Turn a Raspberry Pi into a radio station
Project Type: Raspberry Pi
Software: Terminal, Text Edit
OS: OSX 10.10.2
Project Source: http://makezine.com/projects/make-38-cameras-and-av/raspberry-pirate-radio/
This fun little project turns a Raspberry Pi into a miniature radio station.
Miniature radio station
There is no coding needed for this project. The Make tutorial has made everything you need available for download on the website.
You need to know a little about about terminal. You'll also need to do a little soldering but its just for making an antenna.
The only soldering I had to do
I had no idea the Pi had the ability to broadcast a radio signal but turns out GPIO 4 was designed for that purpose. I've also never used terminal to flash an SD card before.
Flashing the SD Card
The radio station plays all sorts of audio file formats including stuff I bought from the iTunes Store.
Once I was done with the build, I put the Phineas and Ferb soundtrack on the SD card for my kid.
She rode her bike up and down the street with a hand held radio while listening to her music.
The tutorial mentions turning Pin 4 into an antenna. This can be confusing if you don't know they are talking about GPIO 4 ,also known as Pin 7, which is the forth pin down on the inner rail. Don't get confused with the real Pin 4 (the second pin down on the outer rail). That pin is a 5v pin.
I also had trouble finding a empty frequency to broadcast on. I recommend using http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/vacant to find an vacant frequency.
The Video below give more detail about the project