Cobolt Speechmaster Talking Multi Function FM Radio Instructions General: Your radio can be used with the included mains adaptor or as a portable, using batteries and the included strap if required. The strap should be fed through the moulded loops at each end of the top of the case, through the strap clips and adjusted for length. A protective cover is provided which can be fitted after the radio has been tuned and, if required, the clock has been set. This is designed to prevent accidental changing of the clock, radio stations or other settings while still enabling you to use it as a talking alarm clock and to listen to the radio. When you receive your radio this cover will be in place. To remove the cover unclip it from the front or back edge. Replace it from the left then, once in position, press the right end gently down until it clicks into place. Batteries: The battery compartment is located on the underside of the radio, with the latch located towards the outer end of the cover. Push the latch towards the centre of the radio base to open the cover. The radio uses 4 x AA batteries which should all be fitted. with their negative i.e. flat ends placed towards the end of the compartment with the spring contacts. For best performance we recommend you use Alkaline batteries. Mains Adaptor and Aerial: With the back of the unit facing you, towards the base you will feel a cut out section. This houses five sockets. From left to right these are:- Antenna, Remote switch, Audio Out, Earphones, DC IN. If not being powered by batteries the mains adaptor should be connected to the DC IN socket. If the adaptor is used while the batteries are fitted they will be disconnected until the adaptor is removed. Please only use the adaptor supplied to avoid any risk of damage to the unit. An internal aerial is fitted but in areas of poor reception it may be necessary to connect the supplied external aerial to the Antenna socket. Hold the radio with the speaker facing you and with the protective button cover on the left. While the protective cover is on you will only be able to feel a few buttons and the two twist knobs. Once the protective cover is removed you will feel more buttons, which control the setup. Button Layout: From left to right with the protective cover removed; The first button is MEMO. The next four buttons are arranged in a diamond shape and are: Left = DELETE, Top = SETUP, Right = TIME , Bottom = CHECK. Continuing right the buttons are TUNE, UP, DOWN (shaped like arrow heads) and BAND. The next two knobs are rotary controls for TONE and VOLUME. The final button is OFF. Quick Start Guide: Please note that this quick guide is provided to enable you to use your new clock radio in its most basic form. We suggest that you familiarise yourself with these basic functions then move on to the full instructions if you would like to enjoy some of the more advanced features available. Remove the cover as described under the General paragraph above. To turn the radio on and to auto tune to all available stations: Turn the radio on by pressing the BAND, TUNE, UP or DOWN button. Turn it off by pressing the OFF button. Press the BAND button until you hear FM. Press the TUNE button repeatedly until you hear "AUTO TUNE". Press and release the UP or DOWN button. Your radio will begin scanning for stations and will speak the frequency of each one it finds. Once the scan is complete you will be told how many stations have been stored. You can now use the UP or DOWN buttons to select the station you wish to listen to. If you find any stations which you do not wish to keep just press DELETE twice within two seconds to delete them Edit Stations: To edit stations press TUNE repeatedly until you hear "EDIT STATIONS". You will be instructed to either Voice tag or Delete the station. If you wish to do neither of these, press UP or DOWN to move to the next station. If you wish to delete the station press DELETE or press and hold MEMO to voice tag the station with your own voice. Spoken instructions will be given. While you are editing stations you will hear a regular beep tone. This is to remind you that you should leave the editing function when you have finished by pressing BAND. Setting the clock: Press SETUP repeatedly until you hear "SET CLOCK DAY". Use the UP or DOWN buttons to change the day. Press SETUP and you will hear "SET CLOCK HOURS". Again use the UP or DOWN buttons. Press SETUP again and you will hear "SET CLOCK MINUTES". Once again use the UP or DOWN buttons. Once you have finished setting the clock press any button apart from UP or DOWN to leave the setting mode. To hear the time and day press the TIME button. When the protective cover is on this button is still accessible. When you turn the radio on it will turn on at the last station selected. Please note: the Volume and Tone controls only adjust the radio and memo volume and tone. To adjust the Speech volume and for further functions and controls please refer to full instructions. Full