I've spoken in glowing terms about listening to KDX-OGG coming from the Android cellphone in my pocket. But I haven't said much about a chronic problem that ruins the experience. Often times, but not always, the station will play only a limited time and then shut off. There doesn't appear to be an obvious reason for it, and it spoils the experience.
Tomorrow we're switching to MP3 format at a slower bit-rate, and see if it matters.
If you have ideas I'll accept them free of charge.
This morning we put to the test whether switching from OGG to MP3 streaming format makes listening to radio on the cellphone less prone to dropouts. But to do this we needed to type in a different link address, but were unable to accomplish this because of fingers.
The little keypad that presents itself on the Android screen requires baby monkey fingers and human fingers are too thick and touch neighboring numbers and letters making it very difficult to enter information. If people were bleeding to death in the middle of the street after a ten car pileup you'd never be able to call an ambulance especially if there was sun glare on the screen. But I did unintentionally run across an interesting science article about NASA discovering a new dimension of electric particles in the upper atmosphere, the reading of which changed my attention away from stream testing until pop up ads took over and the NASA article was swept away.
Now, I know that people come here to read about radio equipment but if entries get to be so long you start losing interest, so I'll simply ask... is there a wand or stick that can be used in place of fingers to tap into cellphone keypads? I tried the eraser end of a pencil but the pad was unresponsive.
Yes.
Although I've never used one, you can purchase stylus pen type things for touchscreens.
@ Artisan-Radio Great! I will shop for one.
Back to square one.
Way way back in time I was looking for a way of listening to KDX, my personal radio station, outdoors while trimming the landscape.
The Sangeon MR-99 was winner for a day, but the audio was no match for outdoor ambient sound which often reaches industrial levels here in the hood.
Then I discovered that my Android cellphone played from the pocket was the perfect radio receiver using a combination of local Wi-Fi and cellular data stream, except that it usually doesn't remain latched and drops out. A pocket can be a very silent thing.
All this equipment but I can't hear it now, except once in awhile.
@carl-blare
How do you enjoy outside? You are supposed to hear the birds, have some peace and quiet.
Are you right next to a major highway? Construction site?
@ Mark I am far enough from a highway that I only notice it if the wind blows in this direction or late at night. But there is almost always street construction, sewer work, gas pipe work, constant lawn mowers and leaf blowers, and a few folks with motor cycles. It does get quiet once in awhile but that's not always when I am out there. There used to be a lot of helicopters but they seem to have been replaced by continual drone airplanes always in the sky. Very late at night there are trains a mile away but I like trains so they are welcome. Oh, and branch and tree removal is very loud. One more. This town has a street cleaning truck that sounds like a broken jet airplane and it sweeps the streets constantly.