top ,Enemy at the gates and more Several fo these movies have after half and more year aired in the Greek television.In the mid November hey offer 4 Cd albums from well known singers ,one per week . Here on the right corner is Mitropanos one singer of more than 40 years of singing history

Elefterotypia the above referred very popular newspaper ,once per month , offers a thematic 3-movie subject collection. There are famous movies but of the era of 90s and then. Several subjects so far included for Nazis , Agatha Crhistie , UFOs ,time plays ,thrillers and more subjects to follow. On the pic is the 3 DVD collection of Agatha Christie

Ethnos the above refered newspaper on August 08 offered for the whole month each 'working day' from their stock 'material' including from Thema's collection, that has more recently been acquired by Ethnos. They still continue to offer each Sunday with newer DVDs

Here is Eleftheros Typos another newspaper that offered a series books from DK on management

On August 2008 everyday they offered one CD or DVD from their collection with Greek movies each Saturday for example , or international movie each Sunday.

Vima the most selling nationwide newspaper(after Thema ) , offers classical music every Saturday with the auspices of Deutsche Gramophon

Magazines :

Pista , the first music magazine offering CDs , is today publishing two monthly music magazines under the names Pista and Palko (both mean stage !)offering 3 CDs for a €10 price . Pista os for popular music and Palko for traditional music

Zapping : A quite popular TV magazine . In its 'full edition', they offer a 4 CD collection from popular singers , with 2 Cds each issue . Cost of full 4CD case € 14 .

Tiletheatis : With contract with Finos - a famous Greek movie studio - they offer a Greek blockbuster movie from 60's Cost per issue: €7 comparing to 1.5 for magazine alone.

Another paradox example for company offering oriented enclosures:

A series of publications, owned by a group that owns a TV channel , a book and mag /newspaper publishing house and several radio stations. .

The publishing house called Modern Times , publishes the economic newspaper Ependitis (investor ). Starting from ca 2005 it offered in its only Saturday edition , one Greek movie of 60s in dual DVD , one cartoon in VCD and several pamphlets. A total of 10-11 offerings. The CDs and DVDs are offered in carton envelopes. The newspaper stopped the Greek movies offer in the number 116 and then replaced with music CDs in slim DVD plastic case

The second side of the above dual DVD series was with one b/w English movie (40-60s? ), replaced then Italians and 'western spaghetti movies' (cowboys etc ) then with Sherlock Holmes (inspector )type series,(as well Rex the dog and Maigret ) etc

As for summer 2008 the newspaper offers two audio CDs , a summer hit collection of 12 CDs with 20 songs each (10 Greek 10 American of 60s ) and one CD with Greek poets . From September 08 they offer a collection of 30 Cds with rebetiko , the older greek folk format .On late Novemeber thay also offer DVD from international cinema with a total of 4 DVDs per issue!

The company publishes a weekly TV program magazine TiVo on start 2006 in two editions. The full edition costed €3 and offered a dual side DVD for about 40 issues in carton envelope . The first side was with series of movies from famous actors. The second side with epic movies from Cinecitta and classical 'western spaghetti'. They then replaced the dual DVDs with simple Dvds offered in slim plastic case and raised the price to 4 Euros . IN more recent issues they offer 3 versions (1) a reprint of an old music magazine with 'western' music , together with one CD with 20 songs of 60s at price of 5 euro (2) version with old dramas and another from their collection and little later (3) a series of cooking guides (book and DVD ) with a diversification of targets for the 60s albums between Athens and remain Greece . and possibly due to low audience

Their newer magazine Avanti , started as a gossip magazine on early 2007 , offering one Greek movie of 80s (mostly comedies). After 10-15 issues they offered a second disk with music collections from their radio stations and more recently a reissue of the mini series of Franco Jefirelli , Jesus. but continuing their 80s offer. From nearly end of 2007 they re-ofered movies of 60's in slim plastic case with western spaghetti movies together with the continuation of the series of 80s movies

This company is totally full issue minded. I once asked the company for buying several of their older Greek movie DVDs and they insisted selling me the full edition of Ependitis or Tivo !!! (magazine with all the enclosures )

Another drawback for this media group: most of their DVDs had flaws in the video processing ,especially for the 2007 period.

Another example of same company are the two music magazines: Difono and Oasis . Both of these magazines are offered with 3 music CDs.

Difono is an old music magazine that recently entered into this group of companies in a big paper format 8.5 x 12” . Its main orientation is in the alternative music, though ther new ownership intends to enter it to the mainstream music too.

Oasis is a new magazine devoted to the Greek folk music, edited by a specialist in this field . Most articles are old interviews but it also discusses on today’s popular and secondary Greek singers. Also article previews of new release albums In the picture is shown the Dec's Issue with Notis Sfakianakis (oneof the top singers from mid-90s ). ON the right bottom corner is a compilation with his preferences , including comments by him.Other albums are selections from wide known composers of the past

On the same magazine set , on the rear part of the packing,the supporting cardboard is printed with a painting.Ther picture here shows Chiotis a very popular singer and buzuki player of the 80s together with a samll epic for this 'giant'

And more recently the group acquired one of the oldest music magazines in Greece `Pop and rock' magazine is now on its issue , using again the same selling format. As for example for the pilot issue there are 3 Cds with music as shown in the picture at left.

By closing the subject , I asked a lawyer about the legality status of these offerings . His answer is very clear: These Cds /DVDs are absolutely legal as the CDs and DVDs offered in the stores .

Bonkenc #3 : remain converters

2008-06-19T18:13:00.000+03:00

BLADE ENC
This is a plugin offered from the program's web site as 'optional ' . I have also installed it for testing
Blade is one of the oldest freeware converters but with closed coding although recently ity has been open source . The version used is 0.94

As you may see the codec configuration is very simple . Just the bitrate and some basic adjustments with also separate channel encoding (the dual channel)
Bitrates are standard with 32, 48 , 56 , 64 , 80-, 96 , 128 192 224 256 and 320 being the highest

Here are the measurements with BLAde

CD WAV b/W
320 14.19 12.9 22kHz 6.87
192 15,87!! 13.12 22 kHz 6.62
128 17.81!! 16.06 16 kHz /peak 800 Hz
96 18.53 16.75 -7 db<2.4k ,-4<16k,-42>16
48 18.46 16.77 -40<2.6, -17<-5, 7.5-16> -7.5

The first column is ripping time from CD of a song of 2,26 mins
Secoind columns from the WAV ripped song
b/w is the measured bandwitdth in terms of db and kHz in plain text . though it can sound too technical will be analsyzed a bit below.

MY comments:
As shown above the ripping times are slightly increased as far as the bitrates are lowered! For me its is quite incommon but it is posibly the problem with the coder
For the bandwidth measurements , 192 and 320 are OK as a 'store format'
128 means Hi quality FM format with a peak of the tone LA
96 : everything below the speaker's voice is truncated leaving just the trebles to be heard . testing one song converted from 128 to 96 , the sound was quite 'plastic'
48 : the spectrogram showed a stair shaped drawing , meaning that the 'higher tones have higher audio level ' . in plain language it means that there is no bass and the trebles have a bad mood. A song cannot be heard properly in this mode

OGG VORBIS

The ogg vorbis format , though i have rread somewhere is much more xcomplex thanthe standard MP3 format seems here to be in a oversimlified adjustments
As is quite known , ogg vorbis offers quite better audio then MP3 (at least for the FhG fastenc codec ) thogh from my measuremenrs below the new LAME goes a little better !

and

As shown in the two ictures above the adjustmsnt are very simple and seem tobe very clse to the LAME format

And here are my measurementsga

OGG from the above WAV saved file of 2.26 mins
A192 1.20.30 A126 1.30.66 A065 1.30.38 V0.6 18.74!!! v0.4 19.59 v0.2 20.53 v0! 20,53 v-1.9 21.25

as in result , the average bitrates require neartly the half time of the song, whnile the variable bit rates are quite fast and increase slightly with the decrease of the variation level

And here are the bandwidth results from various bitrates qith the seocnd way of processing: WAV file > Ogg then ogg> wav out for spectral analysis on cooledit

A 192 22k linear A 126 18K1 slightly curved up as above 8 kHzby 3db A 64 15k curved after 6Kto 0 on 15 kHz -- V0.6 22k linear v0.3 17k slightly curved up as above 8 kHzby 3db v0.1 16k v0 15k2 curved after 6Kto 0 on 15 kHz (as A64) v-0.9! 15 curved after 6Kto 0 on 15 kHz,rippled 11- 15 (A48 same )

From the abovee the latest vorbis encoder ofers slighly less spectrum then the lame on the highest fidelity !
But from the resulted adio even on the 45 /v-0.9 is very clear in contrast to the same bitrate of LAme that had artifacts

FAAC the freeware converter for AAC and MP4
In the reality AAC and MP4 are exactly the same!

As you wil see there is noting special with this converter .
It used a CBR rating per channel though the file sizes are always the same for 8 - 48 kbps in my tests. It did happena also to converrt files of dferent sizes
IN conrtast the VBR levels shown a difenrence in the file sizes for the 1 min noise bering 1.42MB for the 100% dropping 967KB (as 128 for MP3 ) for the 42% and 448KB (64kb MP3 size) for the 10% with obvious audio artifacts

And here is nothing special except for the object type . Thw main and low options are very fast , but the LTP (Long Term Prediction) is very slow , upto 4 times

For more info on this format you may look at : http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=AAC

FLAC

Ands another codec with lossless AAC The amin site for FLAC describes it this way :

FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, an audio format similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality. This is similar to how Zip works, except with FLAC you will get much better compression because it is designed specifically for audio, and you can play back compressed FLAC files in your favorite player (or your car or home stereo, see supported devices) just like you would an MP3 file.

As shwon above , the FLAC converter uses several presets and two stereo modes the standard joint stereo and the non standard 'adaptive'
The presets are between the fastest and the best compression in 8 steps total Sizes come between 9.76 and 9.84 MB for the preset 8 and 1 . The times to convert a 4 min noise WAV file are:
19 secs for the best compression or 4.75 sec per MB resulting to 40.942.070 Bytes
7.93 secs per MB for the festest or 1.98 secs resulting to 41287186 BYtes
Original WAV noise file is 42336044 BYtes

Another experiment :
A song of 3.55
-18.15 secs 27815488 BYtes for the highest compression
-7.34 secs 30719266 BYtes for the fastest compression

here is a definaition for the subset on http://flac.sourceforge.net/format.html

FLAC specifies a subset of itself as the Subset format. The purpose of this is to ensure that any streams encoded according to the Subset are truly "streamable", meaning that a decoder that cannot seek within the stream can still pick up in the middle of the stream and start decoding.

And here the most intereting point is :
apodization , which means taperring or trimming. A little more googling shows that apodization is clearing the residual parts of the bel curve berlow a predefind level More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apodization_function which sown also various functions

Info on the linear predictor:

FLAC uses a class of computationally-efficient fixed linear predictors (for a good description, see audiopak and shorten). FLAC adds a fourth-order predictor to the zero-to-third-order predictors used by Shorten. Since the predictors are fixed, the predictor order is the only parameter that needs to be stored in the compressed stream. The error signal is then passed to the residual coder.

Bonkenc#2 : process standards and LAME

2008-06-19T18:12:00.002+03:00

IN this and the following articles you will find som measurenemts for the encoders used with bonk:
first let me advise you the method i used for measuring

1. For the times measurements : Used
- A song from a CD of 2.26 mins ripped directly . I order no to damage the CD i then ripped it to WAV format
-a stop watch unit from DS clock, a simple visual (and free )clock program , with .01 sec accuracy. most of the results have +/- 0.15 secs tolerance
- Snagit one of the oldest capturing programs for capturing part of the screen
- After snagit was started capturing i start the stop watch and then bonkenc
- After Bonkenc ended its task , i stopped the timer and then the capturing
- i then measure the bars progressing and do the time subraction

Here is a video with the above methodology

>>>
2. For the sprectrum measurememnts

A WAV file is first made with white noise of one minute duration on 44000 Hz and 16 bit
-then is converted in all formats , compression levels and quality adjustments and named accordinly (LAM/98/5 for example )
.Though Audacity is one solution for making the WAV file , Cooledit (a very old version) is still my most preferable for allthe next measurements.

Then :
For the mp3s : - the file is dragged into Cooledit marked for about 15 -20 secs then scanned from the spectrum analysis window for the RMS values via a relatively big sampling rate ie 2048 or 4096 and 'calculating the curve into text'
For files not supported by Cooledit :
-conversion via Bonk to WAV
-draging into Cooledit and then using the above method

Though i do not think that this method is flawy , if soemone has any claims plase let me know

And a short description of my computer system:
Pentium PC with 3 GHZ
768 MB
80GB HArd disk

LAME

LAME (Lame Ain't an MP3 Encoder!!!)
For me Lame is the most interesting converter that has a ton of adjustments best for the very geeky , a much higher level than myself who is mostly to the audio response level .
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=LAME

The lame encoder has too many parameters to use . the most important for me is the quality item that can convert from just 4 secs for the worst quality to 25 secs for the better quality. IN this paramter i prever to use the highest possible number - usually 3 and 2 - inorder to have the best audio quality - though mine ears do not find any significant diference .

There are also several presets as medium (VBR), standard , extreme, insane , adn their fast versions R3mix and ABR All except ABR do not uncover their presets. ABR standsas for automatic bitrate ans is shown in the VBR tab
However the documentataion reveals this info:
-preset medium > V4 rh
-preset fast medium > v4 mrh
-preset standard > v2rh
-preset fast standard >v2mrh
- preset extreme v0
- preseet fast extremev 0
- preset insane C320

The bitrate can be from 8 to 320 to preset numbers ( 8, 16, 24, 32 , 40 48 56 64 80 96 112 128 144 160 192 224 256 and 320)
There is also a size ratio. in uncomon numbers as 90! the resulted file is deleted immediately after the conversion.

The quality rate is soemthing for me very interesting . Quality zero means here the best quality (therefore the highest time for encoding ) and 9 the lowest quality (and very fast )

Beofre going on with the other tabs let me show my results in ripping /converting from CD and WAV onto MP3: or song of 2.26 min (146 sec)

at CBR on 128 kb
       CD           wav
at 0 > 1.13.67    1.12.72   ie the half !!!
    1 > 0.39.50      39.00   nearly the half of 0
    2 > 0.33.06      30.12
    3 > 0.19.06      17,13
    4 > 0.18.94      16,63
    5 > 0.17.81      15,28
    6 > 0.17.19      14,63
    7 > 0.12.13       9,82
    8 > 0.12.19      10,16
    9 > 0.08.46       5,29
LAME COMPRESSIONS on 128kbps

Here is per compression rate at CBR times in secs
320 kb 17.06   14.1
256     16,63   14.17
192     16,25   13,84/13.66
128     17,91   15.47
96      18,75   16.41
48      16.44   14,5
--
24       9,35   7.16 requires adj to output sampling rate
8        8.47   6,38 requires adj to output sampling rate

the two latest formats require downsampling (audio processng )in order to perform the coversion , usaually on 8 or 11 kHz

And here is a test based graphical analysis of the most common CBR rates:

256   20 kHz

192   19kHz
practically this bandwidth (B/W) means a store level

128-9 22kHz!!

128-5 19

128-0 19 kHz
the worst quality level due to speed offers a artificial whole b/w level . the other quality levels offer a Cd quality

112/9 22kHz !!
112/5 19 kHz
112/0 19 kHz
the same as above

96/9 22 kHz distorted!
96/5 19 kHz
96-9 19 kHz curved down by 3 db

64-0 8k @-3 max to 18 kHz
64-5 18 k linear
64-9 22k! linear
and here is the funny: the best quality cuts freqs above the 8 kHz though the wirrst modes ofer a 'transparent' quality

Lame 48 0          10 kHz
Lame 48 5          17 khxz
Lame 48 9          22 kHz!!

16-9   6 kHz   @-3 8 khzoff
16-5   5 k ,6k @-3 8 K off
16-0   1.7kHz @-3 4.5 kHz coff

once again the numers show narroweer audio for the best encoding !!
==
ENCODER

And above LAME shows its more important characteristics the two variable rates . for a better explanation i lend the info from the wiki of LAME as foun in the site of Hydrogen audio:

CBR: the standard constant bit rate

constant bitrate mode. CBR encoding is not efficient. Whereas VBR and ABR modes can supply more bits to complex music passages and save bits on simpler ones, CBR encodes every frame at the same bitrate.

