[HN Gopher] Building an FM radio from $3 radio chip and an 84MHz...
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       Building an FM radio from $3 radio chip and an 84MHz ARM Arduino
        
       Author : 9wzYQbTYsAIc
       Score  : 41 points
       Date   : 2022-10-09 07:25 UTC (15 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (hackaday.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (hackaday.io)
        
       | thakoppno wrote:
       | People in the US who find this interesting should spend the ~$50
       | to get licensed for amateur and buy a UV5R radio.
       | 
       | There is just so much one can do and learn with these cheap
       | radios. In many ways, it's the raspberry pi of radio.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | ... based on the TEA5767 radio module.
       | 
       | So this is more a lesson in how to wire things together than it
       | is in how FM radio even works.
        
         | teeray wrote:
         | The TEA5767 is a full FM broadcast receiver on a chip. So yeah,
         | it's really just how to wire up that chip, connect it to an
         | audio amplifier (LM4811), etc. If you want to learn how radios
         | work, I'd recommend many of the learning materials out there
         | for amateur radio.
        
         | 9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote:
         | The enclosure design was interesting - not 3d printed,
         | unfortunately, but still looks remarkably clean.
         | 
         | And the choice of user interface was interesting to see - a
         | single rotary encoder reminiscent of the days of the iPod.
         | 
         | But, yes, definitely more about how to wire together
         | (physically and digitally) the components of a consumer product
         | than about how FM radio chips work or how to build your own
         | radio from crystals, etc.
        
       | hulitu wrote:
       | > Building an FM radio from $3 radio chip and an 84MHz ARM
       | Arduino
       | 
       | The article is great. He just forgot to explain how and why (84
       | Mhz microcontroller for a FM radio ? ) he did it. /s
        
         | squarefoot wrote:
         | That in fact is quite overkill; probably it was what he had at
         | hand. That FM chip can be controlled by any uC capable of
         | bitbanging i2c, so pretty much every cheap one including small
         | ATTiny uCs that cost one tenth of the Arduino Due.
        
         | 9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote:
         | Another day, another hack, is the hackaday way.
        
       | zython wrote:
       | and for my next trick I'm going to make a slingshot with only two
       | parts: a slingshot and a squirrel
        
         | 9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote:
         | Hah, neat trick!
         | 
         | https://allanimalsfaq.com/squirrel/how-to-make-a-squirrel-sl...
        
       | anaganisk wrote:
       | Didn't RPI have In built capability to do that? I built a cheap
       | streaming system, back when bluetooth wasn't so main stream to
       | make "piplay" for my stereo in car with Pi2.
        
         | 9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote:
         | I'm not sure, it might.
         | 
         | As I recall, some ARM SoC have FM radios in them.
         | 
         | edit: ah, it was the Qualcomm modems that I was recalling
         | 
         | https://www.wired.com/2016/07/phones-fm-chips-radio-smartpho...
        
         | bdowling wrote:
         | Sort of. The Raspberry Pi CPU had a configurable clock
         | generator that could output up to about 125MHz to a GPIO line.
         | Some people figured out that it was possible to rapidly change
         | the configuration registers to modulate an audio signal onto a
         | carrier frequency in the FM broadcast range. [0] So you could
         | make a low power FM transmitter using just a Raspberry Pi and a
         | piece of wire.
         | 
         | [0]
         | http://www.icrobotics.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Turning_the_Raspb...
        
       | gregsadetsky wrote:
       | Would anyone be able to recommend the most beginner friendly
       | "assume (almost) no knowledge" of how to implement an fm radio
       | using 1) a dsp "pipeline" 2) analog electronics?
       | 
       | If I wanted to understand every single step of the dsp process
       | and what each individual piece of electronics did in "decoding" a
       | fm signal, where should I turn to?
       | 
       | Thank you!
        
         | jrockway wrote:
         | FM radio receivers were a staple of those electronic kits I
         | used to play with as a kid. Here's what a quick Google search
         | shows: https://www.electronicsforu.com/electronics-
         | projects/simple-...
         | 
         | The difference in complexity between this and something
         | commercial are extras like decoding the stereo subcarrier and
         | applying the data to the main signal:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM_broadcasting#Stereo_FM
        
           | gregsadetsky wrote:
           | Yeah, I also did electronic kits as a kid, and both learned
           | how to read a diagram thanks to them, but never understood
           | what individual parts did in any circuit.
           | 
           | I "get" I=V/R (I mean not really... I know it exists), but
           | how to go from there to understanding what each capacitor is
           | doing in the simplest of fm circuits?
           | 
           | Is each component doing the equivalent of non-trivial real-
           | time signal processing? How to visualize / think about it?
        
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       (page generated 2022-10-09 23:00 UTC)