Virgin Lobster mobile phone with built in DAB and TV

Flimber

biglugs wrote: »

Ha ha ha ha!!!! Thank goodness I have something to laugh at today! (Crap day at the office).

As for TomTom5.2 I don't have satnav and know nothing about it, and bluetooth means nothing to me as I've never found a need for it. Reading this thread I get the impression this means I can turn this phone into a piece of satnav equipment, but I will need another piece of kit (a bluetooth adapter) to get this to work?
At risk of sounding a complete idiot exactly what extra kit will I need to buy, and in what way does this phone act as a satnav? Does it speak to me as I'm driving, and are there other costs involved in using it? e.g. do I have to pay for the tracking abilities to use satnav properly?

A compatible gizmo has been posted twice in the thread already. Once by me. Search this thread for my username, don't have the link to hand. You'll need the gizmo and a copy of TomTom Mobile 5.2. No other costs arise, bar a bigger memory card for the 'phone and batteries for the gizmo. And, yes, it will speak to you while you're driving

HTH,
Mike.

stugib

g_attrill wrote: »

Was this a three-pole or four? The plug has four connections on it, I presume they are ground, left, right, button, and the aerial is probably the outer ring (look on the inside of the plug).

I have done a quick search and the plug seems to be fairly specialist. If the aerial ends at the volume control then it might be possible to crack it open and add a 3.5mm socket so some better earphones could be used - the supplied ones are terrible!

On my wife's phone's earphones it's 3 (2 green rings+tip = 3 right?). The earphones that come with the Lobster seem to be 4 (there's a 3rd black ring just below the level of the plastic casing). I've just retried my wife's and I can definitely get a signal albeit with 1 bar and only the strongest stations, but I'm guessing that's down to the cable length. The adapters I'm using also only have 2 black rings so presumably if it needed >3 pole it'd lose it when it passed through the adapters?

Following on from earlier replies I re-read the manual and the plug by the camera does say it's for a network aerial rather than radio, and it says the earphones are a Band III antenna but I don't think there's anything specialist about that given my wife's phone (SE w850i) is FM only?

Still not got much further with finding anything myself - only clue is that Nokia also seem to do 2.5mm 4 pole earphones. Thinking any mobile earphones could work, if I can find ones with 3.5mm plug.

Idea about replacing the end of the supplied earphones with a plug is a good one, but I need to decide whether I'm keeping it before I do any cracking open Can't believe there's not a simple solution out there - if anyone loses the supplied earphones what do they do??

wazza

where can i get TomTom Mobile 5.2? looking at the tomtom website they have v6. Reluctant to get from ebay unless someone knows a reliable seller

Flimber

stugib wrote: »

...

Following on from earlier replies I re-read the manual and the plug by the camera does say it's for a network aerial rather than radio, and it says the earphones are a Band III antenna but I don't think there's anything specialist about that given my wife's phone (SE w850i) is FM only?

...

AFAIK, Band III relates to DAB frequencies ~174MHz to 224MHz (?) whereas standard FM stations go out between 88 and 108MHz. The extra cable in the headphone cable is probably tuned to be 'quarter-wave' for DAB (1/4 wavelength); an FM-tuned cable would be a different length and pull in significantly less signal for DAB. I'm sure something could be hacked together with a standard set of headphones but it mightn't be pretty

dc

With regard to the aerial required, the TV is streamed via DAB, which is transmitted on the old ITV 405 line frequencies in Band III. ( 170 to 240 Mhz).
The channels so far in the UK are mainly above 220 Mhz
The wavelength is 3 x 108 / 220 x 106 = 1.36 metres Therefore, a typical DAB aerial will be half this length at 68cm long. The different carrier frequencies in the band used by DAB will all have slightly different wavelengths so an antenna whose length is approximately equal to half the wavelength of the centre frequency of the band is the best choice and 220MHz is around this centre frequency value. A quarter wavelength aerial would be just over a foot i.e. around 340 mm.

So you could experiment with a suitable jack and a piece of wire one or two feet long.

HTHs dc

suckmaster.burstingfoam

I read somewhere that somebody soldered some Sony headphones onto the cable, and it worked fine. I'm not going to risk it if replacements can't be had, however.

ginjim

dc wrote: »

With regard to the aerial required, the TV is streamed via DAB, which is transmitted on the old ITV 405 line frequencies in Band III. ( 170 to 240 Mhz).
The channels so far in the UK are mainly above 220 Mhz
The wavelength is 3 x 108 / 220 x 106 = 1.36 metres Therefore, a typical DAB aerial will be half this length at 68cm long. The different carrier frequencies in the band used by DAB will all have slightly different wavelengths so an antenna whose length is approximately equal to half the wavelength of the centre frequency of the band is the best choice and 220MHz is around this centre frequency value. A quarter wavelength aerial would be just over a foot i.e. around 340 mm.

So you could experiment with a suitable jack and a piece of wire one or two feet long.

HTHs dc

there you go
back to my clothes hanger solution

jellacott

Thanks OP, got one for myself.

I bought a 2.5mm to 3.5mm stereo adapter (£1.79) from Maplin and use a set of iPod headphones with mine. The radio and TV both work fine with this solution, although you have to be careful as the adapter is not flexible and could snap, damaging the phone. Also, with this combo, you won't be able to talk to anyone on the phone (Lobster automatically switches to headset mode with headphones plugged in, if it rings with normal headphones in you could listen to the call but not talk back!).

ScratUK

urban_spirit wrote: »

The offer (above) is not accurate :mad: My phone came today, the bill says - Lobster £19.99, PAYG sim joining pack £10 (only £5 airtime credit) :mad: I didnt ask for a new sim :mad:


The silly *** asked me yesterday did I have a virgin sim, and asked me to read the number out - and registered the bloomin thing yesterday AS WELL AS sending me a new (not requested) 'joining pack' sim.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not a happy bunny

So what did Virgin Mobile say when you phoned to complain ?

woburnx

Hmmm. They have cottoned onto MSE and wouldn't sell me the phone for £20 without the sim card. Said could buy for £30 + free £10 airtime on PAYG sim. Went for it anyway.