CBR is only recommended for usage in streaming situations where the upper bitrate must be strictly enforced.

VBR: this is the variable bit rate

variable bitrate mode. Use variable bitrate modes when the goal is to achieve a fixed level of quality using the lowest possible bitrate.

VBR is best used to target a specific quality level, instead of a specific bitrate. The final file size of a VBR encode is less predictable than with ABR, but the quality is usually better.

Unlike other MP3 encoders which do VBR encoding based on predictions of output quality, LAME's default VBR method tests the actual output quality to ensure the desired quality level is always achieved.

rh adn mrth are two dierent algorithms.Mrth offers abou two times faster processing

ABR: average bitrate mode.

A compromise between VBR and CBR modes, ABR encoding varies bits around a specified target bitrate. Use ABR when you need to know the final size of the file but still want to allow the encoder some flexibility to decide which passages need more bits

AS shown above in the photo , VBR can be asjusted in tbetween minimums and maximums

misc

The misc tab determines some usual MP3 standards as copy right bits rtc but en/disables padding on frames
ISO compliance : This refers mostly for the MP3 harware players , in order for the resulted file to be compaliant to the MP3 standard (compatibility problems)
padding : a patch

expert tab:

thisis possibly the most dificult setting with the explanation from other pages :

ATH : absolute threshold of hearing

The Absolute Threshold of Hearing (ATH) is the volume level at which one can detect a particular sound 50% of the time. If one has a low absolute threshold, it means that he is able to detect small amounts of stimulation, and thus is more sensitive. If one has a high absolute threshold, then he requires more stimulation and thus is less sensitive (from http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=ATH)
Much more can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_threshold_of_hearing

Temporal masking effect

Temporal masking occurs when a sudden stimulus sound makes inaudible other sounds which are present immediately preceding or following the stimulus. Masking that obscures a sound immediately preceding the masker is called backwards masking or pre-masking and masking that obscures a sound immediately following the masker is called forwards masking or post-masking. Temporal masking's effectiveness attenuates exponentially from the onset and offset of the masker, with the onset attenuation lasting approximately 10 ms and the offset attenuation lasting approximately 50 ms.(from Wikipedia )
For more information you can find http://www.mp3-converter.com/mp3codec/maskingeffects.htm and here http://www.gnuware.com/icecast/chap_02_03.html and in more depth analysis on http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug98/articles/datacompression.html

Audio processing

This pane is the easiest for me and the simplest comparing to other more 'advanced' adjustments !
There are the standard resample rates of 8 ,11 22 44 and 48 kHz , the first two necessary for the lower bit ratets to operate.

Enabling filtering can make you remove some frequencies or determine a whole bandwidth to cut
For better undersitanding it is better to experiment a bit with them . NOtice that lowpass filter must be biiger numer thanthe low pass frequency !!

Bonk enc #1: a very good (shell) program for ripping your CDs ...

2008-06-19T18:12:00.001+03:00

.........and reconverting your MP3s into another forrmat ........... A REVIEW

The program has been found i think in the freewaregenius web site (together with mediacoder , toibe reviewed later here ) several months ago, bvased on a very short review, which normally acts as a shell program for several freeware /open source audio codecs.

The program can be found in the adress http://www.bonkenc.org and includes the latest two versions , together with two extra plug ins. The most curent is 107

ONce you download the program the screening is shown as below:

The program has the following specifications:
- is totally free and comes with its source
- it can be just unzipped into a folder and work . Thefore it is a green program
- There are various language translations including a program that handles translation fields
- Connectivity with CDDB for automatic album naming (if avaialble )
- automatic ripping after a CD is inserted and recognized (setable)
The latest colleciton i converted has been totally found from the CDDB databqase
- about 5 conversion systems
FLAC, Blade , Lame ,Ogg, AAC and its own Bonk
- auto titling based on the information of the artist and title given , including the ID3 info saved
- mass ID3 saving
- CD /file operations: playback and insert/escape button shown below the web adress
- also facility to manually update - via the help menu
- plug ins for in- and out-put

a very interesting point is that the program allows you not only to add the ID tags (ID 1 and 2 ) but also
- set the case letters towards: each word in lower or in upper cases ,
- set the tag for all the songs included in ripping
- set a spscial label for the music kind
Here are several screenshots from its settings: here is just the encoders settings. As you may see there is also a filename naming pattern

And another settings view for playlists . There is the ability to use cue sheets

And here you will find some screeshots for the encoding abilities . As you may see Fraunhofer FhG and WMA codec are missing . I think this is because FhG codec is commercial .....WAVE OUT as show in the picture comes fromta export plugin .Blade enc is a optional codec that can be found in the program's site that has several peculiar conversion specs .All codecs here are freeeware modules.

In the next pages you will find in depth (as posible ) reports on the codecs and their operations includeing more pictures

Here are several imprtant notice from my usage for about 2 months

The ID3 tags : upon the preset format , they can be shown OK to Wianamp, Windows explorer and sevreal ID tagging programs but in seeral others not . the proble consisted onthe UTF 16LE . Setting to ISO encoding the porblem has been solved

Cons I found two types of crashes:
- The program crashed when resizing the time Bonk was converting
- several dragged /dropped MP3s also made it crash. I donot know what is the problem with these MP3 files . But dropping their directories into Bonkencs' file window there was not problem

In the next pages you will see a description of the encoding schemes
=================================================

The blade enc adjustments:(a very easy and simple encoder )

The lame encoder - which is trhe most complex encoding system.

The lame encoder has too many parameters to use . the most important for me is the quality item that can cnvert from just 4 secs for the worst quality to 25 secs for the better quality. IN this paramter i prever to use the highest possible number - usually 3 and 2 - inorder to have the best audio quality - though mine ears do not find any significant diference . In the second part i will show you several intereting experiments with them

Here is a screenshot for FAAC , surely a form of AAC ,an open source MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 AAC encoder of lesser general public license :

and here which shows the encoder configuration with both kinds of versions

and here for ogg vorbis : note averager instad of constant bitrate is used

and here is for FLAC (a free lossless audio codec ) with also very great amount of adjustments:

with expert encoider configuration as here:

In the next posting I will place several measurements on some if the above codecs

comparison between mp3 and wma codecs , (linked pdf file )

2008-02-16T16:55:00.006+02:00

You can find it in these links (direct pdf files , please use "save as" with the right mouse click , or press ctrl + for opening into your web browser.
The file is just 200 kb.
multiply article
geocities article in case the previous does not work

The file shows the methodology i use plus a big table with compressions in wma FhG and lame mp3 vers 1 codecs in terms of spectrum analysis
This file has been originally edited on 2005
Please leave here you r comments

Oversimplified listing of the MP3 compressions

2008-02-16T16:52:00.001+02:00

This is an notice shown on the same webpageand also refered here separately. This just describes the various compressions levels and thier main use

Here is a oversimplified listing of the MP3 compressions :Notice that as the number in the left pane is higher , the higher the filter and thus higher fidelity audio. The higher numbers can offer the abilities or the lower numbers too.
Notice: The program used for analysis is Music match jukebox that offers the curves shown in my blog above

kbps	approximate usage -
8 - 11 kbps	suitable for recording telephonic conversations , voice recording . narrowband AM radio
16	the above plus high fidelity speech, AM radio, low fidelity streaming radio
24- 32 kbps	high quality speech , AM radio [medium and shortwaves ]
44-56	low fidelity FM radio
64	older fidelity FM radio
96-128	CD quality audio
192	studio CD quality -
256	'Store' mode for CD quality

and for WMA - fior anyone interested , as tested with Musicmatch Jukebox . For me mostly

5-8-12	just simple voice recording
16-22	high quality speech recording , 22 seems as HIFI
44	good for FM
48	CD audio compromise , best for mass storage
64	CD recording = 128 on MP3
96	'high quality' CD recording =192 on MP3

And notice the following:
The above listing is still controversial and depends on the program and codecs you use. Older lame codec [used in goldwave ] does not offer the same audio quality

And several comments on windows media wma files:
- offering lower dynamic range : they can clip very low voices , The dynamic rrange is aoubt 50 db
- on MP3 hardware players :
- they can drain the double current (Sansa E130 and Creative Zen Plus ).
- in most older MP3 players i tested (as sansa 130 ) , the WMA codec can offer better audio than its MP3 codec!!
- the wma codec may introduce its own noise with 'cracks' in sudden audio changes or in loud points. See also the http://zlgr.multiply.com/reviews/item/32

The reason not to use low MP3 compressions!

2008-02-16T16:33:00.001+02:00

Notice : this aricle is my 2nd arcticle on mp3 tech and appeared on 31-5-7 on multiply site . The main reason writing that article is that many people are using low level MP3 compressions (as 192 adn 256 ) that i do not think are so necessary since per my measurements 128 kbps are more than enough. To my year wma's of the level of 48 kbps have neatly the same level .

--------- Given that many users on Multiply rip or covert their music in quite big files of over 7.5 MB fr a 4 minute song ,i decided to write this article to explain why it is not necessary to use very high sampling rates.

At same time I will notice to you why I use the WMA format in 48 kbps to include mass material into a small MP3 player as shown in my previous reviews

It is important to advise you that I was in the audio technology and HiFi's since 1980 , including also the MP3 tech form ca 1997 and my first ever MP3 player was with CD on 2000.Also i used several professional equipment the older days and I know very much about it.

This is a abridged version of my blog in http://zlgr.multiply.com/journal/item/41 with a little more explanation in the pictorials If someone is still very boring to read this whole message ,please check the flies on the http://zlgr.multiply.com/journal/item/55 for his personal evaluation , though it is very worth of reading

And here is the basic background for the above theory .

1.Make a file with white noise . This noise is used primarily for testing purposes in audio laboratories. it can be used to measure the linearity of audio systems including the audio part of radio transmitters. The easiest way to make this white noise is with the Cooledit program.

For best measurements i made a file of 60 secs making a file of 10M336B [10336 Kb]I also deliberately use the linear frequency response in order to find more easily the cutoff frequencies than with the standard logarithmic freq response

This is our original WAV file's frequency response , designed from a white noise of 0 db level. As you may notice it is a totally linear, and will be used as reference to the results from various compressions shown later

2.Convert the files toMP3 and /or WMA in the most popular conversions . I choose the MP3 format on 128 [standard]192 [broadcast mode ] and 256kb [store mode] while for WMA the 44 [FM] ,. 48[I say just CD] 64 [default near CD ]and 96 [CD ] kb.

I always used the Musicmatch Jukebox in its 6th version which is very light comparing to the newest versions and has very good results especially if converting from CDs and MPs to WMAs . And though Cooledit has MP3 save option

3.View the resulted files back to Coledit's frequency analysis screen

	256 kb . As you will see the 256 kb sampling rate offers a very high audio bandwidth of ca 21 kHz filtering out everything above this frequency ,with more than 60 db cut off .But these cut off frequencies are inaudible to the ear .. Tthe file size is 1876 KBytes
	192kb The curve here goes to the 20 kHz , and about 60 db cutoff above these frequencies. This is the maximum the ear can listen The file size is 1407 Kb
	128 kb And here is the standard MP3 with strong cutoff above 15.900 Hz . I do not see any significant difference between 128 and 192 in my ears though still 112 with a cut off at 14000 and 96 kb at 12000 sound nearly the same The file size is 938 kb on the 128kb

WMA s in discussion

AS Cooledit cannot open WMA files , i used first a third party program to convert the WMA files iinto WAV and then opened with Cooledit , and here are the results :

48 kbps	48 64 and 96 kb Here all the WMA files have the same audio bandwidth at 20 kHz with the only difference on the dynamic level. ,
64 kbps	The dynamic level is ca 36db , for the 48 kb , ca 40 db for the 64 kb and ca 55 db for the 96 kb compression. The 40 db are the audio levels used by most music groups. More than 60 db are used only by classical music And the file sizes are 367,484 and 718 kB respectively . IN practice that means that all these modes can offfer just high quality audio though very low audio levels are 'removed' .
96 kbps	In a very careful listening you can see some minor artifacts on the 48 kbps especially in drums and high trebled audio.
WMA 44	And here a funny case of the 44 kb WMA. Instead of having a smooth cuve , that reminds a triple 'treble control' , a part of the bandwidth is somehow cut out However this happens with the MMJB 6 . Using another converter as for example the MP3WM OGG converter, the results are also diferent . The results in the MP3 conversion showed me a flat bandwidth for 128 to 256 to 22000 with 96kb having -6db on 16000max .while the WMA compressions rates were showed as a bandstop filter analogous to the compression rate ...

Furthermore these are the results with the over mentioned program . I mean , using a different program to convert files gives a different result
AS for example Cooleditwith its MP3 plugin ca offer linear response to the maximum of the bandwidth.

At another example i was also using the ACE mult iformat converter . The results once opened or converted to WAV (for WMA) have made several interesting results . Please see the picture below, it is an animation!

From the above results , it is clear that ACE can technically offer better audio than MMJB on the MP3 format , but worse than MMJB in te WMA format

2008-02-16T16:04:00.004+02:00

MP3 comparison chart of two encoders

Please notice that this is the first article i wrote abut mp3 tech analysis , depicted on 96-97 and appeared on my old geo site

UPDATES ( i think made on 91-92 ):

Following a series of upconvertions adn other experiments that itme i have found soem other peculiarities that are main to Musicmatch:

Upconverting monophonic bit rates to stereo bit rates can cause stereo widening of these monoral audios. The lowest stereo mode i found or used was the 24 kbps

UPconverting to higher bandwidths may cause / produce 'reaction /reactance carriers' . For example a 8 kb ( of 8 kHz) upconverted to 24 kb cana cause ahigher freq whistle to be heard, that can be soemtiems very annoying. please notic that this does not only happen between MP3 converions but also to convert one WAV file of 32 kHz to an MP3 file of 44 kHz bandwidth . There was indeed one reactance carrier of ca 16 kHz . The problem for this case has been corected with the usage of Xing encoder

Some low rate ( such as 8/8 , 8/11 and 16/11 ) MP2-layer 3 files seem to use a 8 bit audio resolution. Using 8 bit resolution WAVS to converting to MP1 ( above 64 kb rtates at leat ) can cauise the MP3 files to have the half sixe!!

As you can see from the frequwncy responses tables there is soem important information that shows a nrealy direct relation of bandwidth and compression And here is a over simplified relation.Notice trhat : any freqs above this band-stop are sharply removed Onfo is for Musimatch with slight improvement on Xing for the theoretical noise example

160kbit - 44 kHz gives a 20 kHz bandwidth
128 kbit -44 kHz gives a 16 kHz bandwidth
96 kbit - 44 kHz gives a 11.8 kHz bandwidth MPEG 1
64 kbit - 22 kHz gives a 10.4 kHz bandwidth
48 kbit - 22 kHz gives a 6 kHz bandwidth
32 kbit - 22 kHz gives a 5,2 kHz bandwidth
16 kbit -11 kHz gives a .4.7 kHz bandwidth
8 kbit -8/11 kHz gives a 3.3 kHz bandwidth MPEG 2

One very important point when using players with low bit rates. It is very important to disable Doirect X from the player otherwise audio will be strongly

Following a long period of digitizing my music collection into MP3 I have also experimented with two different popular encoders and below you will find some very important results:
The experiments are two based upon a standard method .( tones and white noise)
Program for making these is CoolEdit Pro (trial) with trial MP3 plug in (read only)

Step A Making the files

A 1:

Tones produced are : 3 secs each tone , 0 db level , with the following frequencies ( all are Hz)

1000
5000
7000
9000
13000
14000
15000
15500
16000
18000
19000

and saved as WAV 44.000. mono , 16 bit resolution

A 2

Making white noise again under CoolEdit with:
1 sec blank
3 secs stereo white noise of 0 db level
1 sec blank

with 48000 kHz , 16 bit resolution

Step 2- compressing

Using the two compression programs ( Music match 5 and Xing encoder 2.1) step by step in various compression levels :
VBR - 160 – 128 – 112 – 96-80- 64- 56-48-32-16- 8 then save each produced file by compression – name
All files are then archived into a ziped file for later references
And here are some interesting and funny results ater zipping :
WAV files are expected to be compressed , nearly to the level of standard Xing compression
Thed tone file was 34.560.444 bytes and zipped to 558960 bytes
But still , Xing , tone compression , seems to still compressed at high rates . files of abt 720 kb have been compressed to only 9200 kb! See below for more

Step 3- checking compressed files back on Cooledit – commentary

Cooledit pro has been again used for chacking the produced MP3 files . After loading files a smoothing process has been calculated ( RMS levels )

Part 1 the tone response

Very surprisingly both encoders shown a ‘peculair’ attitude towards the pure tones by producing faint signals of lower levels , up to –8 db .
Both compressors did not respond to tones above 17000 kHz leaving only blank audio and ‘clicks’ between tone freq change

Music match 5 , shown a very big number of faint signals ( about 15 .) nearly as it happens with Xing encoder under VBR but levels were higher than of Xing . There was only the restriction of the bandwidth which nearly corresponds to the compression rate . More on this later
Xing however under 80-160 kb rates produced very clear ( faint free ) tones . IN some cases upper freqs ( below 17kHz) shown some ‘ripple’ ( on off ) faint signals of very low levels some hundred Hz above the main freq. VBR however was relatively ‘dirty’ as shown in the table below ( levels of 40 db or more

IN both encoders , tones of higher main freq. than bandwidth ( esp for rates below 48) produced mirror tones of 36 –40 db lower than main tone level

I have made also a try with WMA module of MM5 with results nearly of the MM-MP module

Part 2 the white noise response

While original signal was with exact edges between start and stop of noise, all MP compressed files shown a fade up and fade down of audio response ( either time or frequency domain ) as shown in the spectral view.