Instructions: Please Note: The SETUP, TIME, MEMO and CHECK buttons can be used without turning the radio on. The use of the DC IN and Antenna sockets on the back of the radio has been explained above. The remaining sockets are:- REMOTE SWITCH: Enables another device, such as our cassette recorder, to be turned on and off by the radio to enable programmes to be recorded at preset times and days. AUDIO OUT: Stereo radio output used for connection to a remote Hi-Fi system or to a recorder to enable programmes to be recorded. Memos and speech are not sent to this socket and the internal speaker remains connected. EARPHONE: Stereo output to enable external speakers or earphones to be connected. Memos and speech are also sent to this socket and the internal speaker is disconnected. TUNING THE RADIO: Your radio is FM only. The frequencies covered are: FM 88MHz to 108MHz Radio stations can be tuned in three different ways:- Manual scan allows you to go through the frequency band a small increment at a time, or to scan to the next detectable station. Auto tune allows the radio to automatically scan the selected frequency band to find all available stations. Enter frequency allows you to directly input the frequency of a radio station. To tune the radio first press the BAND button until you hear the frequency FM. Press the TUNE button. You will hear "Press again to enter tune mode". Press the TUNE button again within two seconds to enter the TUNE menu. Repeated presses of the TUNE button will now step through the options of:- Manual Scan, Auto tune, Enter Frequency, Edit station, Backup station list, Restore station list. After each option is spoken you will hear a command, e.g. “Manual scan. Use up or down keys to tune. Press setup to store station” (this example is then followed by the current frequency for that band). Manual scan: After selecting Manual Scan press the UP or DOWN buttons. Pressing these briefly will scan up or down in small increments. If you hold the button down for longer than 1 second the unit will say “Searching” when you release it and scan up or down to the next station found. The frequency will wrap around once it reaches the top or bottom of the band. This method allows fine tuning of stations. Once you have located a station you wish to keep press SETUP. The unit will say “press again within two seconds to store frequency”. If you do so you will normally hear Frequency…stored”. If you hear “frequency list full” this means that there is no more space available to store the station. If you hear "Duplicate frequency" it means that the station has already been saved. You can continue using the UP or DOWN buttons to search for more stations. Auto tune: After selecting Auto Tune press either the UP or DOWN button to start tuning. The radio will say “Searching”. As each station is found its frequency will be announced. A beep tone will remind you that the radio is still searching. Once the auto tune has finished you will hear "Auto tune complete" followed by the number of stations found. You can now use the UP or DOWN buttons to step through the found stations within your chosen band. If you find any stations which you do not wish to keep just press DELETE twice within two seconds to delete them. Enter Frequency: After selecting Enter Frequency press SETUP. You will hear "Set First digit, ...." The radio knows which band you are in and will only offer acceptable digits so the FM band will only allow the first digit of the frequency to be 1, 8, or 9. Select the required digit value using the UP or DOWN buttons then press SETUP again. You will then be prompted to enter the second digit and so on. You can enter up to five digits for a frequency, depending on the frequency band, pressing the SETUP button between each digit jumps to the next one. The unit will only present certain digit values at particular digit positions depending on the preceding numbers entered. So in the FM band, if the first digit entered is a ‘one’ then the next selected digit value can only be a ‘zero’ as the frequency band only goes up to 108MHz. Once you have entered all the digits you will hear "Press setup to store frequency. Press delete to reject frequency". If you press the DELETE button you will hear "Frequency not stored". The unit will then be ready to accept another frequency. If you press SETUP you will hear either "Frequency….stored", "Duplicate frequency" or "Frequency list full". "Duplicate frequency" means the station has already been saved and "Frequency list full" means that there is no more memory available to store it. Again the unit will be ready to accept another frequency. Please note that if no action is taken within 5 seconds the unit will assume that you do not wish to store the station and say "Frequency not stored". Editing the station list: (Edit Stations) While you are editing stations you will hear a regular beep tone. This is to remind you that you should leave the editing function when you have finished by