If your Internet Radio used to work with the "Worldstation" service you have a Radio manufactured by Taiwanese company 'Penbex'.
Penbex went bankrupt and the Worldstation service has been offline. Due to this your radio has become useless.

We have modified the Penbex firmware to connect to our server. This will let you use your Radio again.
Additionally it also gives you an option to connect the account on our server to "MyFavorites" on your Radio so that you can create custom station lists.

To determine what Penbex Radio you have a few things are important.
First check the brand name and model number.
Next turn on the radio, go to settings. Select "information" and scroll down to the detail section.
You will see something like:

[ Detail ]
OS Ver.:
KW-1004 ...

Besides the brand & model this is the second important part.
Look in the download section for firmsware that specifically mentions your brand & model or when this is not listed find one that matches the OS version.

If you brand, model and OS version are not listed then reply to this post with your details so we can try to add support for your Radio as well.

Firmware update instructions:

Odys is available now.. so is the Kingsun.

Feedback is appreciated..

I just flashed my KW-1004 with the Odys firmware.
So far all seems to be fine.
I can use the i.radio feature and browse the countries.
Only some buttons on the front panel are working but it is ok.

I am using the device with a wired lan cable.
I dont have the USB dongle here at the moment (still in some box) so I cant try wireless.
If you are using it via a wireless connection maybe one of you can try it with a wired connection..

I will keep on digging to see what is wrong though.

Technically it is possible but you would have to update the bootloader first (bootloader updates have more risk than regular updates).
However, it is really not needed because the Akira and KW-1004 2.0.0.23 firmwares are 100% the same!!

In fact the latest official firmware from the factory for the Akira is version 1.0.3.62.
I had to modify the newer v2 firmwares from the KW1004 to get the Akira in a better shape.

~William

Further investigation does not reveal anything odd. The server logs show that there are no connection attempts from your IP adresses.
Other persons with the same firmware do not seem to have similar problems. Did you try a wired connection?

That would be very helpful. Mail me for details.

~William

Great news!!! I did the update a few minutes ago and it worked perfectly! William, you're the best, thank you for all the help.

Quick question: I'm in Quebec Canada. Do I get access to all the stations or only the ones in Canada?

Thanks again... I am now a happy camper.

Spyder

Hi,

i have the same Problem with my DNT IPMicro after update with Firmware 2.0.0.23

Tobias

Hi,

I cannot see any downloads that mention Penbex, or Cobra?

Maybe I'm lookingh in the wrong place!

I have a Cobra 2000 E, FW v 2.0.0, uP Ver :0x26.

Is there a firmware upgrade I can download?

Should I/Can I  backup my current firmware first?

Many Thanks

Mark.

Hi William,

forgot to add my Cobra OS version.

It is MC609_COBRA_EU-2.0.0.23 build 01/11/11-1639.

Thanks,

Mark.

Go to files, then select download firmware in the Worldstation/Penbex section.
or when you are logged in already use this link

Worked perfectly!

Thanks very much, got full selection of BBC stations, at last.

Regards,

Mark.

Hi William,

I don't use paypal, how can I donate?

Regards,

Mark.

No idea.. Using a bank account only makes the banks richer I think.
But it is great to hear you are happy!

The Centrios is exactly the same model (hardware wise) as the KW-1004, IPMicro, Goodmans and several others.
If you are using the KW1004 firmware from here then there is no need to load a Centrios firmware because on the inside the firmwares are 100% the same.

Go to the files section for penbex firmwares

and download the file called "ODYS-2.0.0.23.zip"

Thanks, I dont think we have Amazon in NL but thanks for the gesture.
Just enjoy your radio and have fun!

Hi Folks.

I was now able to Flash my Odys Box as well. Trick was to reformat the Stick with Fat32. I would suggest to add this as a note to the How to Upgrade-Section.

chaosphysik

Please help with firmware for:

KRAFTWERK

Model Name IR006_V1

Version OS : IR006_V1-2.0.0.40 beta build 03/27/09-1412

SW:20080410.0.0.99

[Add Staion Page]

http://station.penbex.com.tw

THX Spamfu

Hi William, my radio model is Ravon W231 (Phaedora) made by Fenda. The OS is: FENDA-2.0.0.34.

