Hey, I found a link to this discussion with a google search and since I was just working with one of these old re533 turds today I thought I could offer some information to anyone who might, in the future, venture to get one working or changed.
I do not think much of the software and would avoid it. Use instead hyperterminal or some such program. You will need a female to female db-9 rollover cable to your PC serial port but you need only pins two and three (swapped) and pin 5 for ground. Use 9600-N-8-1. Set the dipswitches on the back of the unit for the appropriate speed (9600), I think this means the first two are up and the rest are down (not positive). There are three dipswitches for the baudrate and the rest have to do with hardware handshaking and maybe CTS/RTS, the last one is the battery backup for your clock. The unit I had had all dipswitches in the off position (except for the baudrate ones) and I lefts its thats ways.
Here are some useful commands:
CD? - to query current settings
DR? - to query all records stored in the unit (16 total)
You will get some clue about most of the other commands after seeing the returned data from your CD? command. I will not suggest that I know best how you should use your RE533. I, in fact, would like someone to teach me a thing or two about it because some of it is rather cornfusing.???
Here is what I did (as best as I can remember) Commands to the unit will be expressed in all CAPS.
EO,1 -will allow you to see your input, turns on echo (again, as best I remember)
PI,A7D9 -sets PI code to hex value, there is an online calculator, this instruction sets the call sign for "WKRP"
TP,0 -says you don't do regular traffic reports, set for 1 if your station does them
TA,0 -do not turn on TA, leave it at zero
MS,M -says your station is a music station
DI,1 -says you broadcast in stereo (0, of course, if you are mono)
RT???DON'TREMEMBERALLTHESWITCHES???'FROM FREDS DISCOUNT SODA STUDIOS' -sets line 1 of your radio text message, look to your CD? query for some guidance, the switches are repeat rates, switch line flag, identifier, (very unsure) if someone can tell me someone about using this, or the PS command for dynamic data I am all ears... There is also a line 2 of radiotext. Good luck. My receiver does not even display radiotext. ???
PS,'JUNKY95' -sets your program service (station's street name) to JUNKY95, you get 8 characters. If you are trying to use an RE533 I would consider trying to work JUNKY into your station's street name.
PT or PY is program type, set for a numerical value which represents the format, again, the CD? command ought to tell you something about which is which. One is the program type in the numerical value, the other is the descriptor for that format. Somewhere online there has to be a list of the formats.
Once you get all that set up you want to copy this info into the appropriate (or perhaps into all) RDS records, this is performed with...
CR,1 -copies current record to record 1, there are 16 total, so CR,1 CR,2 CR,3....
DS -saves the whole shootin match to the unit.
There is a command that turns off the output. There is also one that is like an RDS/RBDS switch and if that is wrong your program type will be wrong and the unit will have a dopey accent. There are other useful commands too but I don't remember what those commands are because I forgot to remember.
Maybe this helps someone. Maybe not. Hopefully
*The instructions contained within this post are most certainly not 100% accurate.