pressing BAND. The radio can store up to 20 stations across the FM wave band. Once stored you can edit the list of stations, either by deleting individual stations or attaching a voice tag to them - this would usually be the name of the station - up to a maximum of 20 voice tags can be used. Press the TUNE button until you hear "Edit stations". Use the UP or DOWN buttons to step through the station list. You will hear "Press delete to remove station. Press memo to voice tag". If you press DELETE you will hear the frequency announced followed by "Press again to delete station". If you press DELETE again the station will be removed and you will hear "Station deleted" followed by the next station/frequency number in the list. If you wish to voice tag the station press and hold the MEMO button. You will hear "Hold to record voice tag". Speak into the microphone for a maximum of 3 seconds to record the voice tag then release the MEMO button. The voice tag will then be spoken back to you. If you do not wish to delete or voice tag the spoken station press UP or DOWN to move to the next stored station or press BAND to leave the editing mode. Once a voice tag has been associated with a station the storage location for that voice tag can only be made available again by deleting the associated station. If the station list is backed up and another auto tune is completed , the voice tags for the backed up stations are retained. This reduces the number of voice tags available for the new auto tuned stations. To Backup station list: Once you have tuned and edited all your required stations you can backup the list. Doing this means that you will not lose the list if you suffer a power or battery failure. This feature also enables you to have all your stations tuned in for your home area. You can then take the radio to another location, tune in a new set of stations and, on your return, restore your original station list rather than having to re tune the radio again to your favourite stations. Press TUNE repeatedly until you hear "Backup station list" followed by "Press setup to backup station list". Press SETUP and you will hear "Press again within two seconds to backup station list". Press SETUP again. The radio will backup its station list, tell you when the backup is complete and then resume playing. This process normally takes a few seconds. To Restore station list: Press TUNE repeatedly until you hear "Restore station list" followed by "Press setup to restore station list". Press SETUP and you will hear "Press again within two seconds to restore station list". Press SETUP again. The radio will restore its station list, tell you when the restore is complete and then resume playing. This process normally takes a few seconds. You should take care not to restore the station list if you have not first carried out a backup because it will replace your current list with an empty one. Setting of Alarm, Clock, Programming feature etc: SETUP: Please note that while you are in the SETUP mode you will hear a regular beep tone. This is to remind you that you should leave the SETUP when you have finished by pressing any button other than UP or DOWN. Press the SETUP button. You will hear "Press again to enter setup mode". Press again to step through the programmable options in the following order and use the UP or DOWN buttons to change each option :- ALARM ON/OFF: SNOOZE ON/OFF: SET ALARM HOURS: SET ALARM MINUTES: SET ALARM VOLUME: SET ALARM SOUND: Select from the available alarm sounds, memo message or the currently selected radio station. TIME STYLE: Select either 12 hour and 24 hour time format. SET PROGRAMME START DAY: Select between the days of the week, the same day every week or every day. SET PROGRAMME START HOURS: SET PROGRAMME START MINUTES: SET PROGRAMME STOP HOURS: SET PROGRAMME STOP MINUTES: SET PROGRAMME BAND: SET PROGRAMME STATION: SET CLOCK DAY: SET CLOCK HOURS: SET CLOCK MINUTES: SET SPEECH VOLUME: Select between 0 and 7. Alarm and Snooze function: Once you have set the alarm time, you can select the alarm volume and the alarm sound. There is a choice of 8 alarm sounds, including a recorded memo and the currently selected radio station. Once set you must ensure that the alarm is then turned on. To turn the alarm off when it sounds, press the OFF button. The alarm will automatically come on again after 24 hours unless it is turned off in SETUP mode. To use the Snooze function, ensure snooze is turned on in SETUP mode. When the alarm sounds, press any button except the OFF button. The radio will say "Snooze", the alarm sound will turn off and then re-sound after 10 minutes. This can be repeated, causing the alarm to re-sound every 10 minutes, until the OFF button is pressed. Alarm sounds: When one of the alarm sounds is chosen it will sound for 2 minutes. When the memo sound is chosen the recorded message will be announced once only. When the radio is used as an alarm the radio will continue to play until the snooze function is