Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Zoned or cellular telephone system
Reexamination Certificate
2000-04-26
2004-02-24
Trost, William (Department: 2683)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Zoned or cellular telephone system
C455S456100, C455S098000, C455S145000, C455S456600
Reexamination Certificate
active
06697631
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a receiver for receiving broadcast signals such as digital audio broadcasts referred to as DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting).
2. Description of the Related Art
Radio receivers are configured to allow easily tuning in a broadcast radio wave with a simple operation. A tuning button or tuning switch installed in a radio receiver for instance, permits frequency information assigned to a particular broadcast station to be stored beforehand in the memory.
When the user presses the radio receiver tuning button or tuning switch, the frequency information assigned to the tuning button/switch that was depressed is called up, and based on this frequency information, operations such as tuning in the broadcast radio wave for the desired broadcast station and displaying the frequency information of the tuned-in broadcast radio wave on an LCD (liquid crystal display) are performed.
Therefore, if the frequency information assigned to a particular broadcast station is registered beforehand in the memory of the radio receiver, then the broadcast radio wave from the desired broadcast station can be received and tuned in by simply pressing the tuning button/switch and the audio from that broadcast station can be heard.
However, when frequency information assigned to a broadcast station was registered beforehand in the memory as described above, then a receivable broadcast radio wave (RF) had to be searched for, by for instance, rotating the tuning dial. Problems therefore occurred when the radio receiver was not at a fixed position, such as when using vehicle-mounted radio receivers and portable radio receivers, etc.
Radio broadcasts for instance are wide ranging broadcasts for a wide area, and regional broadcasts only for a particular area. Regional broadcasts for instance, in many cases offer traffic information or information valid only for a particular region. When a listener in a vehicle is currently passing through a particular region and wants to hear traffic information for that region, the listener may not know the frequency of the station broadcasting traffic information and so cannot easily hear traffic information for that region.
When a particular region, and the frequency assigned to the broadcast station transmitting broadcast radio waves receivable in that region are not known in advance, then easily, rapidly and accurately finding the desired regional program in advance is difficult.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In view of the above problems, it therefore an object of this invention to provide a receiver that clearly informs the user in advance, of receivable broadcast radio waves and allows speedy, accurate, and easy tuning of the desired broadcast radio waves to select the broadcast program.
To resolve the above mentioned problems, according to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a receiver comprising receive means for receiving broadcast radio waves including broadcast-related information which contains at least position information on a transmission site, display means, map display control means for displaying the display means on a map, information extraction means for extracting the broadcast-related information from the broadcast radio waves received by the receive means, and information display control means for displaying information, relating to the broadcast radio waves, on the map shown on the display means, at a position specified according to position information among the broadcast-related information extracted by the information extraction means.
According to one aspect of the present invention, the broadcast-related information contained in the broadcast radio wave received by the receive means is extracted by the information extraction means. Position information for specifying the position of the transmission site that transmitted the broadcast radio wave received by the receive means is contained in the broadcast-related information, and information related to the broadcast radio wave that was received is overlapped at a position on the map shown on the display means according to the position information.
The desired broadcast radio wave can be visually recognized based on information related to the broadcast radio wave displayed while overlapped onto the map shown on the display means, and the station can be tuned in.
Further, according to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a receiver comprising information storage means for storing information relating to a display position shown on the map accompanying with tuning information for the broadcast radio wave received by the receive means; command input receive means for inputting commands from the user specifying a position on the map displayed on the display means; and tuning control means for loading from the memory, tuning information matching the position on the map specified by way of the command input receive means and tuning in the broadcast radio wave based on the tuning information that was loaded.
According to another aspect of the present invention, the broadcast radio wave tuning information received by the receive means, and the display position information relating to the broadcast radio wave, for the map displayed on the display means, are matched and stored in the memory by the information storage means.
When receiving starts for example, in response to user instructions, the broadcast radio waves (band) are scanned for broadcast radio waves receivable at the current position. Information relating to a plurality of receivable broadcast radio waves (frequencies) is displayed while overlapped onto a map shown on the display means, and related display information is matched with the tuning information and stored in the memory.
When instructions input by the user that specify a position on a map shown on the display means are received by way of the command input receive means, the tuning information for the broadcast radio wave matching the information relating to the specified position on the displayed map, is loaded from the memory and the target broadcast radio wave is automatically tuned in by the tuning control means according to the tuning information that was loaded.
The user can thus visually determine the desired broadcast radio wave based on information relating to that broadcast radio wave and map shown on the display means, tune in that desired broadcast radio wave and can then listen to the broadcast program provided on the broadcast radio wave. In other words, even if the user does not know information such as the frequencies of receivable broadcast radio waves, a desired broadcast radio wave can still be automatically tuned in based on the display information shown on the display means.
According to another aspect of the present invention, the receiver further comprises: position measurement means for measuring the receiver's own current position by receiving a radio wave from an artificial satellite. The map display control means receives the current position supplied from the position measurement means and displays a map containing the current position on display means.
According to another aspect of the present invention, the receiver has a GPS (Global Positioning System) as the position measurement means, for accurately measuring the receiver's own current position, and a map containing this current measured position to be shown on the display means by the map display control means.
Thus, even a receiver for instance, installed in a vehicle moving across a comparatively wide area, can know the receivable broadcast radio waves at the current position and can tune in the desired broadcast radio wave. Receivable broadcast radio waves for a desired broadcast radio wave can furthermore be rapidly and accurately tuned in, with a simple operation.
According to another aspect of the present invention, the information display control means displays a mark indicating the position of the broadcast radio wave transmission site at a position on the map determined acc
Maioli Jay H.
Sony Corporation
Torres Marcos
Trost William
LandOfFree
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