Hi Andy, Thanks for the feedback.
> XML for instance? That would be great, but did you take in consideration how > much would it cost for every shortwave broadcaster to coordinate such an > effort? In a time of heavy financial shortage? > I'm afraid we won't see it very soon. I think that a plain text format would be preferred over XML, because these files should be both machine-readable and human-readable, and XML is not as human-readable as plain text. What is as important, these files should be human-writable, and should have a very easy format. Something like the Prime Time schedule text files, http://www.primetimeshortwave.com, but possibly containing some extended info. > how much would it cost for every shortwave broadcaster to coordinate such an effort? It appears to me that the act of preparing a schedule in this format would not be very costly for a station. After all, a station already has its schedule in some form, and converting it to this simple and easy interchange format would not take much time, given that a schedule of a single station is just a small amount of data. The today's two issues are: 1) The format has not yet been defined. 2) The compiling software application has not been developed. It is true that coordinating the format development could be a serious effort for the broadcasters. But we could define it ourselves and then just let everybody know of this good thing. After all, this would benefit us, the listeners, in the first place. As for the compiling software application, I (as well as many other people) could develop a simple application like that myself. If you follow a link below in my signature, you will find a viewer for schedule files that I develop (please do not consider this an advertisement, I try to be objective). The important thing is that there should be people who would care to use this approach and this compiling application. So if you are interested in this, whoever you are reading this message, please respond and we'll see if this idea makes sense to more people. I believe that eventually it could become simply a matter of etiquette for a station to publish its schedules in a standard format. Best Regards, Dmitry Nefedov Developer of Radio Explorer Web site: http://www.radioexplorer.com.ru Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---[Start Commercial]--------------------- World Radio TV Handbook 2004 is coming out! Preorder yours now! Only $20.97 through us. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0823059685/hardcoredxcom ---[End Commercial]----------------------- ________________________________________ Hard-Core-DX mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://dallas.hard-core-dx.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ _______________________________________________ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt
