[PCR-1000] PCR-1000 Web Control?

[Max Topley]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Martin Francis" <martin@classaxe.com>
To: <pcr-1000@mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 3:01 PM
Subject: RE: [PCR-1000] PCR-1000 Web Control?

> JAVORADIO COMPATIBLE
> I've signed up for a Javoradio account at www.javoradio.com and tried
> out the MW Beverage installation in Norway, and this got me thinking I'd
> like to participate.

Don't forget the impact on your upstream bandwidth. If you're installing at
your company's offices or somewhere with a biggish Internet pipe, then it's
not going to make too much difference, but it's going to have a impact on a
typical 256kbps ADSL upstream. Depending on sampling rate, you might have
trouble running it at the same time as P2P, for example.

>At present Javoradio systems require a Linux box
> as a server - perhaps the PIC based server proposed might be adapted to
> work with the Javoradio network directly? It would be great to be able
> to put a shared system on line with the minimal cost of a PIC based
> server.

The server would have to implement all the protocols used by Javoradio, in
addition to the MP3 compression. I'd like to see a Windows C++
implementation first, as a reference (I suppose I could install it in a
VMware virtual machine running SuSE Linux, but I really can't be bothered
with Java as well).

MP3 encoding is a real pest. To do it in hardware requires a fairly
expensive chip (personally, I'd do it in a cheap FPGA, but MP3 is a
Frauhofer patent, so I couldn't distribute the design - bummer). It's
obviously easier to use an existing codec on the PC (LAME and so on are
free, if you don't have anything "official"). To be honest, I'd rather use
an open standard compression system, or just stream the PCM audio
uncompressed - at 88kbps, it's quite managable, and has the big advantage of
not losing any information so any requred DSP algorithms can be run at the
client PC.

> DYNAMIC DNS SERVER
> One additional requirement for a streaming web controller would be to
> have it able to communicate with a dynamic DNS server such as the
> service provided at www.dyndns.org
...
Assuming you don't have a fixed IP address, certainly, though many ISPs can
allocate you one for not much money.

But yes, dynamic DNS works fine, and I've used Hammernode for several years
now. There are even advantages if you DO have fixed IPs.

> RELAY BOARD TO PROVIDE ANTENNA DISCONNECTION FOR RADIO
> Having had one laptop blown up by lightning last summer, it would be
> great if one could have a system to operate an on-board relay for
> antenna disconnection in the event that significant danger of a
> thunderstorm strike arose  I'd hate to be listening to an approaching
> storm away from my QTH and having no way to disconnect the radio.

I can imagine ;o/

> A pair of 1A contacts would be quite sufficient to actuate whatever remote
> coax based relays were required.
> Ideally, the command to actuate this would be slaved directly to the
> software 'Power On' for the radio itself.

The PIC would be switching the PCR-1000 power anyway, so it would be easy
enough to wire up a relay for your purpose.

> Anyway, I'd be very happy to pay for such a system, and to participate
> in a limited way in software development for it.

I'll try and put the design together ASAP - it's just finding the time!

-- 
  Max
  (G8CZR)