Build an FM radio using an RTL-SDR dongle

Pi FM Radio

Lead Image © margaritatkahcenko, 123RF.com

Lead Image © margaritatkahcenko, 123RF.com

Article from Issue 206/2018
Author(s):

Low-cost RTL-SDR dongles can read frequencies between 24 and 1,766MHz. We built a simple FM radio with a Raspberry Pi, a USB dongle based on the RTL2832U chipset, an LCD HAT, and some Python code.

FM radio projects that use chipsets with a low-level Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C) interface, like the RDA5807M and TEA5767, can work, but I found that both solutions have some drawbacks. The RDA5807M chip is poorly documented, with only Arduino C libraries, and the TEA5767 chip has no volume control.

Software-defined radio (SDR) offers a higher level interface that allows access to mixers, filters, amplifiers, modulators/demodulators, and detectors on the hardware. A wide range of hardware supports SDR, and the RTL-SDR [1] USB dongles based on the RTL2832U chipsets are well-priced at $10-$15.

SDRs have a large list of supported applications; some of the cooler projects include tracking airplanes, free-to-air TV, and monitoring satellite data.

[...]

Use Express-Checkout link below to read the full article (PDF).

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

  • Software-Defined Radio

    Armed with a US$ 20 hunk of hardware and a free software-defined radio tool, Konstantin starts the hunt for radio-transmitted data from a weather station.

  • FSFE and FFII to Radio Station Winners: "rOGG on"

    Radio Free Deutschland: For Document Freedom Day, March 31 2010, a couple of European radio stations were granted awards for using open standards.

  • FOSSPicks

    Graham looks at Graphite, retrogram~rtlsdr, Piano Forte, OneTrick SIMIAN, The Command Line Murders, and more!

  • Weather Station

    A DVB-T stick retrieves information from a professional weather station and stores it in a database for downstream processing.

  • Pi Pico 2W Web Radio

    A Raspberry Pi Pico 2W has enough power to let you create a very usable web radio when you add a DAC chip and an amplifier.

comments powered by Disqus