The table 3 shows the response of the 24kHz stereo white noise showing the decibel points

While Xing had the same audio level , MM5 had a 6 db loss

Xing also had nearly flat freq response at 99% of the spectrum while MM5 had a slow decrease response over higher freqs ( points shown )

Also 112- to 160 rates on Xing have the same response.. Though io could not see any significant differences in the spectrum alnalyzer of Cooledit, this can possibly lower the dynamic range .

MM in contrast shown a significant decrease of response dropping from 20 to 16 and 14 kHz for the 160 , 128 and 112 kb respectively ! Though playback on Winamp or MM player shows a 44 kHz range ….

Comparing to the response curves , in all cases except 16 Xing has higher response of 4-5 % than MM5

Special commentary on playback of the WAV tone file

Cooledit , as expected as playing very clear the tones .
However direct connection of line out from the SB 128 to the headphone showed nearly no audio on freqs above 9000 Hz ( mismatch??)
In contrast to it the HIFI connected same way produced all the tones till 19000 hz ( audible from the headphone output from HIFI )
Nullsoft’s Winamp 2.7 had a totally MP3 type audio (producing the ‘ghosts’or spur tones as shown in the Xing )
Also Media player had the same ‘attitude’
In contrast to it real Player produced clear audio in all the tones !

Add on : Time rates for compressing a music file

The table is self explanatory. Notice that this has been made last year when I used the Pentium 133 with 64 Mb memory (which possibly does not matter on the compression speed so much )
The actual WAV/ PCM file is a song of 5 mins 27.86 sec of a total 57.8 MB size
First list shows the constant rate while second list shows variable rate centered at 80 kb and variations of the shown level
The 3^rd list shows times produced with the MP 3 compressor another program capable to produce MP compatible WAV files ( it possibly uses the Microsoft MP encoder) . IT also produces 8 kb/8kHz files

LIST 1

Responses of clear tones on Xing encoder on various compressrion rates

	lo - nor Xing	Lo var Xing	Xing 160 , 128 112 96 and 80 kb	64	56	48	32	16
1000Hz	12 ……….1000 -40……….5200 -42 ……….7200 -48 ……….11600 13600 ……….1800	-38 ……….5100 ……….7220 ……….11500				3000 50000 7000 9000 11000 with -40	3000 5000 7000 /-47 9 000 1000/-50	3000/-36 5000 7000/-24
5000 Hz	-42……….200 -32……….1200 -30 ……….2800 +12……….5000 -24……….7500 -38 ……….9600 -36……….11200 -44……….12300 -42……….14000 -48……….14600	……….200 -32……….1100 -30……….2500 -25……….7500 -37……….10000	9000, 11, 13, 5 17, 19 21 kHz with –72	9000, 11, 13, 5 kHz with –72	9000, 11, 13, 5 kHz with –72	1000 3000 7000 9000 1000 ……….-36	3000 5000 7000 /-32 9 000 1000/-40
7000 hZ (+12)	-40……….200 -34……….700 -32……….2100 -44……….2600…. -22………4500… > -36……….12000 -38……….13200`14200	-32……….2100 -24……….4500 -18……….9100 -32……….11900				Clear	Clear
9000 Hz	-42……….700 -38……….1800 -30……….2700 -32……….4200 -20……….7500 -13……….11300 -30……….13900 -38……….15200… &##8230;….16100	……….500 ……….1900 ……….2900 ……….4900 -20……….6780 -15……….11200	15 and 21 kHz with-60 db	15 with-60 db	-	3000 ghost @-24	3000 ghhost/-24
13000	-38……….1000 -40……….1200 -30……….5800… 𕢦….6800 -26……….8100 -14……….10700 -9……….15400 -26……….17800 -24……….19000	……….400 …… .1000 …….15600 -36.….3500 ……...3800 -32….5800 …….6200 -32….6800 -26….8200 …….8500 …….9100 -14….10600	Clear	Clear	Is cldear ( no signal)	10000 ghost @-32
14000	-40……….200 1200 2000 2800 48005200 10100 -32……….41200 -30……….6800 -24……….7800 .9200 > -13……….11800 -8……….16500 ……….15000 .15500 only for >30 -30….7800…8100 -24….8800….9100 -24….10100.11200 -16….12600..13100 -6….17600….18000		-72 with 2000 6000 10000 18000 20000kHz	Is cldear ( no signal)	Is cldear ( no signal)	9000 kHz ghost @-20		1000/-24
15000				Is cldear ( no signal)	Is cldear ( no signal)	8500/-24 db ghost		5000/-24
15500				Is cldear ( no signal )	Is cldear ( no signal)	8000 /-32	7000/-23	0/-24
16000	Is cldear ( no signal )	Is cldear ( no signal)	Is cldear ( no signal)	Is cldear ( no signal )	Is cldear ( no signal)	7000 /-23 db	8000……….30	1000/-24
18000	Is cldear ( no signal )	Is cldear ( no signal)	Is cldear ( no signal)	Is cldear ( no signal)	Is cldear ( no signal)	5000/-24 db	5000 ghost /-24	2000/-24
19000	Is cldear ( no signal )	Is cldear ( no signal)	Is cldear ( no signal)	Is cldear ( no signal)	Is cldear ( no signal)	4000/-24 db		3000/-24
	Lo - nor Xing	Lo var Xing	Xing 160 , 128 112 96 and 80 kb	64	56	48	32	16

FILE SIZES

Rate	Xing Size	Xing Ziped
16	71928	5159
32	143904	8748
48	215856	14533!
56	252158	7722
64	288192	8263
96	432288	8151
112	504336	8653
128	576384	8947
160	720480	9227
LO NOR	287296	216502
LO	336871	274009

RESPONSES ON WHITE NOISE FOR MM5 AND XING ENCODERS

WAV FILE HAS
1 SEC BLANK – 3 SECS WHITE NOISE – 1 SEC BLANK
AUDIO LEVEL IS +3 DB

Rate	xing encoder	M M 5	FILE SIZE XING
var low	-6 db<13.5khz		30864
var lo no	-6 db -60 db 20		36027
var no	-6 db -60 <20>		42860
160	0db -38db/21.	-2/2k -6/16k -11/ 20k	100320
128	Same	2 to 6 up to 16	80256
112	Same	-6 to 14k	70224
96	0db <15....>	-6 /11.8	60192
80	0 <10.1>	constant to 11000 @-6	50400
64	0<3,4>	const to 10.4@-6	40320
56	-6 /9.2 -45/9.6	-6 to 8.8 -60 /9.2	35280
48	0 -2 /3.4 -6/7.6	-6/6k -60/6.2	30096
32	0 -2/5.1 -60/5.5	-6 /5.2 -60/5.3	20160
20		-6 /3.8 -60/3.9
16	-6/4.0… -60/4.1	-6 /4.7 -60/4.8	10008
8		-6/3.2 -60-/3.3

TABLE 3

Times compression ratios on A FILE

Using A 133 Mhz Pentium 1

file : wav 44 khz 16 bit size 57.834 kB 5:27.86 sec (327.86 sec)

Music Match 5 under

Mode	Kb	Range	Fielsize	Comp rate	Time elapsed
8	8kb	11khz	328 kB	1/176	1:02 min
16	16	11	656	88	1:19
18	18	11	-	-	1:22
64	64	22	2623	22	2.22
96	96	44	~3924	15	2:45
128	128	44	5246	11	2.51

~ estimated

v 1%	78-79	3222	18	2.49
15%	81	3366	17.1	2.46
88%		5982	9.6	3.00

mp3 compressor

16	16		657	89	1.43
128	128	44	-		>5 min

2008-02-16T15:07:00.003+02:00

Crash testing with Napa DAV315

version blogspot original article here in Geocities

Following my interest in MP3 technology the last years and the big list in MP3 in songs recorded throughout the years, the information read from many magazines and e-newsletters and web pages , I have finally decided that a MP3CD player could be the ideal solution for me to replace my walkman and my other CD player. This was also the result after a recent purchase of a CD recorder whose main use will be at first for any necessary future backup at first as well as for collecting this material just in MP3CDs

The S/N of the model is DB02007083 manufactured April 2001

As you know I like to make inspections of any interesting gadgets. And here is an exhaustive analysis for the Napa 315. And much better as I recently bought a CD recorder that helped much in makling a line of Cds for the testing and normal playback of my big collection of more than 2500 songs from tapes , Cds and SW recordings .

Before of all just to notice : Although volume is OK for headphones with number s till 6-7 , when connecting to a HIFI , the level of 19 connected to the headphones socket is very low . line out is also much lower more than 6 decibels lower and still adjustable by the vol level. ( possbly below the 15 uV though 200 uV are the standards on all audio equipment !! )

Part 1 - appearance

Appearence:

This model has a very nice 'trendy' Appearance supplied in a plastic firm pack and includes a mains power supply with the uncommon level of 5 VDC of half width than any other commercial power supply I have ever seen , two NimH batteries , a belt , a stereo jack to 2 RCA for connecting to hi-fi and earphones

.
4 buttons are from the left side acting having slightly different functions between CD and MPCD operation the and 4 buttons from the right side having a a button lock , two for digital volume and one for various modes ( ie acting as menu )
Battery charger

This means that CD player has a built in battery charger requiring to abt 15 hrs to fully charge the batteries. It is required to charge in full. Their nominal storage is 1.6 Ah . LCD also shows the battery status with 3 level bars . I t seems that the adapter is still charging while NAPA 315 is playing. Actually the voltage as measured with multimeter shown 4,68 VDC and must be connected to mains supply if plug is connected to the unit , or the unit is NOT working ..
Also in case of low bateries the unit plays the song and stopsd after rebuffering

Instruction guide - acessories

Its instruction guide uses very small letters. I suppose they use fonts of 6 picas and smaller in the case of the gray notices. Although for me is a bit OK with the gray notices to read a bit difficult , I think that a little bigger font could be better for reading
The belt is relatively big for the player's size and quite wide and thick . It mostly reminds usage of …. professional photo cameras

The headphones are very typical with nothing impressive Just a little treble from abrt3.5 kHz and over , regarding to my Kenwood DPC183 open air headphoneswhiu ch i use as standard headphones also in DXing.

Part 2 Operation - buttons playlists

Using the buttons
When playing any Audio CD the search skip buttons act as FW and REW When playing MP files they act as file search , unless [DIR] option from mode is used

Now for the [MODE] button . It works like a menu with many options show in brief and how buttons are used

RPT  (repeat function )
/ one (repeat continuously same song)    next  prev work OK
/ all  (again from start)      next  prev work OK
/ dir  (repeat only what is from this directory)   next  prev work OK
/ int  (play only the first 10 secs )     next  prev work OK
/ rnd  (random play and stop at end )    next : next random  prev; NO
/ rnd all(random from all directories)    next : next random  prev; NO
/ rnd dir (random from this directory only )   next : next random  prev; NO


E (equalizer)
/ cls  (classic music)
/ pop  (pop music )
/ jaz  (jazz music)
/ rck  (rock) They are spectrum analyzed by software and info shown at end of this file

File / dir (sequential selection of files or by directory )

LCD
Now for the LCD . When operating it shows if the CD used is a AuCD or MPCD and even (undocumented!) VCD. At left down shows the serial number of the song, as it does not show any ID3tag or even a filename,which is a feature only in the next model 516, and the time elapsed. As also other reposrts refer 315 does not have a backlight I m not interested in it as i always use it near to a fluorescent lamp.

It claims to be capable to support directory searching, CDR/W disc and multi-session and it is tryue . See later about this

Playlists

I did not tried , but as documented it can make a playlist of maximum of 32 tracks

Part 3 MP3 usage

Incorect loading of MP3 CD
The unit displays Err 3 . I do not know the code but it seems to load the Cd again ( and press a little more)

File numbering and sorting - possibly the first most important feature
Here is something regarding the file numbreiung
315 uses the way a directory sorting uses. This is exactly what a dir *.mp3 /s under DOS can show I have seen that it has a direct relationship to which buning program has been used.
For example with usage of Nero ( Mode 1 and MOde 2) and Easy CD 3 or 5 give dirferent results:
More clearly

Nero MOde 1      mode 2      Easy Cd
0-9     0-9    0-9
A-Z    A-Z caps all   a-Z case insensitive
a-z

Also in case of subdirectories the sequence of sorting goes this way:

C:\
C:\A\A
C:\A\B
C:\A
C:\B\A
C:\B\B

and so on

Maximum nmber of tracks recognized
I also verify the documented maximum number of 630 counted tracks in a CD having exactly 1000 MP3s all made under 16 kHz sampling rate. ( total recognized time 45.49 hrs!) Documentation shows also in case of 10 directoriues the numbers pfrecognized MP3 clips can lower to 620 At first it was pretty good to recognize the list of 290 files of a total CD-A time of 72:48 in 12 seconds (MPs of 15 hrs total time !)

Playback of MP3s
In all cases , the unit first sees it as cd then idetifies if ti is a MP3 Cd or VCD then in case of MP3 Cd tries top count the numbers of MP3 files ( and tales about 5-15 secs for this) then starts to paly the first song with always at the preset volume of 19 .

The FFW and REW work only for file searching rather than searching inside the track

Here you will find a series of observations and mysterious conditions All recordings are made with Nero

- Crop of ends !!! If a music file does not have an end with silence , the player will crop about 0.3-0.4 secs from it ( and possibly caounter will roll )

- VBR and constant rate while playing a VBR song 25% of 6:25 mins length the counter in many stances stopped for a few secs or minutes untill showing the end of the song

- IN many cases isaw that at the end of the songs of rate of 96 kb the counter was rolling too fast This especially happens when using Trimmer MP3 trim to trim out the ends of a song

-One also peculiar case : During random song playback , epecially if number diference is too high , the unit seems to hang up. .This problem is most significant when burning is set to TAO ( track at once) , but onDAO ( disk at once) the problem still happendss especially if unit is only battery operated. The motor spins veryfast , just recognizes the song but ddoes not start playback.

- ECD 5 : Counter neer shown the exact number of MP3 files in included in the CD.
I do not know what is really the problem but ECD5 seems to be problematic especially for the MP3 Only as a typical computer CD is recognized in full

Bit rates (tech)
Using the older tactic for MP3 testing , as shown on the specialized page , I re-used same files to check the ability of the NAPA player to playback them. Here are the results

-Constant rate
320 250 192 160 128 112 96 80 64 56 48 40 32 28 20 18 16 8/11 8/8 .
From these standards only the latest two were not recognized by the unit just the time counter rolls fast till end. See at the end of this paragpah for more.

