Those of you following the upcoming Titus II receiver will enjoy reading this interview with Mike of Pantronix. Here’s a short excerpt taken from DRMNA.info:
[DRMNA] Can you tell us a little about the process taken to develop the new receiver?
[Mike] We became aware of the need for a digital capable receiver by a visit from TWR representatives about three years ago. Having designed RF products and receivers in the past, it intrigued me that there were no low cost method to receive DRM. This began research into the problem. Initially we envisioned and designed what we call an ATU (Antenna Tuner Unit) that plugged into a ‘standard’ Android tablet. Unfortunately as time and testing proved, ready made tablets had varying problems from vendor to vendor, model to model. The decision was made about a year ago that we had to do our own Android ‘tablet’ and integrate the ATU into it. Hence the Titus II was developed.[…]
Does it have to look like something from Fisher Price?
My first thought too. But then I thought “well, is there a reason why it should copy everything else in looking like a relic from some digital version of the Cold War?”, and realised that my main objection was to the colour – which could easily change for production.
Apart from that, it looks like a cheap radio. Which it is – it’s built for a purpose, and part of that is to keep the cost low. Hopefully it’s only cheap on the outside, rather than the internals &/or UI being as disappointingly near-unusable as other recent examples.
(I also hope the Gospell gets of the ground, just on general principles – but given the history there I suspect it’ll be another case of “not worth the price they’re asking”…)
Certainly sounds interesting, affordable, and versatile.