INTRODUCTION
As of January 9, 2006
Howard Stern fans will have to subscribe to Sirius
Radio to listen to his antics. The loss of Howard's
program on CBS Radio (formerly Infinity
Broadcasting) has spawned a new marketing campaign
with "Free FM" as its slogan. Since there are
currently no Pocket PC or Palm devices that receive
satellite radio, would it not be great to at least
be able to listen to "Free FM." C-guys, Inc., a company specializing in Secure
Digital technology has developed the SD-Radio2, an FM
receiver paired to an SDIO card. SD-Radio2 is
designed to run on an SDIO capable PocketPC or Palm
device, let's see how it works on an Axim X51v.
WHAT'S HOT
The SD-Radio2 has the following features:
- Compliant with the SDIO version 1.0 standard.
- Capable of receiving FM broadcasts in the US, European and Japanese frequency ranges.
- Support for manual and automatic station tuning.
- Provides 18 station preset memory locations
The package includes the SDIO FM receiver, a cheap pair of ear buds, and a software CD.
SETUP
The SD-Radio 2 receiver application is installed on the PC using the standard install procedure. There are no custom options to choose from.
The software is certified to run under PocketPC 2003, but it successfully installed and functioned on a Dell Axim X51v running WM5.
PRODUCT FEATURES
The SD-Radio2 card and application
are very intuitive to use.
The headphones must be plugged into the SDIO card, it is not possible to use the Pocket PC's headphone jack.
The only setting required is selecting the frequency range.
The main user interface contains two major components, the station display at the top and the radio control buttons at the bottom. The station display has A, B, and C memory group buttons with 6 associated presets on the sides for a total of 18 memory locations. A tuning sliders at bottom of the station display allows for direct tuning using a stylus. The radio controls at the bottom form an oval. At the top center a twin triangle button toggles between manual and automatic tuning modes. The left and right VCR buttons control up/down tuning. The bottom of the oval contains buttons that provide (from left to right) power/exit, mute, and screen off functions. The center of the oval acts as a volume slider. The D-Pad allows one handed operation for tuning and adjusting volume.