- VBR 5 scales per Xing . Counter was rolling normally.
- steps of 10% as per MM5 Both ways have been heard perfectly
- a tone of 1000 Hz for auudio level check .more for this later
- fake MP3 from a .wav file ! Tough all programs hung , program did try its best to play the file as cratches and hisses .Stopped finally but not hung
- test audio with 8 bit resolution at various bit rates . All files olayed OK with the same audio, even soem older files shown a diferent dynamic audio range while playing on Winamp
- new MP3 plus (128 ) mode also played OK but with the 64 kb rate
- 8/8 and 8/11 modes shown many peculialrities. BY instances the unit played them well , by otrher instances the unit did not pleyd them, but just counter was rolling very fast.
-unit produces high frequency hiss for rates lower than 40 kb gradually increasing as rates are lowered

WMA and RA, are not recognized . Could like to see something later to recognize both formats !

Multisession

It plays normally in multi session . However it seems to have a problem when the new session is in the root directory and previous sessions are in directories and also in cases when buffer underrun has been happened. ( tghough still the unit can paly the CD tll the bad sector)

In a few cases when new files are on root directory, the unit tries to recognize th CD , starts to play the first by letter and after 5 secs it stops playing ( hung)

This hanging found also in some ogther cases esp ewhen the file is at the end of a doirectory

Antishock and buffer NEW

Buffer: the unit has a 120 sec buffer as ESP checked as when the unit re-reads the CD( rebufering) . I have checked with 96 112 and 128 kb files for the moment and found that rebufering can happen 116 secs from start of song for the 128 kb rate and every 116 secs to restart reading CD . For 112 and 96 kb the times to 're-bufer' are 130 and 150 ( instead of 160) secs respectively .

Antishock and car usage :When drivign in a good quality asphalt roads there is not a ny problem. However as in Greece many roads are very old or remade , when driving over harsh asphalt roads with 80 km /hr or more , antishock mechanism can shut off the unit after 1-4 rebufferings . I have found that using a small face towel the problem can fully be solved .Just fold the towel and put the CD unit with three levels of folded towel

Antishock and buffer

Buffer: the unit has a 120 sec buffer as ESP checked as when the unit re-reads the CD( rebufering) . I have checked with 96 112 and 128 kb files for the moment and found that rebufering can happen 116 secs from start of song for the 128 kb rate and every 116 secs to restart reading CD . For 112 and 96 kb the times to 're-bufer' are 130 and 150 ( instead of 160) secs respectively .

Antishock and car usage :When drivign in a good quality asphalt roads there is not a ny problem. However as in Greece many roads are very old or remade , when driving over harsh asphalt roads with 80 km /hr or more , antishock mechanism can shut off the unit after 1-4 rebufferings . I have found that using a small face towel the problem can fully be solved .Just fold the towel and put the CD unit with three levels of folded towel

Other modes

CD audio and related features:

As about playback of different Cd types this already has been discussed. I t plays all the types - originals and computer copies , without any problem
A default operation when using CD is the120 sec antishock protection and can be disabled by the mode button . ESP is also shown in the LCD
IN contrast MP3 has this facility built in

Support of CD-A formats and models
As a multisession , multi type reader , it plays all the Cd ytpes , even the types that computer drives and CD players do not 100% support !

Example 1 : INTENSO CDs are not supported on my 52x drive. The NAPA player did support it very well
Example 2 . Recorded a 20 track CD-A from various kinds of music and different formats (MP3 and WMA) with the use of the bundled Easy CD 5 and 'CD text' and with various speeds on NONAME (bulk) CDs . The result has been tested in Napa , two Cd players and our HI-FI and here are the results
Nero has been lent for this purpose only.

Prg used and CD AIWA KENW1 KENW2 NAPA
-------------------------------------------------------------
ASKA NERO TAO 10x # + + +
Bulk ECD5 DAO 8 x # - - +
Bulk ECD5 Dao 6 x # - - +
Bulk ECD5 dao 4x # - + +
Bulk NERO DAO 8 x buffer underun
Bulk NERO DAO 4 buffer underrun

Philips CDA ECD3 +/# +/# + +
Intenso ECD3 + # + +

ASKA was the best CD used for the moment ( 10 x as standard)
TAO=track at once , DAO= disk at once ECD = Easy CD creator ,prg bundled with

Notices :
Aiwa shown mechanical jitter/problems when trying to identify the disks, nearly in all the cases except Philips recorded at 4x. At most cases it had to 'wait' for 10 secs to read the sectors., then counting tracks and starting after a while to play tracks . In many cases denied to work

Kenw 1( DPC 183) is my walkman It immediately read the ASKA CD even if is recorded at so high speed , though older recordings from a friend with ECD 3 shown two very bad points of 'skipping' ( unable to read ) and 'shifting' ( next sector)
Kenw2 is another walkman used for the test, It shown 100 % accurate readings from all 'problematic' Cds per DPC183 walkman
NAPA read all these systems without problems

VCD :
The CD I used shows 3 directories a CDI a VCD and a MpegAV with the real data with .dat shown instead of .mpg or .avi
The VCD I have is an album of Andy a very good hit Chinese singer and audio used is matrix encoded ( ie L+ R and L-R are heard instead of pure L/R.)
Is this the Chinese standard?
Have not other VCDs to test
Just for reference this VCD is played exactly as a classical audio CD with the CD rolling continuously once it is played
The FFW abd BCK buttons of CD work here as track change
No antishock info is shown on the LCD during this mode

Playback on Multisession , mixed CD and VCD

Again both programs ( Nero and ECD 5 ) have been used with various results shown here :( and too many cds have been burned for this)
And soemthing other. In case of a damaged CD or dead points on its surface, the unit can show the serial song number but most times canot play the song (irregular counter time , irregular sounds and hang ion) . In this case you can select the next track

Nero
Nero with closed session worked perfectly on NAPA
Nero at multisession : NAPA found all directories on multi session CD and played them well ( in contrast to ECD5)

ECD 5
MP3 only 2 sessions: 214 out of 258 MP3 songs have been shown , the 2nd session track was not recognized!
Mixed CD with ECD5 : CD-A tracks were not recognized only MP files have been counted by player but could not play them ( just show 00.00)
Newer session over it: still no playback
ECD5 with MP files only: again nothing

Original albums
Mixed cd and VCD ( avi): VCD shown at the LCD of player, the CD rolls continuously , the CDA tracks are shown, but nothing more happens ….'
Video CD : (list of files on root, video files in directory as .dat ) :song were recognized and played well
MP3 Mag CD the MP3 files have not been found by the player ( MP3 files were in sub directory )

APPENDIX -TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

Volume and outputs

The Player uses a digital volume with 32 steps
After CD starts to play , the player uses the preset volume set of 19 ( of a total of 32steps ) which is too high in a quiet environment
At same environment with normalized tracks or MP files the best volume set is 4-5

IN contrast when connecting to a HIFI, the volume must be set to the predetermined level and use the ear jack ( 19) instead of line out total output will be very low
Line out: Its level is much lower and is adjustable (!!!) by the volume control at 6.5 db lower . It is something I dislike because line out must always be fixed level

Playback of MP3 rates below 40kbit shows a hiss re-generation audible especially at the lowest volume levels ( 1-5)

Audio levels for 1 kHz sinus tone /-6 db MP3 audio analyzing software from the ear output . For the line output please subtract 6.5 db

0 60 Noise Floor
1 48
2 43
3 38,3
4 33,6
5 29,9
6 27
7 25
8 23
9 21
10 19
11 18
12 17
13 16
14 15
15 14
16 13
17 12
18 11
19 10
20 9
21 8
22 7
23 6
24 5
25 4
26 3
27 2
28 1
29 0
30 1
31 2
32 3

Equalizer and audio response
As shown above there are 4 equalizer modes: classic, pop jazz and rock
Tested with a freeware computer spectrum analyzer program and have seen the following results with a white noise file as referred above :

FLAT -7 0
-12 12000
-22 21900

CLASSIC -8 <400
-12 4000
-15.5 13000
-16.3 14000
-19.2 21000

POP -12 1800
-16 14000
-14.5 14200
-16.4 20700
-26 22000

JAZZ -11 4000
-15 10000
-17 10800
-21 2000

ROCK -10 250
-14.5 1000
-12.5 4000
-17 20600
-32 22450

Testing the random numbering with 258 MP files
Try1: 001 202 134 184 186 018 143 118 174
Try2: 001 110 104 005 217 158 137 238 210
Try3: 001 020 027 239 251 229 138 083 094
Try4: 001 248 025 239 253 170 126 231 012

Therefore there is not any standard randomization

Conclusions

As shown with the above tests , the NAPA 315 seem to be a very good CDA, VCD and MP3 Player except very few peculiar cases.

IN general I m very impressed with it and the MP3 ability to exceed too muchof the time of any CD or tape player without changing tapes or CDs As for example with the MPCD refered at the start of this web page, with 290 songs, recorded at 96 kbit, had a total of 15h 10 minutes of total playback, 630 MB of space used or 72:48 Cd time !

2008-02-16T14:16:00.012+02:00

SINPFEMO

-------------

A better signal tech analysis by using F/TDM analysis drawings in specialized reports
(version blogger )

Considering that SINPFEMO does not 100 % cover the truth from listeners point of view in regards to signal readability QRM and fading I have used for more than 4 years derived from more specialized monitoring equipment such as Hewlett Packard , Rohde & Shwartz etc

I think however that both terms shown below are very easy to understand however there is still a little analysis behind them on how i used them so far.

#1. Frequency domain analysis
...................#1b. About computer DSP analysis on FDM
#2. Time domain analysis ( fading analysis)
...................#2a.Cases of 'Short' time fading found on SW:
...................#2b.Cases of long term fadings
#3. More advanced way for domain analysis
#4 Using R75 and specialized programs New.gif (908 bytes)
....................#4a Smart Icom 32 and R75
....................#4b:Use of DSP and R75

1. Frequency domain analysis

I used two types of analysis -with the help of a drawing. The first way is with the use of bars and the second with the use of bell shaped curves that still can show on how a signal could be QRMed from a nearby station . As that times my older receiver HF150 or previously SONY IDCF7600 D did not include S meters I was unfortunate to deliver drawings with accurate drawings, Instead of it my drawings were made with the totally subjective audibility standards as used by the SINP(FEM)O standards

Nowadays the usage of ICOM R75 with its AFC derived S meter fixed a bit of this problem. There are still not 100% accurate readings as (modulated) signals exceeding S9 levels are still not correctly read !For a level with the R75 you can still do a little more by using ATT (-25 db ) and then preamp ( in any scale from 10 or 16 dB ) in order to record the fading levels

This case be done more easily with more specialized interfaces such as SDU from Grove ( direct to IF stage if receiver permits ) or by using laboratory surveillance equipment ( the o.m. models of HP , R&S etc)

However there is still a question on which is the best way to measure the signals for receivers as R75 :
1.The one is reading on the S indicator during AM / AM Narrow
2. The second is checking the signal with CW analysis and using as narrow as possible bandwidth in order to narrow down the width of carrier (??) and clear out from the modulated signal.

Below is the idea with pictures. Please save this file and these pictures as under this analysis they may not be clear

	Please open picture in a separate web page Picture with bars: The above picture is from very old logs for Vo Malaysia on 15295 during the times 93-94 with VoLiberty shown at left part and RFI ( France ) at right. Of course it can not show any QRM problems encountered Dotted lines show the depth of fading. This is my main way for signal reporting
	Picture with bell curves This can show clearly the QRM problem from both stations though still cannot deliver any problems encountered by modulation though this curve can oversimplify the term modulation when used on that manner (I found many signals being quite strong but low modulation)
	Picture with modulation analysis This is possibly the most accurate way to describe the characteristics of a signal that can also show the modulation index as well as tha audio quality. But how easy id for anyone to do it? I think that ONLY computer made techniques can do it or real time analysis by the specialized equipment can do it (?) +With the spectrum analyzers you can too see any carriers and other signals that can lie inside the passband++ Of curse still co channel QRM cannot be seen this way except the aural way ....or with the use of LPDA antennas

+++added 5-5++

1b. About computer DSP analysis on FDM

Fortunately with the use of modern computer analysis with soundcards and the shareware audio programs such as Cooledit part of FDM can be analyzed relatively easily. For example Cooledit has a spectrum analyzer. This way audio snippets from either side of signal ( LSB and USB separately ) can show not only the modulation levels (and calculating the index - providing that signal is off tuned ) but also show any other carriers that lie inside the (pass)band with greater accuracy a/o strength that any HF receiver can show

2. Time domain analysis ( fading analysis)

This is the second part of the most significant information required for a station (I think ). From many measurements I did so far over the years I found that there are two types (at least) of fading , the one is a 'temporary' fading that can occur in a less than 2-3 secs and another fading that can occur in times of minutes

2a.Cases of 'Short' time fading found on SW:

	Short time fading #1 This is the main technique to show in most cases. Though a little arbitrary drawing this is one of the most common cases found on HF. As anyone may understand from this drawing this is a sinusoidal curve ' and refers to only 'clear' signals ( free from QRM)
	Example #2 Another clear signal found esp. on 5 MHz band Notice on how it was the lower part with a small fade up
	Example #3 ( Angola 4950 ) This was another example with signal a little steady and sudden fade outs
	Example 4 Co channel QRM Unfortunately this drawing could not be easy to made by computer this is the reason i remade it by hand. You see here how the signal fluctuates. It comes mainly when another signal is on (accurately saying: nearly ) co channel QRM with 'shortest fading levels- depths ' coming from the signal difference between QRMer and QRMed signals while the frequency comes from the freq deference between the two carriers This case can happen also to clear signals with much higher fading levels ( depths) sometimes as in 18-4 -2000 when most of the signals on tropical bands had a fluttery of more than 4-6 S units with a >3 Hz rate probably due to ionospheric reasons

These are 4 examples found on the SW band but there are too many others I found so far

2b.Cases of long term fadings

From my observations there are not so many long term fadings. One can be a steady signal over the time and another with very deep fades occurring every say 5 mins ( this can happen mainly to stations less than 2500 km far from the RX system ) but here also are the fadings caused from fade ins , fade outs and ionospheric conditions as will be shown below:

	Long term #1 Here is an example - case of R Tirana some years ago and nearly the same for R Netherlands IND service The signal was steady for abt 6 mins then jumped down to S3 for less than 1 min Here the 'short term' fading levels are not shown
	Long term #2 fade in curves Here is a reference to SBC Warna 7235 ( Signapore) two months ago. The signal on abt 1400 was too low of the levels S5 but gradually enhancing to stand up to S 20 from at least 1515 Nearly the same can happen with fade our curve
	Case #3 : ionospheric problems Here is a case found on 18-4 -2000 when listening to Namibia on 3290 and 3270 . The case here is for 3270 with a signal steady until 1810 at S9+10 db but afterwards gradually lowering toS7 and standing there

3. More advanced way for domain analysis

There is still another way for making a exact F/TDM analysis that can be completely made by computer. The method is relatively simple by showing a predetermined spectrum of say + /- 15 kHz - or a wide as cases require to show the spectrum in a given time say 1 hr and on a 3D analysis.

Though not 100 % sure for this it was a special model tracer from HP that with the combination for spectrum analyzer has given the results in a thermal paper

UPDATE COM ON BOYS!

4 Using R75 and specialized programs

4a Smart Icom 32 and R75

ICOM offered a control software CS-R75 or RS-R75 as optional . This year Aug 2001 i asked th e importer to order this control software at a price of USD 42.5 as they previouslsy told me.

However after two months of waiting, they finally advised me that this control software has been given up production. Fortunately from the ICOM R75 mailing list have found the software of Mark Fine Smart Icom 32 which operates directly with the receiver with the use of a serial cable 9 pin RS232.

Using this software for spectrum analysis was a but tricky at first but then it was very easy. Just you have to determine the l two VFOs first the A as starting point and B the ending point. Sweep radio was however very low and I had to adjust the line pacing ( in the preferences) as low as 15-18 in order for the software to control as fast as possible ( In the preferences dialog - communications tab) with speed as high as 19200 And in the scanning parameters with delay as low as 10 ms. And still the speed was very low at a rate of 5-6 steps per second!

With as many sweeps as possible you can have a real conditions result that can show minima and maxima for each stations you determine.. Stopping the sweep , for two sweeps you can have the average level , but for more sweeps i m not usre if thsi can show the latest sweep or the average level ( RMS)

The result of sweeps can be saved for later reference.

Notice that still under this way you can still see only the contiguous channels ,but not what s inside the channel.

