Yahoo (and I guess AOL) email with Outlook 2021, Thunderbird etc.

 I noticed that with Thunderbird there seemed to be a 10,000 email limit on some of my accounts (I have a very old AOL account and a fairly old Yahoo).

This seemed annoying but no more until I tried adding those accounts to my updated Outlook client (now 2021).

At that point the 10,000 limit became a real pain.

Yes, both accounts could do with a bit of "tidying" but with everyone in the world trying to email me with "intersting offers" the accounts were well in excess of 10,000.

I could see all the emails in Yahoo's webmail but actually a real email account suits me better.

So....

A few searches later:

Confirmation of the problem

Why is an IMAP Inbox Only Displaying 10,000 Items When There are Many - Microsoft Community

and, maybe a fix

Download your email from Yahoo Mail with IMAP | New Mail for Desktop Help - SLN28681

Thanks to

RESOLVED - Yahoo!/AOL IMAP collection emails per folder limits (fookes.com)

The key change is to update the incoming server name:

export.imap.mail.yahoo.com 

(replacing imap.mail.yahoo.com)

for AOL

https://help.aol.com/articles/download-your-email-from-aol-mail-with-imap

similarly

export.imap.aol.com

Hope it helps.

PS

Both needed application specific passwords generated for Outlook 2021.

VW Polo 2014 DAB reception problems

 I have a 2014 VW Polo with a factory fitted AM/FM/DAB radio.

A few months back the DAB radio became less sensitive.

There doesn't seem to be anything I can find on the Internet about this so for anyone who has a similar problem, this is what I found out.

Firstly, there are two types of aerials on VW Polo cars of about that age. One has a flatter looking base, mine is the (earlier I think) more prominent base.

The base of my type is packed with electronics (something I suspected but only found out when I had the old one to take apart).

 

I bought a replacement (new from VW - it wasn't cheap!) and had it fitted.

This fixed the problem and restored the DAB reception.

If getting at the aerial base inside the car hadn't been so hard (a significant proportion of the overall cost was getting someone suitably skilled to take the car apart and fit the new aerial) I might have investigated the problem more.

The base seems to have two parts (possibly allowing for a DAB and non DAB version of the car) and two incoming co-ax leads, one with a black end and the other with a white connector on the end.

Each has a small connector in.

I did (and still do) wonder if the problem was either a seating problem in one connector (assuming one does the DAB, the other AM/FM) or (less likely) an earthing issue for the whole base. It has a nut with a pearcing collet as part of the fixings and that seems to need to go through the paint.

For a long time (and seperately) I had some electrical noise on weak AM signal reception which on first impressions, this new base also seems to have improved.

All in all and thus far, this seems to be fixed.

As a "garage fix", buying the new base and having it fitted was defititely the best bet. As a DIY job, some further investigation is probably merited before getting the replacement base.

For reference, the base seems to be part number 6R0 031 501 A, the nut 1J0 035 437 & the actual antenna 6R0 035 849 A. 

A tale of two soundcards: Tascam US-32 & Yamaha AG-03

 The rise of podcasting has been followed by manufacturers producing computer sound hardware specifically aimed at podcasters.

Tascam have produced the "MiNiSTUDIO PERSONAL US-32" (and US-42) and Yamaha the "AG03" (and AG06).

https://tascam.com/us/product/us-32/top

https://uk.yamaha.com/en/products/music_production/interfaces/ag_series/ag03.html

Both models have "larger" versions but I'll consider the US-32 & AG03.

Tascam US-32

The Tascam US-32 was the first of these devices I became aware of.

It looks very simple and CAN be simple to use but it is less revealing of function at first glance.

Both devices require driver/manager software and have simple and advanced ways of operation.

Essentially, the Tascam US-32 is primarily focussed on the use case of someone stereaming (perhaps a game play) and adding their talking (and some spot effects) to the output.

The computer sound outout (to the device headphones) is a mix of application sound from the computer plus effecst added into the Tascam US-32 driver triggered by the "PON" buttons.

That, plus a local mic, is returned as the sound card output and can then be (say) streamed or recorded.

There are a number of different modes that one might want to use in diffferent cases.

These require the windows settings application and are called Mode Presets.

BROADCAST is the default, 

Talking is suitable for (say) Skype calls in that the computer audio isn't returned to the PC.

Quite what "Talking with PON/BGM" is intended to achieve is less obvious to me in that ony the local user hears the PON sounds

There is also a "Podcast Multi-Channel" mode that would be potentially useful when recording a podcast for later post production.

All in all, the Tascam US-32 is quite capable but not that clear (from the control surface) about what is going on.

The metering is quite usable.

Yamaha AG-03

The Yamaha AG-03 was the first of these two devices I actually bought.

It addresses the different operating modes by a switch which has one setting where the audio from the PC is mixed into the input (for streaming PC audio) and another where it isn't (for two way conversations).

As the hardware control is more obvious, the software doesn't allow routing mode selection.

Generally the Yamaha AG-03 is easy to use in most applications. My one complaint is that the monitor mute applies to both headphones and the speaker outputs.

The "metering" is very basic and I would say inadequate for many applications. Hopefully your applicationhas audio level meters.

My single extra feature request would be to have a headphone only audio stream from the PC (using ASIO) which would allow a cue feed while looping the man PC sound to a stream.