HI Aian,
I have several thoughts on possible devices that would be helpful to me.
Some are fairly low-tech, and others will take more sophisticated design.
1. A high-quality 4-track cassett recorder/player: Several are
available. My idea is for something that would provide clear and flexible
tone, ling battery life, extremely high reliability, optionally, excellent
compressed speech.
My idea is for somthing that would look a little like a boom box and be
able to play stereo cassettes as well. A fip of a switch would put it in
four-track mode for both playing and recording. An equalizer would be
available to compensate for people with hearing losses, so that sould
could be made clear to meet individual needs.
One of the greatest needs is reliability. In many of the units, Library
of Congress tapes tend to get stuck. Such a recorder should not have one
of those tape guides. They make it very hard to manipulate tapes that get
stuck.
2. Selectable Assistive Listening device: I am both totally blind and
hard of hearing. Because of this, I face two problems when dealing with
public performances.
First of all, many theaters have assistive listening devices, but many do
not make it possible to use one's hearing aids with them because the are
headphones ane do not allow for the input of an audio loop. This should
be a very strong device that has a well-insulated set of headphones and an
jack to connect a loop. It shoudlbe a multi-frequency device, because
different theraters, churches, etc. use different frequencies. It should
have the ability to receive both infrared and FM signals, because both
systems are used, and their use is unpredictable.
Anotyer problem I face in theaters that have audidescription is that the
audiodescription system uses FM, and the assistive lisening system uses
infrared. The ability to mix both types of signals would be most useful
to me.
3. A good color-detection device: I would like to see someone develop a
device that would deterine whetehr what colors are in a particular garment
reliably. This would make me independent from sighted assistance when
dressing.
I have other ideas as well, but I will start with these three.
Rick Roderick,
Louisville, KY
richard@iglou.com, rick_roderick.parti@pcusa.org
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