And here is an example:

Here is ana example for spectrum analysis. This is for a report for V of Nigeria on 0909 on 11-11

4b : Use of DSP and R75

The idea has been shown above on the 1b and is hown here with more detail .The basic infrormation however is that you have to use SSB with offtuining( IF shift) so that carrier can be shown. as reference for all mesurements. All is then rereed with pictures

Part 1 : Spectrum analyzer. It has been refered posibly cprectly on the 1b, and can show in parts the side band separately for each band selection .

	Here is a capture of a signal in USB . carrier is shown at abt 240 Hz . YOU see a low level carrier at 500 Hz or 250 HZ above carrier
	RMS levels of 20 sec of signal on USB for 11785 and shift of 500 and other carrier presumably same level .

Part 2 Fading analyzer : In contrast to above . i think that the correct for identifying the fading is with the AGC off . Tis is because the AGC can alter the S meter indications. Also in other cases I filter out the modulation parameters so that carreri to be pure and not interfere with the resulted carrier information

Notice that i am not 100 % sure if this way can really show the fading. level as it is audio based.

	Case 1 : Fading due to co channel interference. Abt 4.5 HZz of fading? Trace for abt 10 secs Normalized , full wave
	A relatively stable signal ! ( BBC)
	15060 CBS Taiwan at 1200 for10 secs short term fading This picture is a close up of the picture shown as below.
	15060 CBS Taiwan at 1200 for 2 mins -middle term fading . Includes also the above picture You can see the fading is somehow periodic.

Please tell me your opinions by return email to me at

HDFM το ψηφιακο ραδιοφωνο της Αμερικης

2008-01-10T22:19:00.001+02:00

Notice: this is an article I published last year in Greek about the American digital radio in a greek web site. The theme is also on the page: http://zlgr.multiply.com/reviews/item/27

HDFM – HD radio
Η αντιπρόταση το ψηφιακού ραδιόφωνου στην ΗΠΑ

Το HD radio σχεδιάστηκε σαν μια επέκταση της υπάρχουσας τεχνολογίας ετσι ώστε να είναι απολύτως συμβατή με τα σημερινά ραδιόφωνα AM και FM και να προσφέρει πέρα από την υψηλή ποιότητα ήχου εφάμιλλη με τα CD την ικανότητα να ανθίσταται σε περιπτώσει ανωμαλίας της διάδοσης από ανακλάσεις (πχ σε βουνα όταν πχ χρησιμοποιείται στα αυτοκίνητα το σήματα να ακούγεται πάντα σαν να ήταν δηλ σταθερό )

Αυτή ήταν από την αρχή η φιλοσοφία το HD. Το σχεδιασμό και την μελέτη ανέλαβε η εταιρία Ιbiquity , προϊόν συγχώνευσης των εταιριών Lucent (εταιρία που ασχολείται και με δορυφορικά συστήματα εκπομπής ) και της Westinghouse

Οι περισσότεροι μεταφράζουν τον όρο HD σε High Definition. Αντίθετα η εταιρία Ibiquity επεξηγεί ότι το HD σημαίνει hybrid digital (υβριδικό ψηφιακό )

Μετά από λεπτομερείς μελέτες της επιτροπής ράδιο συστημάτων ( NRSC) και τη ένωσης ραδιοτηλεοπτικών σταθμών (NAB) το αμερικανικό ΕΣΡ (FCC) ενέκρινε την χρησιμοποίηση του συστήματος από το ραδιοφωνικό δίκτυο το 2002 . Περισσότερες πληροφορίες παρακάτω

Τα βασικα (τεχνική ορολογια!! )

Δειγματοληψία

Χρησιμοποιείται το codec (κωδικοποιητης – αποκωδικοποιητης) HDC . to codec αυτό είναι προϊόν συνεργασίας της Ibiquity και της Coding Technologies. γνωστής από τα MP3 SBR (spectral band replicator ).
Το codec αυτό στηρίζεται στην παραπάνω τεχνολογία. Η τεχνική SΒR προσφέρει την ιδία πιστότητα ήχου με τα ‘συμβατικά’ ΜΡ3 στην μισή δειγματοληψία.
Σαν παράδειγμα ένα μουσικό κομμάτι 5 λεπτών σε MP3 στα 128kb έχει μέγεθος περίπου 5 ΜΒ , με την προσαρμογή σε SBR στα 64kb έχει μόνο 2.5 ΜΒ και έχει την ίδια ποιότητα ηχου

Σημ Το νέο διεθνές πρότυπο του DRM προχωρά σήμερα ακόμη πιο πέρα. Από το 2005 κατάργησαν το ΜΡ3 και προχώρησαν στο AAC Plus , μια μορφη του προτύπου MP4 χρησιμοποιώντας ακόμη πιο συμπιεστικά πρωτόκολλα που φτάνουν τα 32 κ

Διαμόρφωση
Όπως και τα το DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale – το σύστημα που σε μερικα χρονια θα αντικαταστήσει την ραδιοφωνία ) έτσι και το HD radio χρησιμοποιούν την διαμόρφωση COFDM ένα πολυκάναλο σύστημα ‘με κανάλια χαμηλής ταχύτητας που απέχουν σε ίσες συχνοτικές αποστάσεις μεταξύ τους’

Η διαμόρφωση αυτή ήδη χρησιμοποιείται εκτός από τα DRM και στα DVB-T και στις γραμμές ADSL !
Όπως θα φανεί παρακάτω τα κανάλια COFDM τοποθετούνται εξωτερικά από το αναλογικό σήμα.

Εκπομπή σε ΑΜ

Η δειγματοληψία στα ΑΜ κατεβαίνει στα 36 kbps για στερεοφωνικό ήχο και 20 kbps για μονοφωνικό.
Μετρήσεις από την Ιbiquity σε συνεργασία με το ραδιοφωνικό σταθμό έδειξαν ότι περιοχή κάλυψης του σήματος ήταν σχεδόν η ιδία με την διαμόρφωση ΑΜ

ΟΙ ιδιες μετρήσεις κατά την Ibiquity πάντα, έδειξαν ότι η ποιότητα είναι εφάμιλλη των FM και στις δυο περιπτώσεις .

Βραδυνη ληψη ΑΜ:

Όπως είναι γνωστο οι εκπομπες στα μεσαια κυματα τηνημερα μεταδιδοινται επιφανειακα ενώ τις βραδυνες ωρες ( συνηθως ετα τις 6 μμ ) η ιονοσφαιρα αντανακλα τα μακρυτρερα σηματα με αποτελεσμα η μπαντα να γεμιζει με σταθμους από πλεον απμακυρσμενες περιοχες – συνηθως μεχρι αποσταση 2500 χλμ
ΟΙ μετρησεις της Ibiquity εδιξαν ότι τα σηματα HD εχουν σχεδον το ιδιο βεληνεκες με το καθαρο ΑΜ

Until further notice, AM stations must restrict IBOC operation to daytime hours. An AM
station with authority to operate between 6 a.m. and local sunrise (pre-sunrise hours) and between local sunset and 6 p.m. (post-sunset hours)5 may operate its hybrid IBOC system during those periods

Στις 20-3 2003 η FCC ζήτησε από τους ραδιοσταθμούς που εκπέμπουν σε IBOC να εκπεμπυν μονο στις πρωινες (daytime) ωρες δηλ μεταξυ 6πμ-6μμ σε ιβρυδικη μορφη DA-03-831A1.pdf

Εκπομπή στα FM

H δειγματοληψία στα FM είναι 64 kbps με μέγιστη στα 96 kbps. Χαμηλώνοντας την δειγματοληψία στα 64 μπορεί να προστεθεί και δεύτερο κανάλι στην ιδια συχνότητα με δειγματοληψία στα 32 kbps

Χρησιμοποιώντας την δειγματοληψία στα 64kb επιτρέπει την δυνατότητα να εκπέμψει και δεύτερο κανάλι στην ίδια συχνότητα με δειγματοληψία 32 kbps.
Κάλυψη και εδώ η κάλυψη με βάση τις παραπάνω μετρήσεις της Ibiquity ήταν οι ίδιες με την κάλυψη με κανονική διαμόρφωση FM
Τα κανάλια COFDM χρησιμοποιούν PSK format

Τροπος εκπομπης

Όπως αναφερει η Ibiquity ο τροπος εκπμπης ειοναι περιπου ομοιος με τον κλασσικο τηε δορυφορικης εκπομης. Να τι γραφουν σχετικα

1. Ο ραδιοφωνικος σταθμος στελενει το αναλογικο και το ψηφιακο σημα μαζι με ένα σημα ψηφακων δεδομενων
2. το ψηφιακοσημα συμπιεςζεται κατά την εκπμπη
3. το σημα εκπεμπεται σπο το στηστημα της κεραιας
4. Οτιδηπποτε ανωμαλιες διαδοσης λοωγω εμποδιων κλπ λογω της δομης του σηματος (COFDM ) αγνειται από τον ψηφιακο ραδιο -δεκτη που εχει την δυνατοητανα ξεχωρισει το πραγματικο σημα και να ξεχωρισει τις παρεμβολες
5. Ο ραδιοωνικος δεκτης λαμβανει το σημα καιαναλγοια αποκωδικοποιηει το αναλογικο η το ψηφιακο σημα

Δομη σηματος

Υβριδικο ΑΜ

Όπως φαίνεται και στην παραπάνω εικόνα το πρώτο κανάλι βρίσκεται μεταξύ των καναλιών COFDM 54 και 81 με την μέγιστη επιτρεπτή ισχύ gia το πρωτεύον -20db εν σχέση με το φέρον σήμα με βάση τις προδιαγραφές της FCC . Το δεύτερο κανάλι βρίσκεται μεταξύ 27 και 53 και το τρίτο κάτω από το βασικό αναλογικό φάσμα . Και τα δυο κανάλια εκπέμπονται στην πάνω και κάτω πλευρική (είναι συμμετρικά) . Τα κανάλια 1 , 27 και 53 χρησιμοποιούνται για ειδικές υπηρεσίες ελέγχου του IBOC και χρησιμοποιούν διαμόρφωση 16QAM
H διαμόρφωση των πρωτευόντων είναι 64 QAM , των δευτερευόντων 16QAM και των τριτευόντων QPSK . η ισχύς του πρωτεύοντος ειναι σταθερή στα -30 dbC (εν σχέση με το φέρον ) ενώ των δευτερευόντων /τριτευόντων είναι μεταβλητή από -43 dbC και χαμηλότερα
Το παραπάνω δείχνει την λογική του IBOC -in band on channel – σαν υβριδική μορφή εκπομπής .

Η απόσταση μεταξύ των καναλιών OFDM είναι 181.69 Hz

Μια ακομη σημαντικη λεπτομερεια ¨Τα καναλαια της πανω πλευρικης (27-81) εχεουν τις ιδιες πληροφοριες με τηςκατω πλευρικης (-27 με -81) . Για ακομη μεγαλυτερη ασφαλεια των δεδομενων τα καναλια της κατω πλευρικης εχεουν μια καθυστερηση κατά 4.5 δευτερολεπτα. Και αυτό γινετα σε περπιτωση που χαθουν οι πληροφοριες της ανω πλευρικης να χρησιμοποιηθουν οι πληροφοριερς της ακτω πλευρικης

Όπως παρατηρειτε το ευρος του πομπου από το στανταρ που είναι περιπου 10 kHz αυτοματα τριπλασιαζεται ! Γιαυτο οι περισσοτεροι κατακριτες του σηστηματος το κατηγορουν ότι είναι IBAC (in band adjacent channel – εσωφασματικο σε γειτονικο καναλι ) αντι IBOC (εσωφασματικο – εσωκαναλο )

Πληρως ψηφιακο ΑΜ

Όπως φαίνεται τα πράγματα αλλάζουν . Το πρωτεύον κανάλι ήχου τοποθετείται στην θέση του αναλογικού καναλιού , το δεύτερο κανάλι τοποθετείται στην επάνω πλευρική και το τρίτο κανάλι στην κάτω πλευρική συμμετρικά. Το εύρος είναι συνολικά 20 KΗz
Όλα τα κανάλια OFDM χρησιμοποιούν 64QAM
Επίσης στην σύνθεση των φερόντων προστίθεται και η σύνθεση των υπηρεσιών.(sevice mode ) και αφορά την ανάμιξη των λογικών καναλιών ΜΑ1, ΜΑ2 ΜΑ3 και ΜΑ4 . Τα ΜΑ1/2 αφορούν το υβριδικό σύστημα και τα 3/ 4 το αμιγές ψηφιακό. Τα ΜΑ2 και 4 προσφέρουν μεγαλύτερη έξοδο (throughput ) ρίχνοντας την αντοχή του

FM
Απλό υβριδικό FM

Όπως φαίνεται εδώ , το υβριδικό ακολουθεί την δομή των AM. Το ψηφιακό μέρος χρησιμοποιεί από 190 κανάλια και στις δυο πλευρικές

Εκτεταμένο υβριδικό FM

Εδώ το αναλογικό σήμα ‘συμπιέζεται και στον κενό χώρο προστίθεται ένα δεύτερο ψηφιακό κανάλι. Η ισχύς των καναλιών είναι σταθερή στα -45.8 dbC (εν σχέση με το φέρον )

Ψηφιακο FM

Εδώ όπως φαίνεται τα πράγματα μπερδεύουν ακόμη περισσότερο. ‘Διώχνοντας’ τα αναλογικό κανάλι προστίθεται ‘ανάστροφα’ (εν σχέση με το κανάλι 280) το πρωτεύον και μετά το δευτερεύον αφήνοντας ένα μικρό μέρος με προστασία
Στην περίπτωση αυτή δεν χρησιμοποιείται αναλογικό φέρον , αλλά η ισχύς των πρωτευόντων καναλιών -35.8dbC αναφέρεται σε σχέση με το φέρον. Τα δευτερεύοντα κανάλια έχουν ισχύ -40.8 dbC

Εκπομπη :

Στις 17 Μαρτίου 2004 η FCC έδωσε την άδεια χρήσης ξεχωριστής κεραίας για κάθε διαμόρφωση . Συνεπώς η ισχύς εξόδου είναι μεταβλητή για τα δυο μέρη και δεν χρειάζεται να γίνει μετατροπή στην υπάρχουσα εγκατάσταση
ΟΙ απαιτήσεις όπως καθοριστήκαν από το FCC είναι οι ακόλουθες

 Η ψηφιακή εκπομπή πρέπει να χρησιμοποιεί την εφεδρική κεραία
 Η εφεδρική κεραία πρέπει να βρίσκεται το πολύ μεταξύ 3’’(δευτερολεπτου ) από την γεωγραφική θέση της κεραίας αναλογικής εκπομπής
 Το ýψος της εφεδρικής κεραίας πρέπει να είναι μεταξύ 70-100% σε σχεση με της κεραίας αναλογικής εκπομπής

Μερικοί . σταθμοί κατηγορηθήκαν ότι ενίσχυσαν το ψηφιακό σήμα με αποτέλεσμα να επηρεάσει την λήψη στα κλασσικά ραδιόφωνα με περισσότερο θόρυβο

Επιπλέον δυνατότητες

Όπως είναι προφανές η ψηφιακή ραδιοφωνία προσφέρει νέες δυνατότητες σε σχέση το κλασικό..
Το σίγουρο είναι ότι η ποιότητα ήχου βελτιώνεται πλησιάζοντας αυτήν των CD , χωρίς παρεμβολές και παράσιτα. Να σημειωθεί ότι η τεχνολογία αυτή σχεδιάστηκε εξ αρχης για να προσφέρει συνεχή ακρόαση στα αυτοκίνητα.

Πολυκάναλη εκπομπή ¨
Όπως αναφέρθηκε παραπάνω το HDFM μπορεί να εκπέμψει πολυκάναλα , σε βάρος όμως της ποιότητας του ήχου. ΟΙ πλέον απαιτητικοί ακροατές μπορούν να παραπονεθούν ότι οι προσθετές εκπομπές δημιουργούν ενοχλητικά κενά στον ηχο.

