connecting radio to computer

[Hesam Kamalan]

hi
i want to connect one radio to my computer (with parrallel or USB port) and change stations from my computer. i want to lessen to the radio via computer and speekers. is it practical or no?

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

hi
i want to connect one radio to my computer (with parrallel or USB port) and change stations from my computer. i want to lessen to the radio via computer and speekers. is it practical or no?

You can buy radio cards for computers, either internal or USB, simply plug one in!.

 

[Hesam Kamalan]

no thanks dear Nigel. i do not want to buy it. i want to build for fun not professional

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

In that case you're talking a LOT of expense, it's NOT really a trivial project, for a start you've got to build a PLL digitally controlled radio, then an interface to either parallel or USB.

 

[upand_at_them]

It wouldn't be that expensive. He could use a 4066 analog switch or just a few transistors.

Mike

 

[hjames]

Ripping apart an old analog radio and mechanically driving the tuning knob would be amusing in an odd retro sort of way. When dealing with a cheap off-the-shelf "normal" radio, the ugly part would probably be trying to hack around the human interface.

Buttons are likely in a matrix configuration, so that's the first "ouch", the second is trying to interpret any user output from something like a LCD - which would be pretty tricky. Probably impossible without having a microcontroller directly parsing the LCD control lines.

Might be easier to splice in/ hack directly into something that resembles a varactor in the tuning section. If there is one - that is.

James

 

[akg]

no thanks dear Nigel. i do not want to buy it. i want to build for fun not professional

connect the tunnig dial to a stepper motor controlled from the pc

 

[desperadogear]

its a good idea to get the analog signal from FM radio and convert it into digital interface it to computer and play it using a program. That way the output would be better and less noisy. Lets say we got the digital data some how and theres a stepper motor interface to control the frequency knob. Which program would be appropriate for the rest of digital signal processing? Matlab?

 

[JRoque]

Hello. Silabs has a reference design for an USB enabled FM radio. It can be purchased for $35 from Mouser.

You can also buy the radio chip and interface to your own ucontroller. Philips also has a numbers of **broken link removed** that might be useful.

JR

 

[bsodmike]

What about a servo, that gives accurate position control? Or a motor with PID control, but that only makes sense if the knob rotates round and round (sorta like a slipper dial...what do you call these?).