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mainder of the driver installation is self-guiding; simply
continue to click:
Next
until installation is complete.
Starting the Programming Software
A typical software installation will place this icon
on the computer Desktop. The icon notes that
the software program is common to several Ino-
vonics RDS encoders. Double-click the icon to
launch the encoder programming software, bring-
ing this image onto the Windows® Desktop and automatical-
ly accommodating to the encoder model found:
Check the notation in the lower-left corner of the main win-
dow for a confirmation that the computer has USB connec-
tion with the 703 encoder and that software has properly
identified the encoder model.
Initially, click
No
in the secondary dialog box as there is no
need at this time to read the factory-default data resident in
the encoder.
Exploring and Setting Up Menu Bar Options
Many of the ‘set-and-forget’ encoder programming and
housekeeping options are accessed through the Menu Bar at
the top of the software screen. These will be discussed
first, sequentially as they appear.
File Management
All the RDS programming information that is typed into the
data entry screen may optionally be saved as a small file on
the computer. This is useful when various programming
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segments throughout the broadcast day have program-
specific RDS settings or messages, or for changing advertis-
ing or station promos without having to manually type the
information each time.
Click:
File
to view the built-in
utility for managing and saving
encoder setups. Whatever
programming has been entered
and is showing in the setup
screen can be saved as a small
file using the usual Windows®
file structure.
Data may be saved as a file before, after, or instead of send-
ing the information to the encoder. Clicking:
Save to File
will prompt you for a location for the file, which will auto-
matically be assigned a
.rds
extension. The file may be
named in keeping with its content and stored on the com-
puter Desktop or in a dedicated folder of RDS setups.
To import a saved
.rds
file onto the screen, click:
File
and
then:
Load from File
. Browse to the Desktop or to the folder
where the
.rds
files have been saved, and then double-click
the file. This brings the RDS programming data onto the
screen where it can then be uploaded to the encoder.
Clicking:
Factory Defaults
will instantly restore the 703 firm-
ware to as-delivered values without waiting for a WRITE
command. The entries that appear on your screen after
clicking:
Factory Defaults
are data that are automatically
read-back from the encoder after its restoration.
Clicking:
Exit
simply closes the program, the same as click-
ing the
X
in the top-right corner of the screen.
Device Selection
The software program is common to several Inovonics RDS
encoders. With a USB connection, software identifies the
connected device.
Clicking:
Device
will open a box for se-
lecting the encoder model manually.
This would have application if, for ex-
ample, the user wished to compile a
set of
.rds
programming setup files
without the encoder being connected.