Έτσι ο οποιοσδήποτε σταθμός μπορεί εκτός από το κανονικό του πρόγραμμα που ακούγεται από το αναλογικό τμήμα και το πρώτο ψηφιακό κανάλι , να εκπέμψει και ένα δεύτερο μουσικό κανάλι πχ με jazz μουσική . Αυτό το κανάλι το ονομάζουν HD2.
Μπορεί όμως να χρησιμοποιηθεί και τρίτο κανάλι!
Οποιοσδήποτε σταθμός μπορεί να εκπέμψει πολυκαναλα πειραματικό ζητώντας την άδεια της FCC αλλα από την πρακτική φαίνεται να είναι μιαde facto κατάσταση

Η NPR (national public radio) είναι ενας από τους μεγαλύτερους υποστηρικτές του προγράμματος Με την επωνυμία Tomorrows Radio θα προσφέρει πολυκάναλο πρόγραμμα

Surround sound
Καθώς τα περισσότερα ηχοσυστήματα προσφέρουν δυνατότητες surround sound σε 5.1 το HD–R είναι το πιο κατάλληλο για να προσφέρει αυτη την δυνατότητα.

Για την υλοποίηση αυτή υπάρχουν ήδη δυο τεχνολογίες. Η μια προέρχεται από την Fraunhofer τον σχεδιαστή των ΜΡ3 . Μέσα στο 2004 (?) ο οργανισμός παρουσίασε την δομή του surround . Πέρα από την στανταρ δομή του MP3 υπολογίζονται τα άλλα τρία κανάλια με βάση την διαφορά φάσης και διαχωρίζονται από ένα μηχανισμό matrix

H δεύτερη πρόταση προέρχεται από την εταιρια SRS ,που κατεβάζει την δειγματοληψία σε 80 kb ελευθερώνοντας 16 kbps για την ανάλυση και διαχωρισμό των σημάτων

Ψηφιακές υπηρεσίες
Μερικές από τις υπηρεσίες που μπορεί να προσφέρει το HDR είναι και οι υπηρεσίες που προσφέρονται ήδη από το RDS .

Τι άλλο προστίθεται¨

-Πληροφορίες κατά ζήτηση για χρηματιστήριο , ειδήσεις καιρο κτλ
-Χάρτες ταξιδιών
-εμπόριο μέσω κινητού τηλεφώνου
- Διαφημίσεις κατά προτίμηση (στοιχεία από την ibiquity )

Όλες οι παραπάνω πληροφορίες και άλλες που μπορούν να προστεθούν είναι καθορίζονται από το πρωτόκολλο υπηρεσιών AAS

ΟΙ υποστηρικτές του
Πολλοί από τους ακροατές φαίνονται να είναι ιδιαιτέρα ευχαριστημένοι. Σε ένα άρθρο περιοδικού αναφέρεται: « στην μπαντα των AM προσφέρει καλύτερη ποιότητα ήχου ,βαθύτερο μπάσο , περισσότερα πρίμα και καλύτερο διαχωρισμό καναλιών.

Αλλά και τα Παράπονα
Και σίγουρα δεν θα μπορούσαν να μην υπάρχουν παράπονα και πολλά μάλιστα .

Συνεχίζοντας το παραπάνω άρθρο ανάφερε ότι κάτω από δύσκολες συνθήκες ο σταθμός ακούγονταν με κενά , ενώ το ραδιόφωνο γύριζε στην αναλογική ακρόαση που σήμαινε την εμφανή διαφορά στην ποιότητα του ήχου. Σε όλες αυτές τις περιπτώσεις το δευτερεύον κανάλι HD2 δεν ακούγονταν

Και σε άλλα άρθρα αναφέρονται πανόμοια παράπονα¨ Σε μια μεγάλη πόλη και λόγω του υψηλού θορύβου , πολλοί από τους σταθμούς ακούγονταν με δυσκολία καθώς ο δέκτης γύριζε λειτουργία σε FM και το δεύτερο κανάλι απλά δεν ακούγονταν !

Επίσης οι φίλοι της κλασσικής ραδιοφωνίας στα ΑΜ (DXers όπου ανήκω και εγώ) παραπονιούνται ότι το ψηφιακό σήμα (με το τριπλάσιο εύρος εν σχeσει με το εύρος των ΑΜ) δημιουργεί ‘θόρυβο’ σε χαμηλά σήματα σε γειτονικές συχνότητες από τους τοπικούς σταθμούς, παρεμποδίζοντας ετσι την λήψη κάποιων μακρινότερων σταθμών. Το ίδιο ακριβώς ισχύει και με την περίπτωση των DRM στην Ευρωπη

Όπως όμως παρατηρήθηκε απο ακροατές με συνήθη ραδιόφωνα που ζούσαν σε απομακρυσμένες περιοχές χωρίς ‘βιομηχανικό’ θόρυβο , η ύπαρξη του ψηφιακού σήματος μέσα στο κανάλι ΑΜ δημιουργούσε ένα σχετικό θόρυβο

Πολλοί φανατικοί οπαδοί των HIFi παρατήρησαν ότι η ποιότητα δεν ήταν η αναμενομένη σαν ποιότητα CD. Και είναι λογικο , καθώς η εκπομπή HD στηρίζεται σε απωλεστική συμπίεση !

Ενας ακομη dxer σε ένα άρθρο του για το μοντελο αυτοκινήτου JVCC KDSHX900 βρισκόταν σε απόσταση 30 μιλιών από τον τοπικό ραδιοσταθμό σημιωνε : η ληψη στα AM ηταν καλη με σταθερό σήμα , αλλά η λήψη σε HD ήταn μόνο η μισή εν σχέση με την λήψη που είχα σε ΑΜ ! (σημ: άρα χρειάζεται 4 πλασια ισχυ για να εχει σωστό HD σήμα ! )Οποιαδήποτε εξωτερική πηγή ακόμη και η μίζα γύριζε στην λήψη σε αναλογική ! Μετά το απόγευμα τα σήματα που έρχονταν από μακριά έκαναν άχρηστη την λήψη σε HD
Προσπαθώντας να κάνω λήψη HD σε πιο μακρινούς σταθμούς και μετά από δοκιμή 3 και πλέον ωρών , ο πιο κοντινότερος σε απόσταση 150 μιλιων , το ψηφιακό του σήμα μπορούσε να ακουστεί για μόνο ένα λεπτό
Και στα FM η κατάσταση δεν ήταν καλύτερη: Παρόλο που ταο σήμα ήταν καλο δεν μπόρεσα να ακούσω σε HD για παραπάνω από ένα λεπτό, μέχρι που κατάφερα να σταματήσω με κάποιο πιο κατάλληλο σημείο

Επίσης υπήρχαν πολλά παράπονα από το CBC (καναδικό ραδιόφωνο ) και Καναδούς ραδιοερασιτέχνες λόγω ειδικά του μεγάλου φάσματος εκπομπής . Όπως χαρακτηριστικά ανάφεραν το IBOC μοιάζει περισσότερο με IBAC (in band adjacent channel ).Περισσότερα στοιχεία μποpουν να βρεθούν στο site [topazdesigns.com/iboc] McLarnon-Comments-Jun04.pdf
Στο ιδιο site μπορούν να βρεθούν και πλήρεις προδιαγραφές του της Ibiquity για το IBOC /HD radio. Αυτές οι πληροφορίες αφαιρεθηκαν από την ιστοσελίδα της Ιbiquity το 2006

Πιθανη αποτυχια του AM IBOC?
Πολλοί τεχνικοί από ραδιοσταθμούς φαίνεται ότι δεν συμπαθούν το IBOC αλλά φοβούνται να το δηλώσουν με το φόβο μήπως απολυθούν από την δουλειά τους
Πολλοί του χώρου πιστεύουν οτι το HD Radio για τα ΑΜ δεν φαίνεται νε έχει μέλλον , σε αντίθεση με τα FM .

Η αλλαγή από την αναλογική ραδιοφωνία σε ψηφιακή αναμένεται να γινει θεωρητικά σε περίπου 5 χρόνια , πρακτικά ομως σε μερικές δεκαετίες…….

Αρκετοί ραδιοακροατες πιστεύουν ότι το AM IBOC θα αποτύχει πιθανώς λόγω της μη αποδοχής από το κοινό η ακόμη λόγω του υψηλού κόστους ($100.000+ ) σε υποδομή . Αυτό πιθανώς θα αποτρέψει την μετάβαση των μικρών σταθμών στη νέα τεχνολογία , η θα αναγκαστούν να κλείσουν . Και AM IBOC σημάνει κυρίως σταθμους λόγου !

Σημειώστε ότι στις ΗΠΑ σε αντίθεση με το υπόλοιπο κόσμο οι ραδιοσταθμοί των μεσαίων (AM) αυξάνονται!

Διαθεση –ραδιοφωνικοι σταθμοι
Περίπου 600 σταθμοί δηλώσαν συμμετοχή το 2003 στο πρόγραμμα HD radio. Στις 5.6.6 περίπου 820 σταθμοί εξέπεμπαν σε hD , με δικάναλο πρόγραμμα , με σύνολο 2000 να είναι στην λίστα αναμονής . Η HD Radio Alliance , η ομάδα των μεγαλύτερων Ρ/Σ που εκπέμπουν σε HD , ζήτησε οι σταθμοί να εκπέμπουν και με δεύτερο κανάλι με μουσικό πρόγραμμα χωρίς διαφημίσεις για μια περίοδο τουλάχιστον 18 μήνες
Στις 20.10.06 το νούμερο έφτασε στους 1000 ραδιοσταθμούς
Το κόστος ενός συστήματος αγγίζει τα $100.000 επιπλέον το ετησιο πάγιο που πληρώνει στην Ibiquity ( συστήματα μετατροπής, πομποί και δεύτερες κεραίες )

Η πλήρης λίστα σταθμών βρίσκεται στην σελίδα
http://www.ibiquity.com/hd_radio/hdradio_find_a_station/SA >
Η Λιστα περιλαμβάνει ¨όνομα σταθμού, συχνότητα είδος εκπομπής , κανάλι HD2 και HD3!!

Λίστα σταθμών που εκπέμπουν και σε HD2 στα FM αναφέρεται στην σελίδα
http://www.hdradio.com/hd_digital_radio_format_list.php

Μι τρίτη λίστα με σταθμούς στα ΑΜ : http://topazdesigns.com/iboc/station-list.html

Στις 7.5.6 με βάση ερεύνα , οι προτιμήσεις του κοινού ήταν 53% εντνται 37% του IPOD
http://www.hear2.com/2006/03/hd_radio_prefer.html

Κατασκευαστές προιοντων
Η αρχική πρόταση ήταν για την χρήση του το HDR τα αυτοκίνητα.
Η ΒΜW ήταν η πρώτη που πρόσφερε σαν επιλογή ραδιόφωνα HD για την σειρά μοντέλων 5xx, 6xx και 7xx
Μέχρι στιγμής υπάρχουν αρκετοί κατασκευαστές δεκτών HD με τιμές που αρχίζουν από $100 .
Μοντέλα αναφέρονται στην σελίδα:
http://www.hdradio.com/hdradio_buyers_guide.php με αναφορά σε πια μοντέλα έχουν διαθέσιμο δεύτερο κανάλι HD2 .

Ενδιαφέρον σε άλλα κράτη ¨
Μέχρι στιγμής έδειξαν ενδιαφέρον σταθμοί από Βραζιλία Ταϊλάνδη Νεα Ζηλανδια
Στην Ταϊλάνδη ένα δημόσιο ραδιο-δίκτυο ενέκρινε την χρήση του HDR . Περισσότερο από 10000 ραδιόφωνα HD θα τοποθετηθούν σε λεοφωρεια

Το βραζιλιάνικο δίκτυο Radio Globo πρόκειται να εγκαταστήσει μια σειρά πομπών υψηλής ισχύος στο Rio de Janeiro και στο Sao Paolo

Δοκιμές έχουν γίνει επίσης¨
Στην Lucerne Ελβετια ο ραδιοφωνικός σταθμός radio sunshine έχει παραγγείλει και θα δοκιμάσει σχετικά σύντομα ένα πομπό HDR
Ο ινδονησιακός σταθμός Radio Sangkakala έχει ξεκινήσει σειρά δοκιμών από τα Απριλιο 2006 στην μπάντα των MW με πολύ ‘θετικά’ αποτελέσματα σε υβριδική μορφή
Στην Ν Ζηλανδια στις 19 Οκτ 2005 έγιναν α δοκιμαστικές εκπομπές από τον πύργο του Auckland στους 106.1 σε υβριδική μορφή . Ανεπίσημα στοιχεία μετρήσεων έδειξαν ότι με 2 x 370 watt καλύφθηκε περισσότερο από 60% του πληθυσμού

Η εμπλοκή της RIAA

Το θέμα εδώ έχει ενδιαφέρον , γι αυτό θα είμαι σχετικά πιο αναλυτικός Ένας σχολιαστής τεχνικού περιοδικού προβλέψε από τα μέσα 2003 για την πιθανή αργότερα εμπλοκή της RIAA στο ψηφιακό ραδιόφωνο

O φωνογραφικός οργανισμός RIAA (το αντίστοιχο της ΑΕΠΙ/ IFPI ) σε μια φρενήρη προσπάθεια να καταδιώξει το ‘έγκλημα’ της μουσικής πειρατείας, περίπου στο τέλος του 2005 ζήτησε από την ΝΑΒ (τον ομιλο ραδιοσταθμων) να κωδικοποιήσουν το (ηχητικό) περιεχόμενο πριν την εκπομπή * , Όπως χαρακτηριστικά ανάφερε ο Bainwool πρόεδρος της RIAA στο γράμμα του στην ΝΑΒ , ‘ο καθένας θα μπορούσε να κάνει ψηφιακή εγγραφή και με τις υπάρχουσες δυνατότητες να ξεχωρίσει τα τραγούδια (‘cherry pick” ) και να τα διανείμει μέσω internet σε όλο τον κόσμο χωρίς καθόλου να τ’ ακούσει’ (Σημ: αναρωτιέμαι αν κάτι τέτοιο ευσταθεί )
Η Ibiquity με την σειρά της δήλωσε ότι αυτό δεν μπορεί να γίνει εφικτό.

Oi απαιτήσεις της RIAA σε καταναλωτικά προϊόντα όπως έχουν θεσμοθετηθεί το 2005 είναι:

 Να αποτρέπονται οι χρήσεις να σώζουν ξεχωριστά κομμάτια η να φτιάχνουν λίστες (play lists ). ¨
 Οι ψηφιακοί εγγραφείς να γράφουν σε τμήματα τουλάχιστον 30 λεπτών . όπως ανάφερε αυτή η κίνηση θα εμποδίσει τον διαχωρισμό των τμημάτων σε ξεχωριστά κομμάτια.
 Για ακόμη μεγαλύτερη προστασία η μορφή της εγγραφής να είναι ‘εγγενης’ της συσκευής εγγραφής έτσι ώστε να μην μεταφέρονται σε άλλες συσκευές όπως πχ Ipod, MP3 players η computers !!
 Τα χαρακτηριστικά του τραγουδιού [ID3tag/ metadata] θα πρέπει να περιορίζονται έτσι ώστε οι χρήστες να μην μπορούν να κάνουν καταλόγους από μόνο τους αγαπημένους τους καλλιτέχνες.

Κατά συνεπεία οι νόμοι αυτοί θα κάνουν τις ψηφιακές εγγραφές να μετατραπούν σε κλασσικά κασετόφωνα που χρησιμοποιούσαμε πριν από μερικές δεκαετίες! πηγη www.spectrum.ieee.org/print/3673 20051103-hd-radio-draft.pdf

Σε απάντηση της πάνω επιστολής ο εκπρόσωπος ΤΗΣ ΝΑΒ ανέφερε ότι ‘ το ψηφιακό ραδιόφωνο εχει πολύ μικρή επίδραση στην πειρατια- Αναρωτιόμαστε κατά πόσο το νέο ψηφιακό ραδιόφωνο καταπατά τα μουσικά δικαιώματα η διευκολύνει την ανέλεγκτη εγγραφή. Πιστεύομε ότι όποιος πραγματικά θέλει να έχει ποιοτικές εγγραφές θα αναζητήσει είτε την αγορά cd είτε να αναζητήσει μουσική από άλλες πηγές όπως το internet . 011106_DKR_to_RIAA.pdf
Και οι περισσοτεροι ραδιοσταθμοι ιενια γενικως αντιθθετοι στην ιδεα τηε σημανσης στο ψηφιακο ραιδοφωνο καθως αυξανει κατά πολύ το ηδη πολυσυνθετο προβλημα της ψηφιακης εκπομπης , καθως θα επιβραδυνει κατά πολύ την εεξελιξεις στην τεχνολογια

Σημειώστε ότι στην Αγγλία η εφαρμογή του DAB δεν έχει δείξει φαινόμενα “πειρατείας”.Πολλοί παραπονιούνται ότι η αύξηση των προγραμμάτων μέσα από τα λίγα σχετικά κανάλια έχει χαμηλώσει αρκετά την ποιότητα ηχου. Στα μέσα Ιουνίου το BBC 3 κατέβασε την δειγματοληψία από 192kb σε 160kb εμφανίζοντας ‘τεχνουργήματα’ (Artifacts).