activated or the alarm is turned off. Setting programme timer: The programme timer is used to switch the radio on and off at preset times on selected days. It will also enable radio programmes to be recorded using an external device, such as our cassette recorder. The recorder must be connected to the radio using the REMOTE SWITCH and AUDIO OUT sockets on the back of the radio. Please refer to the instructions for the recorder for details of how to set its controls. Once you have finished entering this information you will hear ‘Programme set for...’, followed by the settings you have just selected. You will then hear “Press setup to store. Press delete to cancel”. If you wish to store the setting press SETUP, if you wish to cancel the setting press DELETE. You can store 7 different programmes by stepping repeatedly through the SETUP process. Once you have entered all the details for a new programme, if its times overlap with a previously set programme, the radio will say “Programme Overlap” and the new settings will not be stored. When setting the programme start and stop hours the time style announced will depend on whether 12 or 24 hour clock is selected. To check the stored programme settings use the Check button. CHECK button: The CHECK button allows you to check the status of the alarm and the programme settings. Press the CHECK button. The radio will say "Alarm set for…." followed by the time the alarm is set for and whether the alarm is turned on or off. Note that there will always be an alarm time, the default factory setting is 12 AM. Press the CHECK button again. If there are no programmes set you will hear "Radio programmed for…No radio settings". If there are radio settings programmed you will hear "Radio programmed for…" followed by the first programme settings. Press the CHECK button again to hear if there is another programme set. Continue to press the CHECK button until you have heard all the radio programme settings. If you wish to remove any of the programmes press the DELETE button twice within 2 seconds after listening to its settings. Adjusting Speech and Alarm Volume: These are adjusted from the SETUP menu and are not effected by the rotary Volume control on the top of the unit. Recording a memo/message: You can record a 30 second memo message on the radio. Pressing and releasing the MEMO button will cause any recorded message to be played or you will be advised if there is no message. If you press the button again within 2 seconds you will hear "Hold to record message". Keep the button depressed while speaking your message and then release it. The new message will replace any previously recorded one. To delete a message release the MEMO button while it is saying “Hold to record message”. You can also use this message as an alarm sound. Resetting the Radio: If the radio stops functioning correctly first check that the batteries are not flat or that the adaptor is connected correctly. If the problem persists then remove the battery cover. Along the edge of the battery compartment closest to the back of the radio there is a small hole which houses the RESET button. To reach the button you will require something thin and long such as a paperclip. Gently press and release the RESET button. The radio should announce the version number of the software. Please note that this will erase your radio stations, alarms and any set programmes, but if you have backed the stations up you will be able to restore them. If the above did not resolve the problem then it is possible to fully reset everything back to the factory default settings. Repeat the above procedure but this time press the MEMO button before the radio finishes speaking the software version number. This will also erase any backed up station list so should only be done as a last resort. Specifications: Features: FM only waveband talking radio alarm clock powered by a mains adaptor or batteries. The radio can be tuned automatically, manually or by inputting radio frequencies. Stereo outputs are provided to drive headphones, active speakers or for connection to a remote recorder. All functions have speech output. Up to 20 stations can be stored and up to 20 of them can have a user recorded tag attached for station identification. Stations can be backed up and restored. Wave Bands: FM 88MHz to 108MHz External Sockets: Antenna Remote switch 2.5mm jack mono Audio Out 3.5mm jack stereo Earphones 3.5mm jack stereo DC IN Centre positive 9v at 500 mA Memo: User recordable. 30 secs max. Alarms: Selectable from a choice of 6 tones, a user-recorded message or the radio Programmes: Up to 7 independent for a combination of days and times. These turn the radio on and off and will control an external recorder. Mains adaptor: 9v at 500 mA DC Batteries: 4 x AA 1.5v Alkaline. Cobolt Systems Ltd, The Old Mill House, Mill Road, Reedham, Norwich, Norfolk, NR13 3TL, England Tel: 01493 700172 Fax: 01493 701037 Email: sales@cobolt.co.uk Website: www.cobolt.co.uk Modified 18/03/2020