Re: [HCDX] WRTH 2004. New approach.

["Dmitry Nefedov" <dnefedov@xxxxxxx>]

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: dnefedov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx







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