The Public’s Right to Make Private Copies of Sound Recordings for Personal Use Must Be Taken Into Account

Αντιπρότεινε όμως την εφαρμογή του broadcast flag (σήμανση εκπομπής ) η οποία καθορισμένη από τον ραδιοσταθμό αποτρέπει τις ραδιοφωνικές εγγραφές δηλ για συγκεκριμένο χρονικό διάστημα μα αποτρέψει πχ την εγγραφή μουσικής και μετά από το τέλος του προγράμματος να επιτρέψει την εγγραφή μιας συζήτησης [Levin.pdf] http://www.clearchannel.com/Corporate/Documents/Levin.pdf

Η σήμανση εκπομπής τεχνικώς είναι μια σειρά data ενσωματωμένα στο stream του ψηφιακού σήματος. Έχει ήδη εφαρμοστεί στην ψηφιακή τηλεόραση από το 2005.

Διάφοροι καταναλωτικοί οργανισμοί διαμαρτυρηθήκαν έντονα, με ισχυρότερη την EFF να ζητά πίεση μέσω του Κογκρέσου την αποτροπή της εφαρμογής τέτοιων μέτρων. .
Η RIAA στα μέσα Μάρτη 2006 ανακίνησε το θέμα με αποτέλεσμα στις 2 Μαρτίου 2006 να θεσπιστεί νόμος που απαγορεύει την κατασκευή και πώληση δεκτών χωρίς την ‘σήμανση εκπομπής’
http://news.com.com/Congress+raises+broadcast+flag+for+audio/2100-1028_3-6045225.html
Η ιστορία αυτή συνεχίστηκε στην γερουσία κατά την διάρκεια του καλοκαιριού

Τα συμπεράσματα δικά σας

Στις 30.2.2006 ο γερουσιαστής Ferguson κατεθεσε ένα μνομοσχεδιο στο οποιο η FCC εχει αρμοδιοτητα να απαιτησει την απαγορευση της αταστκευης κασι πωλησης δεκτων χωρις την σημανση εκπομπης , χωρις να αχρηστοιποιει οσους εχουν ηδηπωληθει .οπω αναφεραι στο κειμενο προτεινει ομωε να προστατεψει την «ιστορικα σηνηθη δυνατοτητα εγγραφεης»
Καποιες ιστοσελιοδες αναφεροπν ότι ο ferguson χηρτμαιστηκε με πανω από $10000

Στις αρχες Μαιου ενας νεος νομος κατατεηθηκς στην Γερουσια δινοντας αρμοδιοτητα στην FCC να ενεργησει μια επιτροπη η οποια θα περιλαμβανει εκπροσωπους από ολους του φορεις με στόχο μεσα σε ένα χρονο να ανβαπτυξει την σχετικη τεχνολογία.Της δινειτα χρονικη επεκταση κατά 6 μηνες σε περιπτωση που δεν καταληξουν μεασα στο χρονικο διασημα
O νομος αυτπος κατατεθηκε από τον Γερουσιαστη tedstevens

Διαφορές καταναλωτικές οργανώσεις διαμαρτυρήθηκαν έντονα για την θέσπιση τέτοιων νόμων , αναφέροντας ότι η θέσπιση τεη σημανσης θα δημιουργήσει αβεβαιότητα στην αγορά. Ο πρόεδρος της CEAP Gary Shapiro ανέφερε ότι οι καταναλωτές θα υποχρεωθούν να πληρώσουν μεχρι και 4 φορές ακριβοτεα την τεχνολογία από ότι προηγουμένως

Στις 22 Ιουνίου ο γερουσιαστης John Sununu εφερε μια τροποποοιηση κατά της σημανσης εκπομπης , η οποια ομως δεν εγινε δεκτη

Και στις 1-7-2006 το εφετείο απέρριψε τον κυβερνητικό νομό που απαγόρεψε πολλής τηλεοπτικούς δεκτές

Να σημειωθεί ότι και στην Ευρώπη ειχε από νωρίτερα σχεδιαστεί ένα αντισοιτχο σύστημα προστασιας με το ονομα DVB_CPT (copy protection technology )
To σσυτημα αυτό εισχωρειακομη πιο βαθια > παρακατω αναφερονται γενικες πληροφοριες για την χρηση του DVBCPT στα media
-CA – conditional acess ¨όπως με την δορυφορικη τηλεοραση , η δυνατοητα κρυπτογραφησης καιελεγχου κατά συνθηκες
- CP copy protection ¨προστασια από τις αντιγραφες
- Digital watermarking ¨η εισαγωγη ορισμενων πληροφοριων μεσα στο ψηφιακο πριεχομενο

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sources of QRN

2008-01-06T13:38:00.001+02:00

Notice: this mesage has been uploaded to my web page of geocities

POWERLINE QRN

A big problem for the DXer

Since last year a very big problem encountered from a strong noise coming from the nearby powerline electricity towers of 22 kV . It first happened about start of June last year and continued until the middle of October. It again started early this May and it still continues this time ( July 2003) with a short pause on June 25 and 26 when it reappeared after a strong lightning YThe level relatively vanished on mid september and is more rare.

For Last year ,as heard , the problem originates from the main transformer’s leakage

You can listen a sample of this noise here as it was before July and how it now is heard

Depending of the band the noise level is a bit different. Here is a listing of the signal levels in tabular and graphical format

Freq MHz	Level	Att level
1.	7	2.5
2	0	/
3	1	-
4	3	-
5	4.5	-
6	7.5	-
7	9	2
8	9	3.5
9	8.5	1
10	7
11	2
12	4
13	4
14	3
15	1
16	0
17	3
18	4
19	2
20	2
21	5
22	2

It is necessary here to describe the problem with pictures

Before that , once again I must state that my antenna system consists of one horizontal 16m wire and one shortcut dipole with down connection of 16m and inactive dipoles of 16 m

Here is the picture near to our building . You can see how close are the powerline 110 kV towers .

Not more than 60 m far

Here is the nearby wiring network from electricity and other sources. Not shown the telephonic spources . Quite complicated , huh ?

In order to check if this really comes from the 22 kV electricity towers or from other local source I have travelled a bit to places around my point of ca 800 m far

Here are some results:

THis is another view of the dual powerlines of 110 kV . 200mm below this poit the QRN sems to disappear.

And here at a point 1 km far from the house and again under the powerlines . Here the noise level is quite high as in my house till the poit of the car then the signal is cleared

. What is funny , the powerline noise disappears from less than 100 m. I think that ist comes due to little wiring …

For the moment , I m overcoming the noise only using the MFJ noise canceller MFJ 1025 that works with two antennas by phasing out the QRN. However in most cases the tuning and phasing is quite tricky as for just a few kHZ off-tune the noise appears again

As in mid september the problem seems to be a little less. Some times it seems big some times less. According to a telcons professor this may come from the insulators of the high electricity towers . Moisture and dust can effect on the quality of the insulators producing sparks between them and the high voltage wires.

Last may (2003) I made a call to the national Electricity company DEI for this noise problem . The officer in charge insisted that I was the first claiming about it, and supposes it is a local transformer problem or due to possible overload from electrical appliances. (but still exists though we are in cold weather and rain for today ) It is expected powerline communications (also known as BPL) to start in late end this year by DEI s daughter company Tellas

UPDATE A2006

As of 2006 the noise was audible only on trhe MW band 500 ca 2000 kHZ band wioth S9 across it The most peculiar of it , the nose was off for several hours in the morning , enabling me foe weeekends to listen to MW

UPDATE 2 - ADSL supposed add-on 11/2006 but !!! .

The recent days (start of November 2006) I have made a request for ADSL line . though I have not been informed by anyone , i found the DX diference. Tjhere was just little QRN across the bands.

However the same days there was another noise added in our area from unknown source The shape levels are determined by a level of S9 on the 2-4 MHz lowering to about 6 mHz , being below S0 for the 6-10 mHz or S3 with 10 db preampplifier and then somehow raised from above the 16 mHz by a nearly constant level of S2-3 on the 17-24 mHz . That happens onthe 2x 16 m antenna

The most peculair is gthat the noise is starting from 1630-1730 LT !!! and contiinues at least till 0130

Using the 16 m horizontal antenna there is a nearly constant level of S2-4 across most bands. on MW the noise is S10 in in ocntrast to S9 of V antenna , and a a harsh audio above the 10 mHz . This caused me an increase of tinnitus however...

IN practive it can mean a relatively low rate of quite harsh noise. In most cases it does not offer big amountrs of nose , but in the lowers bands this noise is absolutely killing radio listening

OTHER SOURCES OF QRN OBSERVED

Several other sources i found so far include:

satelitte TV receivers , and most particularly hard disks on sat antennas. I own a Dreambox receiver which in very short time i built-in a hard disk.With the hard disk a rasor sounded noise is heard with up to S3 on the 2x16 m antenna
Fluorescent lamps: They add a huge amount of noises , usually S 5-7 . This is the reason , though my older work, that i completey removed them from house.
TV set : again i hnave observed very low levels. Most susceptible band comes the 10-11MHz band

And one supposedly adding a lot of noise but was in the reverse:

Computer: believe itor not my 3 GHZ computer , with TFT 17", scanner , optical mouse , laser printer etc , did not produce any harsh noises

The 17' tft monitor is above the radio and produe very low levels of noise that can annoy only if i have to listen to very poor signals (below S2 with preamp!!!) in the MW and 10-11 MHZ bands
Printer adds some noise only when printing occurs
The horizontal antenna is more susceptible to any noises generated from any type of sources . BY shutting off computer a white noise generated in the 16- 20 MHZ band is stopped , leveled S2 only

If someone has any idea how to overcome this noise , without using the MFJ canceller, please let me know at

Blogged with Flock

Another possibly different new years eve

2008-01-05T20:00:00.000+02:00

Notice: The times listed here are UTC (ie 2 hours less than the local time )

As you might see from my last year’s posting , the New year's eve , was with much of radio , DXing and satellite TV watching then visiting the waited but not realized , festival of New year on the centre of Thessaloniki

This year was quite different than last year.

At first , I was working this year until 1200 o clock but really there was really nothing special on office and local buildings were vacant from people. This is what we call in Greece , ‘we and the walls‘. Waiting to take my parents from the house , located nearby, (ca 1 km far from my work place) I asked my father who was outside , what they could do. He advised me to leave and return my home , as I did . My wife was waiting for me there.

Last year’s eve we both were not at work

At the other site , I already knew that nothing would be done on the night with the festical. Instead of it , the festival started from the noon of 31.12 till ca 20 Local times , as the bars and music halls requested it (as an unrelated person told me , do they lose their customers? I don’t believe it … )

In the house ,after preparing the necessary things for the night , I was DXing at fist Cuba and tried to listen to Venezuela via Cuba . the program from Cuba seemed quite interesting but Venezuela could not be heard

Prior to this , the previous day , I have collected material from the Hard Core DX mailing list , the last dx window and the Kanto DX group and printed in my favorite booklet format and on the free time in the office I have marked her most interesting logs to check for myself

Again the pirate station on 6878 was back in the freq and also heard a bit

Looking for the possible program from NHK as I did last year , on 9750 on 1500 and afterwards I have heard the voice of Islam from Malaysia with Islamic preaches that time . It passed the TOH with time clock and news , and later has been heard with a short overview of 2007

Doing this , I lost watching the JSTV satellite TV program. Instead I turned on the sat system on 1556 (ie my Dreambox sat receiver ) and tuned into the CCTV4 from China on the Hotbird satellite with an always spectacular music program that was in parallel to CCTV9

Sometime afterwards my parents have been arrived at our home.

This year , as before, the program consisted with pop and folklore songs from china but there was also a singer with a bamar song . It ended however on ca 1610

Doing this I also missed the opportunity to listen to a Chinese radio station with its usual gongs at the year change and the talks by someone a little later …..

At 1700 I watched the year change in Thailand leaving Korea ‘s Arirang out. N contrast to last year’s canned program , the thai program aired from the central park the live show in a ‘sea audience ‘ consisting of more than 100000 people , with many fireworks after the top of hour

At ca 1900 I changed to the Kazakh channel Kaspionet which was again my favorite program for that day and left it there , while most time , the there families , us, my parents and my wife parents were together expecting the new year on the parents-in-law house that s located over ours .

I was again impressed with their (kaspionet ) program : in few words , the program I watched as 19-20 with a concert with a possibly Kazakh diva aged about 45 years (did not found her name ) but program was possibly quite old as the style of the songs was quite old . At 20-2030 there were pop songs i in Russian , 2045- 2100 from a children concert with mostly classic music /operas and on 2200 a mix-up of pops and folks in Kazakh and Russian language

ON 2000 we changed the program to AZ TV and Lider both from Azerbaican. I was a bit impressed with AZTV’s year change with the fireworks of more than 15 minutes duration and more than 100000 people attending on a big square under a big tree of ca 20-25 meters full of lamps. The on off lamps by the current formed a ring the gone upwards /downwards and then formed vertical lines turned rightwards or leftwards having the tree’s top as its main centre. The Music program was canned with only beats

LIder on the other site played old western pop songs from video clips.

At 2100 I saw together with my father the year change in Russia and Turkey. Prvvi program from Russia had a mixed up program with songs and mini sketches. before and after the time change . Turkey on the other side had semi traditional or folk songs.
We looked on the Russian program for the year change. As in the previous year the cameras were hooting on the big clock on the Kremlin that reached the time then a the national anthem was played showing the exceptional buildings of Kremlin .After the anthem ended the program was retuned to its mix-up with again pop songs etc . My father was a little disappointed expecting to listen to more folkloric styles

I again changes the channel to Kaspionet and little after we gone not the apartment of my in laws. At some time I received a call from a friend wishing us the best , and immediately called another friend for meeting him after the year change. He welcomes my idea indeed and was awaiting for our next telephone call

On the above picture the left pie is the pie made by my wife the right by my mom in law

ON 2200 there was the time change .Instead of watching the change in the television, hat was tune to the Ant1 TV ,and its program Deal (betting for up to €300000 ) , we heard fire cracks from outside the house. Living at a very high point , with visibility up to 40 km there were more than 15 points with fireworks.

As per the ethic , we exchanged kisses and greetings and he father in law opened a champagne that was shared to all of us – 8 persons .

the time we exchanged greetings and cheerios

Then we cut the Vasilopita (new year’s cake ) that was shared among all of us. Again my father in law together with the cooperation of his wife cut the cake and then shared it

AS per custom in one of these pieces there was a coin that symbolizes the lucky person. This year my wife has won it.In the picture below you see the coins inside the pie

The time has passed 2230 and then I was to call he friend for the meting . But he was sleeping. Sad but also lucky , as we both the same time were on a little bad health – with cough and catarrh. Though my wife was on the hurry to get out , we finally did not gone out . Instead I watched a little bit more year change , this time from Italy and Germany , by tuning to RAI 1 and ZDF.ZDF was a bit more interesting from the live program of RAI showing again fireworks. RAI instead had a live show.

……..time passes ………

On noon 1.1.18 and the table is nearly ready for the celebrating the new year and also my mother in law ‘s name (Vasiliki ) On he table is now the Vasilopita (= meat pie, verbatim the pie of Vasilis / Bill ) made thoroughly by my mother with meat from meat from Litohoron.

He The pie has been cut by my father , the oldest person of all families together. I also swithed on the satellite system, to look into the Vienna philharmonic via the ZDF , Germany but as the time was a bit later we listened to the the end of the program

All families on the table !

The pie had also a coin which I awarded. It is on the right cornet of the plate inside a metal foil

And that is the story of that day …

Logs made on 31.1.7 to 4.1.8

2008-01-05T14:19:00.001+02:00

Here is my full radio log list the previous days 31/1 to 4.1 based on material cached from DX Window , HCDX mailing list , Iwata Gaku and VT communications listing , including radio scanning . Separate , by day logs are already been posted on http://zlgr.multiply.com/journal/item/127 128 and 129 with some exceptional logs separately (as Radio Svitle /Emmanuel and R Largoz fr the moment )

This is one time only and will be remade only in cases of exceptional cases as in this ‘DXpedition’.
This time it was my period of 'vacations'

Notices: cland > country means towards that country
[non] means not originated from that country,but brokered

Algeria [non] 9455 2018 presume Algeria , talks by OM , an acapella song . OM about Quran , man preaching over drum play . Quran till 2042, many talks after. Signal mixed with Firedrake and a Chinese lang station but Algeria(p) tapped them at 95% per reception time Liangas presume 1.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

Algeria non 9455 RTAlgeria 19++ //11815 with Islamic prg . signal is S9+20 but partially QRMed by a PP station a. ON 11815 the signal is so poor that RBC Brazil on its S7 signal can easily cover it. Also 5110//9850 on 2110 with signals S10/S3 respectively Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

AUSTRALIA 9475 RA 1515+ discussions /phone ins 1517 with songs S3 best on LSB Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

BAHRAIN 9744.6 Bahrain 1443 with marginal signal and Arabic songs Man mentioning something as "al ustebed kel arabia' then back to Arabic songs Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

BELGIUM 9970 RTBF with song "Hallo Papa Tango Charlie" in a pop remix format and French lyrics . Signal S10 This song makes me very nice memories!..... Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

BYELORUSSIA 7235 BLR at 0855 with a guitar play , 0857 a song from Space I think 'Magic fly' 0858 OM ".... reklama"0900 news by YL till 0905? 0907 with pop song by YL 0910+ talks and discussions by two at least YL Signal here is S4 max 35433 Liangas 3.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

CHINA 6130 Xizang 1404 with 'Chinese' songs (seem as Chinese!! ) with talks in TB. Japan song on 1420 S7 33433 //7385 also good Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

China 7185 Firedrake mixed with R Taiwan Intl as per EiBI listing marginal for both at that time .. Liangas 3.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

CHINA 9890 //4800 XJPBS in Uighur with S6 max ob 1507 35423 Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

CHINA 9930 Firedrake jammer on 1439 against possibly a N Korean cland . DO Chinese cooperate with N Korea? Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

CHINA? 12055 XJPBS (?) talks in Kazakh on 09++ , Chinese on 1010 . S7 on 2x16 m Liangas 3.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

Cland > ETH (VT)12015 R Meselna Delina 1828 with a hilife song stopped on 182920 and IDing as WHRI . At 182955 with prog in Arabic abt reading the testament . returning back on 1839 heard WHRI in English !!! signal S9 34333 Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

cland > korea (via TWN) 9795 CMI /V Wilderness 2009 heard OM in Korean lang. Marginal signal Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

cland > Korea 5965 Shiokaze 2244 hear with JJ talks signal S4 better in LSB to avoid ute QRM Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

cland > korean (via TWN ) 9645 F NKOREA 2012& 2033 CRI? . On 2040 QRMed by Bandeirantes Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

Cland > Turkey 7540 Mesopotamia 1946 OM with talks . several mentions on Kurd on 1948 , irtan , turke , under a discussion /interview that passed 2000. Prior to 1930 there was nothing or 7545 was so strong that neither a carrier could be detected...Fair signal Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

Cland >IRAQ? 6335 V Iraqi Kurdistan 1244 with talks by OM + YL in not so clear Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

cland >Korea (via Russia) 7510 FNKR 2000 with talks in Korean by OM and YL over instrumental music . mentioning yongyiyul on 2004 . A koran pop song on ca2030 'love you' Signal S9 Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

Cland >N KOR 9820 Nihon no kaze 1711 heard with marginal signal , just above the noise floor , with talks in Korean , S0 or S2 with preamp on Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

Cland >Sudan via RUSS 9840 Sudan R S 1604 YL with talks in a language mixed of Arabic and locals mentioning US aid, BBC Darfur. A report in VN on 1609 , 1612 mixed with song . Max S9 min S7 44434 Then 1703 in Shiluk language using transmitter from UAE and quite fading signal with maximum level S5 and SINPO 34232 . re-tested on 1733 but WHRI is on the freq

Cland >TUR 11530 V Mesopotamia 1120 YL with short news or comments and short musical breaks in between. Music on 1122 25232 S4 max Liangas 3.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

Cland SVK >ETH? 9825 Miraya FM 1606 with OM IDig 'r miraya' in Arabic . many talks after , 33423 max S5 . ON 1630 nearly no signal!! Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

Cland via VT 4880 /7125 SWR Africa on 1717 with hilife songs. 4880 was nearly clar all the time except 1930+ (from Mossad in its USB) while 7125 was all time covered by possibly R Vatican in Turkish on 17+ Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

Cland? S AFRICA >?? 11890 Okapi 1612 talks by YL in French . political news about a minister of foreign relation , a delegation , kannanga kampala , IDing R Okapi , Congo Kenya etc signal level S9+20!! and same level on 1641 with ID and talks in VN Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

Cland> N KOR 9730 supposed FN Korea 1003+ , heard YL talking on Korean ,discussions on 1025 . signal however is marginal at its maximum Liangas 3.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

Cland>N KOR 9940 V Wilderness 1304 is not RXed due to IRIB with S6 Liangas 3.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

CUBA 11999.96 RHC 1230 OM with political / diplomatic talks in SS, many mentions on Cuba and reports . Co ch QRM with carrier on +200 HZ . better on LSB to avoid a bit of QRM S3-4 22432 Also 3.1 wth S5, 32x32 best SSB qrmed by carrier with news in spanish. ON 1400 heard ID and 'ora de Cuba' Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

DJIBOUTI 4780 RTV Djibouti music and YL talking in AR S5 Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

EGYPT 9250 R nile on 1845 with Sudan type Arabic songs , ID as Idaatu Nil .. min al Kahira' @184750 then YL into talking. tested to listen to //1106 but covered by a Serbian station signal S9 45544 Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

ETH 9559.12 R Ethiopia ? at 1615 with folk music . at 1636 with talks (news? ) in english ith 1638 a short music interval . carrier seems QSYing : on 1649 carrier was on 9558.98 . Signal is poor at S3 having terrible QRM from 9565 VoA Swahili(?)Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

GABON 4777 Radio Gabon S7 talks in FF 4x434 Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

GREECE 6230 Era Sport 105.8 spur or mid-product , with ID and sports talks on 1355 . S5 33443 Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

KOREA 6250 //6398 heard as early as 1328 with signal S2 with operas Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

LIBYA 17725 LIBYA in Swahili on 1200 with talks by several men IDing on 1206 and providing emails and webs as info@voiceofarfica.com.ly www.voiceofarfica.com.ly New ID as "Sawti Africa " S4 , 35333 Liangas 3.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

Lithuania 6255 mighty KBC (?) was on 2158 with self adverts and pop music and but program on 2201 was religious, with someone asking money to send to the recipients a book. back on 2228 with the correct program of KBC Signal S9 amd slight QRM from 6250 (Iran?) Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

MAURITANIE 4845 0500 talks in Arabic , 'iD huna mauritania" etc country mentions S7 35243 QRN lightings Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

MEXICO 9599.36 UNAM 2210 surprised to find this station here. with only classical music at all the program I listened till 2233. Marginal signal with peaks very 2 seconds gradually increased to a S14321 level for 2230 . Better in AM Narrow to decrease somehow the local QRN. Rechecked on 0130/5.1 but there was a Arabic station Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

M'SIA 7295 TRaxx FM 1525 with pop songs S3 in a clear freq Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

M'SIA 9750 V of Islam 1459 OM with quranic preaches , with slight QRM from NHK-JP . At TOH with clock sound hen YK in ML with news . 24232.ON 1538 YL reviewing a calendar of 2007. Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

Number /spy station 5898 Spanish , with 5fgs at 0817 S6 35343 Liangas 3.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

OMAN? 15140 R Oman with news in English on 1430 . News abt Bulgaria , Ukraine. Pop sog on 1438 S5 over much QRM coning from 15130 (S30!! ) signal passed 1545 with songs Liangas 3.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

PHILS? 11510 OM in a Pilipino styled language (WYFR /Tagalog per Eibi /Kazakhstan )on 1111 with religious talks , mentions on spiritus , santo , Pablo etc Singal S7 max , 34232

PHILS??? 11705 VOA Phils ?? 1220 talks by OM in American accented EG. Marginal signal . when trying to listen RN venezuela via Cuba Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

Pirate ITALY ? 6880 power FM relayer , with pop songs, singed off 1425 and QSYed to 6878 Marginal Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

Pirate 6270 R 'Eastfort ' 0510 with song of Queen (mama mia ) max S7 24242 , 0031645..26..0 ID in NL and EG mentioning also 6240 .Slow fading Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

PMR 7370 R PMR 1715 ID by YL providing news . quite difficult reception due to Firedrake 's strong signal S20 , over PMR's S3 even using USB . On 1832 in german with max S9 while firedrake left out.44534 but low quality audio Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

RUSSIA/Tatarstan 11915 trying to listen to Tatarstan Awazy , there was a carrier QRMed with china's CNR1?? at S2ON 0930 with S10 in Tatar followed by a Tatar song Discussions on 0938 .45434. Lang seems as Kazakh . Also S9 on 5.1.8 with a poem type by YL Liangas 3.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

Rwanda 6055 R Rwanda 2105 with pop / hilife songs . recheck on 2130 QRM by Romania and 2210 Nikkei (per aoki ) was on the freq. Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

SERBIA 7240 V of Serbia 1300 afer IS , YL in Serbian with ID and news S10 , 43443 Liangas 3.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

SKN (?)9805 HCJB 1722 OM with many mentions on Yisus, svobodnye, hlyudi and later with traditional style (religious? ) songs signal S10 44544 with DRM under Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

spur 6295 , talks in Turkish , imam on 0508 Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

SRI LANKA 11750 SLBC 1618 Tamil / Sinhala songs. At phone-in on 1625 hen mostly wirth songs S9 ON 1645 s strong buzzer destroyed reception Liangas 3.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

SRI LANKA 11905 SLBC 1455 with old Hindi songs S2 and 25132 .Presume on 3.1 with Tamil on 1030 with Hindi and Tamil songs with S5 and 32432 Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

TANZANIA 11735 R Tanzania Zanzibar 1855 with Arabic type songs lead by drums with something toad as 'al islar' YL talking about Islam then IDing as R Tanzania Zanzibar , 185710 quranic preaches by a priest and child followers !!. ID on 185930 . good signal Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

UAE >AFG 9875 Solh 1503 mixed with DRM. ID at 150504 Solh's signal at S10-20 covered the DR<>

UAE >AFG 15265 Solh 1413 with Bolly &pop Hindi song Liangas 3.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

UAE 9590 TWR (p) 1808 in Amharic with talks by OM and possibly hte with psalm S7-9 34323 Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

USA? 6225 Family radio 1428? open brums , advert on bible resources . ID as family radio and giving address.ON 3.1 and 1406 again best on LSB due to digital stream on 6226 S7 Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

USA? 6915 Family radio 0519 relig talks S8 45544 Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

USA? 9840 WHRI 1733 adn 1752 IDing as R Caroline with nice pop and rock songs, providing on 1752 adress , phone ..10110.. . ID as WHRI on 1759 then YL welcoming to the program Better on LSB Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

UZBEKISTAN 7365 FEBA 1409 talks by OM in Urdu - per DXLD - ,on a song man starting in ENg then in urdu- S5 max 33433 Liangas 3.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

VATICAN 9310 Vatican radio 1509 after IS with prg in IND with Laudetur J C , mangeshkar, sitar play etc . S3-4 24332 Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

Vietnam non (via RU)5955 V o Vietnam 1801 with prg in English , mentioning about Vietnam, an their politics and contributions to Kosovo and Darfur. Little QRM from 5960 possibly TRT turkey. Signal S20 Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

YEMEN 6135 Republic of Yemen Radio 1407 with Arabic songs . 1408 with immediate quranic verses discussion between OM/YL (a theatrical way ) over instrumental music, 141350 back to quranic sermons S9 45544 , Liangas 31.12.07 Thessaloniki Greece

ZAMBIA 13650 CVC Makeni 1653 with pp songs , YL with ID ctc.tv address in India then with R&B Song . S5-7 35333 Liangas 4.1.8 Thessaloniki Greece

Quite big listing , huh?

I tried to be as accurate as possible , but in case there are any errors please let me know .

A short description of myself today

2008-01-04T15:04:00.001+02:00

Many of you already know that I am a DXer , i.e. radio listener specialized for more difficult receptions. Several of you possibly read my Geocities page concerning my history in telecoms.If not please visit that page
Here i will try in very short to describe my todays 'non-business' activities

Being as photo reporter. MY mother was processing photos on 60s on the family photo service /store on Katerini , 60 km D of Thessaloniki.
I am doing semiofficial photo reporting for the Odeum of Litohoron , in which my parents are members. LItohoron is also father's birth place.
I have bought on 2002 a Olympus C220 2 MP camera .Last year I have bought a Nikon D50 camera that later has been upgraded with a Tamron 55-200 lens which recently has been replaced with a Tamron 18-200 lens
The Olympus C220 is for everyday use but recently has been damaged a bit as the battery lid has been broken
Doing 'DX' : finding a open time window on ca0500 UTC to ca 0520 and after 1300 UTC
Doing news sharing. There are three groups i share news, two of them are for radio and technology , that include a bunch of about 13 RSS sources
and doing blogging .... The material collected from the above two first items are uploaded to my sites

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My other web pages

2008-01-04T15:03:00.001+02:00

AS you possibly know i own several other web pages . This page will cover with a short reference all my other public web pages .

1. http://www.geocities.com/zliangas
   This is my oldest page and totally inactive today started on 96 . Many articles about my story, personal interests, radio, radio pirates database , trips across Greece with radio receptions and and several gadget reviews and some Greek ethics pages
A complete listing is shown on http://www.geocities.com/zliangas/main_index.htm (the left pane of the framed main window acts also as site map )

2. http://www.worldisround.com/articles/302315/
    This is a mini travel photo page for Litohoron . It is about 50 photos and needs a bit of update

3. http://www.worldisround.com/articles/321199
    this is a travel photo page for Tinos, an island very famous for its Church of Madonna

4. http://www.flickr.com/photos/zachgr
    This is my secondary today photo page . Short updates just for keeping it as image repository for my blogging system. Originally made for commentaries in between the Nikon D70 mailing list/ users group on mid 2007

5. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=770974854
    And this is just a profile page with my interests including some of my work fellows and a bit of communications . Irregularly used.

6. http://zlgr.multiply.com
This is my main blog page set up on Oct 2006 and mainly used nearly every day . The facilities of Multiply separate the blog into main blog , pictures, videos , music calendar reviews   and links .

ON the blog I have kept all my radio logs, including audio clips publicly downloadable and a report for Sansa E130 , and MP3 /WMA codec comparison in a pdf version
The picture part covers pictures from LItohoron including shows i cover pictorially for a local newspaper , some trips inside Greece and ethics
The music part covered some radio clips until Multiply blocked 'non authorized' downloads and several clips from Malay music under identification (ie who is the singer or the title ). . Malays there is my biggest network
The reviews part covers reviews for   electronic products i own. Part of my salary each month goes there
And the links part is for links with he ability to comment each link.
There is nothing public on videos for the moment

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The reason to use Blogger

2008-01-04T15:02:00.001+02:00

Hello to all

As you will see i an m using a new service from the start of January 2008
Someone knowing me will ask , Ohh why another blogger?

The reason is quite simple , that you possibly do not know:

I am using Google services at least two years ago. I use it for the RSS reader as well as for making searches , but not for email , as i am using my main off line mailer Pegasus . I think that integrating a litle more , will be slightly better
My aim is to use it as secondary blogging system , transferring my older postings from Geocities and Multiply into a more interactive web pageie with feedback from you . AS you will see , i already have uploaded the SINPO page from Geocities. The Geocities site is just an old kind of web pages that does not offer any feedback.Neither Multiply offers , though web 2 type site, the ability for non members to post any feedback , unless they set up an account
And possibly a more audience regarding to Multiply site. As for the moment my network there is quite short of, with just 6 persons from the radio field and more than 100 persosn from the Malaysian network
Radio subjects as well gadgets i own will be reviewed here, and will be the primary blogging and aim for this page . There will be also links related to other activities I do in Multiply , including photo reports

This is my aim for the moment . Possibly there will be several postings unrelated to my Multiply page

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