Rockbox Clip+ FM Radio - stereo?

[Zoea]

Hi there

I am having trouble getting stereo reception on my newly rockboxed Clip+. I mainly use it to listen to the radio so this is a bit of a dealbreaker for me. I have made sure the force mono preference is off but I still only get mono sound.

Has anyone managed to get stereo FM reception from their rockbox? Thanks,

Zoea

[CrowdAds]

[Marvin the Martian]

I never use the FM....but make sure your headphone cord is stretched out.....that's your antenna.

[Zoea]

Tried everything with the antenna - no luck!

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by Zoea

Tried everything with the antenna - no luck!

That sucks. I just tried mine, and I got stereo on a couple of stronger stations.

[bertrik]

The Clip+ can come with two different FM tuner chips, either ad SI4702 or an RDA5802 tuner chip. You can figure out the specific tuner chip by going into menu system/debug/fm debug. The SI4702 is able to gradually adjust the "stereo blend", i.e. the stereo is "widest" (most stereo) when the signal is strong and blends to mono for weaker signals. We have some control over this to control the signal strength where the blend start kicking in. Do you get stereo in the original firmware for channels where you don't get stereo in rockbox?
The RDA5802 tuner only does a hard switch between full stereo and full mono as far as I know.

[Chris Jones]

I have this issue as well (and also use the radio a lot), but since nobody else ever mentioned it I thought I must be the only one that noticed. Mine has an SI4700 chip apparently, and the original firmware has no problem with stereo on any station most of the time. In Rockbox I rarely get stereo on any station, and when I do it's not as wide as when using the original firmware. Consequently this keeps me going back to the OF to use the radio, which is a shame because you can't scroll backwards through stations in the OF (strangely enough), not to mention save station names etc.

[bertrik]

If you know how to work with patches, you can try one of the patches posted here:
http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/11405
It enables stereo even for rather weak signals.

[bertrik]

Another (much simpler) thing to check is the FM radio region setting. Apparently Australia uses the same grid as the US/Canada, with stations only on frequencies with odd decimals (like 103.3, but not 103.2 or 103.4 MHz) and a channel spacing of 0.2 MHz. If you keep it set to the Europe region (which has a smaller 0.1 MHz channel spacing), it may recognise a station at a frequency with an even decimal frequency, basically just being slightly off the desired frequency and resulting in poor reception.
Setting it to US/Canada will prevent this (and also make the frequency autoscan about two times faster).

[bertrik]

The fm radio stereo patch I mentioned earlier is now in the current rockbox build.

[Chris Jones]

Thanks bertrik, will try this when I get a chance.

[shobuz99]

Help. Just bought a Sansa Clip+ MP3 player.
Stupid human user can't exit from the FM Radio mode.
I have tried to nav out and it never gets past the FM radio dial select station.
I want to get back to system settings; but I can't exit FM Radio.
What am I doing or not doing that's dumb?
thank you for any help.
Shoibuz99

[saratoga]

Theres a keymap for the radio screen in the manual.

[shobuz99]

Originally Posted by saratoga

Theres a keymap for the radio screen in the manual.

Thank you. It was the Menu/Hold button. I told you I was stupid.
I was holding it down instead of just pressing once...

Thanks again..
Shobuz99