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It’s time to share my Christmas wireless gadget story! My sister gave me a Gift Card from RadioShack for Christmas. That surprised me because I manage a RadioShack dealership store at this point in my multi-faceted career. What was I going to get that I had not already gotten? What I finally decided on was a gadget that I had at first avoided or had not really taken seriously. I wanted something that was cool but something that wasn’t necessarily already on my got-to-have radar if you know what I mean. Something that my little sister might actually get for me just for fun. What I had passed over was something that I was not real sure was worth the money and frankly wasn’t sure it would work as well as…well read on.
I purchased the Hauppage WinTV-HVR-950. This turned out to be a great decision. I’m a wireless geek. Since I can remember I have been impressed by radio, by TV, by anything that communicates by radio waves. When I connected the the HVR-950 to the USB port on my Dell Inspirion 600M laptop and connected it to an outdoor UHF television antenna I was completely in awe. The device was unbelievable.
The HVR-950 did what it said it would do and very well indeed. I watched high-definition and regular television channels on my laptop computer. It worked right out of the box with minimal effort. Like I do with most new devices I purchase I look skeptically at the install CD and go immediately to the product website. Hauppage had new drivers and software for the device ready for download.
Once the latest software was installed I connected the outdoor antenna. The device detected over thirty high-definition and regular TV signals. Initially only the regular TV signals were visible. Another quick visit to the website gave me a quick workaround to see the video for the high-definition stations where at first only audio was heard. It seems that some processors on earlier computers do not have the power to deal with high definition TV. After you make an appropriate change to the product setup screen the TV software takes primary control of the CPU and you have HD video!
Later at home, I discovered the device connects readily to cable television and detects cable channels up to those normally available to a standard cable TV tuner. The so-called ‘digitally provided” channels are not decoded. That was cool because I rarely go there being a Sci-Fi network and FOX News fan that I am.
The convenience of being able to put my laptop wherever I have a cable connection in my home expanded the places where I watch television to include every bedroom in the house and even my home office. No more leaning out the doorway to see the action on the TV in the den. When the February 2009 digital TV deadline rolls around I am ready for HD off air and cable anytime.
The HVR-950 is simply amazing. So much occurs in such a little device. You would think it is positively alien! Hauppage has a winner here. It is a gift most travelers would appreciate. It comes with a magnet mount vertical antenna used for off-air TV reception. When you travel to a place with television you can get your channels off air and not have to rely on the few channels fed to you by the hotel.
The software allows you to watch a program in full screen mode. Channels have to be changed using a mouse. Not having a TV-remote takes some getting used to. You will find yourself adding cable outlets to rooms where you want to take your laptop or the office you want to add PC TV to. This product is a winner. It is an excellent gift for the geek in your life and if you want to watch off-air TV including HD TV where you get a decent signal and only have a laptop this device is for you!
The AutoCone 130 is a fascinating invention by my brother-in-law John Doran. Watch the movie on this page at the Centreville Manufacturing website. The AutoCone is the fastest and safest way to drop and pick up highway safety cones! Just amazing to watch. I know, shameless promotion but this is really cool!
TriSquare TSX300 Review FINAL Update as of 9/14/2007 FCC ID:O9GTSX300 Power output: 1 Watt ERP License Requirements: No license required Frequency/Mode: 900 Mhz ISM band, Digital Frequency Hopping Spread-Spectrum
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Introduction and features: These radios introduce the general public to the latest generation of two-way radios.
(PopWireless: This review was written for Two Way Radio Forum by PopularWireless Moderator, John Wilkerson. John is a well known web expert on the Family Radio Service and GMRS. He is considered a co-founder and one of the first directors of the Personal Radio Assn. John reviewed this new 900 MHz license-free two-way radio with very interesting and new privacy capabilities not available to GMRS and FRS. Business and personal use! Click read more to read John’s review of this unique radio. Join the discussion on John’s review.)
The Eye-Fi. It’s an SD memory card that adds Wi-Fi to any camera. Plus the free Eye-Fi service supports automatic uploads to 20 different web photo sites (like Flickr) as well as a computer on your home network.
(PopWireless: Way cool kids! See the article at Gizmodo.com. Click read more.)