I have tried to install one by one all firmware from the list, but none works. Some give "error" during installation, others seems to be installed, but when choose Worldstation" message is: "Service not available".

And in the information from menu, the firmware always is FENDA-2.0.0.34.

Any help? Thank you from Milan - Manrico

(edit reason: removed large quote)

I have 2 CIR 2000 A units and recently upgraded one of them. With upgrade can now get some Internet stations ( I am in the USA) but many still (most) when accessing return a 'station unavailable' message.

Another issue is after upgrading the unit would occasionally show inverted or mirror image screen graphics. Turning off unit and turning it back on corrects this but I am puzzled as to why this is happening. The actual operation of the unit seems unaffected but before I upgrade the second of my units I wonder can you suggest what may be causing this?

Thanks

modification reason: removed large quote..

Hi, The database is as maintained by the users. Some countries are fully up-to-date others lack updates..
You can send updates or post on the forum if you are looking for some particular stations then one of the moderators will take care of it.

Quote:

The firmware is 99% the Original firmware. The only thing that is changed is where the device gets its station updates from.
What you describe is probably present in the unmodified firmware as well.. Do a factory reset to make sure no old settings are left in the eeprom parts of the device.. Old settings could be used differently in this firmware..

~William

Dear William,

I have a Merlin Receiver. The IR does not work anymore. Can you please help?

Merlin IR9003

 Thanks & Regards,

For Watson you need to use the file KW-1004-2.0.0.23.zip
That is the only file that will work!

Also, it is useless to load a new bootloader onto the watson as the only bootloader that we have available is what is already on the watson.

If the file fails verification, there is only one reason it fails:
Your SD card or USB stick is not working properly with the Watson. Remember that the Watson is old and is not capable of properly handling SDHC cards or USB sticks with more than 2 GB.
You should get a USB stick with max 2 GB of memory and FAT or FAT32 formatting.
Alternatively use a SD card with max. 2GB of memory and FAT or FAT32 formatting.
Just try a bunch of older cards. Even a 128MB stick or card will do. Hint: check old phones or camera's...

This applies even if you have been able to use a larger stick in the poast with music on it. For music it is not so important if a bit inside the mp3 files is wrong..
For a firmware update it would be a device killer and thus the firmware verification routine is VERY strict!

Hi William,

when can we expect a firmware for Olympia 300?

Gracenote is not working. It has been broken for a long time iirc it was already broken in some firmwares before the end of Penbex (which was in 2011) and they did not bother to fix it.
Note that even though the source of the firmware was published (only a very early firmware version), the gracenote part was closed source as that did not fall under GPL.
Fixing just the Gracenote would probably cost more than a year which is time I do not have available.

Besides that, the devices are not worth to spend so much time on getting one feature back..
They already lack other features, like not being able to play AAC streams, which can not be added as the hardware is too slow.

~William

Hi, Correct, Gracenote is only available when licensed and paid for which I think they did when they released it.
I am not sure if a company has to pay each year to keep Gracenote working. If so it would indeed be a matter of Gracenote kicking out the device due to not being paid anymore as the Penbex company went bankrupt.
However, it is more likely that a one time payment is enough and that the Gracenote API has changed after that. The API means the commands a device uses to call to the Gracenote database.
If new commands to request cd details were introduced at some point in time and the firmware did not get updated because Penbex is gone, so the device simply stops working with Gracenote.

To clarify: if gracenote is no longer working, it will not be fixed in a future firmware release.

• Use an 'old' USB stick, I used a 256Mb from Kingston. I'm not sure if this is important, but for me it worked to do a new format with FAT32 and allocation unit size of 512 bytes
• Remove the WiFi dongle before the update, otherwise it takes ages before the USB stick is recognized.
• Do a factory reset: without the reset the directory of the USB stick is not recognized. Before the reset I got every time the message "No Source!"

Hello,

I don't known why my last post is not visible (firefox 34.0.1 ??) so I put it again.

What about firmware for Olympia 300? When will it be ready?

Robert