In the interest of full disclosure I want readers to know that I am employed as a full-time manager of RadioShack dealership store. A dealership is a privately owned RadioShack e.g. not a company owned store. With that in mind this is my review of the Accurian HD Tabletop radio RadioShack model 120-1686. I am writing the review because my sincere interest in HD radio and of course everything wireless.
Since I turned the first Accurian HD radio on in the store last year I wanted one. The sound for the size is quite impressive. The price was perfect when compared with classic AM radios like the CC Radio Plus sold by CCrane.com as well as the more expensive HD radios. (I also am the proud owner of a CCRadio!
) The Accurian HD tabletop fills a medium size room with plenty of very pleasant sound. When the radio is on a shelf as apposed to being in the middle of the room it has a bit more bass or boom.
What really intrigued me was the hybrid-digital IBOC radio or HD radio capability. The store I manage is south of Washington D.C. by about 30 miles. We are considered outside of the major radio markets both Washington D.C. and Baltimore. Most of our local stations are owned by the same small company and only one in Southern Maryland - WPRS 104.1 in Hughesville that broadcasts in HD. We do however receive a number of very good HD FM broadcast stations and these stations are starting to drive consumer interest - including mine - to purchase the HD radio.
Radio stations WAMU and WJZW piqued my interest because both FM stations have HD only broadcasts on their second HD channel that I enjoy hearing. WAMU at American University has WAMU-2 that broadcasts blue grass around the clock. WJZW-2 has a progressive or new-wave easy listening channel they call 24 by 7 Sunday brunch music. I thought now is the time to try HD radio.
I am a realist. I understand radio theory, wave propagation, digital radio modes and radio antennas. Going into this purchase it was a given that because of where I lived, being so far away from HD content, that outdoor antennas would be a requirement. Because of the distance to HD radio stations even an outdoor antenna was not a guarantee I would receive the content I wanted.
This is really what sets terrestrial HD radio apart from satellite radio like XM or Sirius Radio. Satellite gives you what you want where you want it in more places. HD radio service is limited by by the physics of terrestrial radio wave propagation and can actually disappoint. Satellite while not disappointing in this regard has a $13 a month subscription fee. I was an XM radio subscriber for five years and loved everything but the bill. I also didn’t use it enough to make the bill worth paying. My subscription was ended when I realized I had not turned the satellite radio at home on in over six months.
My home is twelve-miles south east of the store and east of my home the terrain rises to a few hundred feet making reception from the north west on FM radio difficult. The house is some 50 or more miles from most of the HD radio stations. Washington D.C. is to the northwest and Baltimore is farther to the north. See the map.
So I took the Accurian home and hooked it to a Winegard HD 6010 omni-directional antenna temporarily mounted to a five foot pole on the back porch. I hope that results are better if I can get the antenna a little higher.
I can receive just one FM HD radio station:
I hear a strong analog signal from WAMU but no digital signal. WJMZ is all fuzzy. Bummer.
Using the supplied AM antenna did not give me a single HD signal. Connecting a good ground with an 80 foot long wire antenna gave me:
During the evening when the sky wave phenomena is apparent in the AM band I heard the following HD AM stations with unreliable on-off HD signals:
The radio gives me great audio on standard analog AM and FM stations. I was able to listen to Art Bell on Coast to Coast AM on WGY with an excellent analog signal most of the morning. Sunday afternoon I enjoyed WMAL AM in HD.
I am going to keep my fingers crossed that radio stations in and around Southern Maryland will develop HD programming like WAMU and WJZW have. Radio stations now have to create the market for HD radios. Retailers have been offering the radios for over a year now. HD radio will not succeed unless creative radio station owners and operators get to work and build content.
This is not a purchase I regret. I’m hoping that when I get the antenna up another twenty feet WAMU -2 will come in. Even if it doesn’t AM radio still has talk-radio content I enjoy listening to and all my analog favorites are available in the Accurian’s presets. Overall I am satisfied. Folks on the fringes of FM and AM reception may or may not receive HD. Folks in an urban environment will have lots of HD choices. HD stations can offer multiple channels of content. In the Washington D.C. area WAMU offers two HD program options in addition to their primary broadcast.
HD is an improvement for casual listening. FM sounds even better. HD AM sounds better than it did as analog but it does have a nasally compressed digital quality to it. Interesting to hear stereo on an AM signal. Talk programs have a clearer sound quality which is a plus for me. In a subsequent article I’ll write more about the buttons and operation of the radio itself.
Originally submitted at Radio Shack
Step up to a new level of photography with this 7.0MP, 10x optical zoom SLR-styled digital camera.
Great camera. Unsatisfactory cam strap!
By Pop from Huntingtown, MD on 10/26/2007
Pros: Easy to Keep Clean, Easy Setup, Bright LCD, Short Lag Time
Cons: Weak Construction, Lousy camera strap
Best Uses: Travel
Describe Yourself: 40 year camera owner
Will not hold up well. Flimsy construction. Does not survive a three foot fall. I love the camera, however after one week it was sent to Fuji for service to the tune of $110. The camera strap failed. It pulled loose on its own while I wore it around my neck. You wear a camera strap with the camera to keep it from falling! The strap worked loose and the camera dropped to the ground cracking the plastic case above the view finder. My subsequent testing of the strap on a table top proved the strap does not work. Attached as described in the manual you can gently pull the strap free of the camera. The LCD view screen was instantly destroyed in the fall. The strap holder fastener furnished with the camera is NOT the one pictured in the owners manual! The furnished strap CANNOT and WILL NOT work! Fuji was unimpressed. Use care! Take extra precaution with the strap furnished by Fuji because IT WILL FAIL and your $229 camera will suddenly cost you $329. I have finally tied a knot in the strap while I hunt the accessory shops for something decent. Very disappointed in the physical construction. A camera like this should not be this flimsy.
It was easy to contact Fuji to arrange the repair. The facility was in New Jersey. The operators spoke English, and obviously had some customer service training. I packed my camera as instructed with a typed statement of how the camera was damaged. An email address was provided. In just two days I received an email giving me a site to check the status of the repair. When I did I discovered the fee to repair it and authorized the work and provided a credit card number.
The strap problem with this camera is a major foo-pah, a catastrophic failure in product quality associated with a basic function a consumer assumes will always work.
(legalese)
The Wi-Fi Detector T-shirt that was on digg a week ago is finally up for sale.This t-shirt is actually no normal tshirt. Its a “Wi-Fi Detector Shirt” which actually displays the signal from 802.11b/g with glowing bars on the front.
(PopWireless: We are hopeless wireless geeks here at PopularWireless. I’m ordering mine how about you ;) Just in case you missed it we suggested this shirt to readers in a previous article. Apparently these are ready for sale! Be the first on your block!)
Neo-Fights’s ‘Marine Week’ continues with two essential boating gadgets. The Magellan eXplorist XL and the Uniden Voyager VHF Marine Radio (Video) (Click read more below to visit the blog and watch the video.)
(PopWireless: This is very cool idea! Video blogging of gadgets. Cool couple talks straight about things that we passionately believe in and that is GPS and marine radio. We have no opinion one way or the other regarding the two items discussed I just think this is a cool way to make a point. Do you think they might accept videos from PopularWireless about equipment we would like to talk about?)
Just in time for hurricane season, worlds first Crank Powered FRS/GMRS radio.
(PopWireless: It still requires an FCC license to use on GMRS channels. We have not seen this radio so we cannot say we have reviewed it. We do however like the concept!)
read more | digg story
This t-shirt is actually no normal t-shirt. Its a “Wi-Fi Detector Shirt” which actually displays the signal from 802.11b/g with glowing bars on the front. It doesn’t actually check for open networks which would make this a killer product…but its still pretty cool in a geek way! (PopWireless: While we have not tested it it sure has cool value! We wonder if it would detect other RF and not just 2.4 gig? Would it work as a cellular detector?)
I have always been interested in maritime wireless. There are a few old clocks in my house too. When I saw this unique product at CafePress I scooped it up. It is a reproduction of a ship’s radio room clock. It has radio watches for 500 KHz and 2182 KHz marked in red and green. The clock is also marked in 24 hour time. The idea was so unique I thought it worth mentioning.
SALE: Reg.
$169
