Simple Internet Radio

22-Sept-22: We're on Hackaday!

A minimal internet radio with analog input controls for volume and tuning. The use case is conversion of an old analog radio to internet. The tuning dial's range is mapped into N zones, each zone selects a hard-coded radio station. vlc is used in audio only mode to stream the station content.

Reference Hardware: a Tivoli Audio Model One Conversion

Photo Gallery

This code works on the following hardware configuration:

• Raspberry Pi Zero
• AD1115 Analog input chip (two channels for reading the potentiometers)
• Adafruit Audio bonnet
• Custom 3D printed mount plate to adapt potentiometer to original tuning knob. (see POT\ Mount\ for\ Tivoli\ Model\ One.stl)

Wiring Diagram

Pi Audio Basics

• A simple test: cvlc --no-video http://kcrw.streamguys1.com/kcrw_192k_mp3_on_air

Above should play a stream from KCRW if vlc is installed and configured right.

Runtime Notes

• When you power up, it takes a minute or two for the rPi to boot. This is a feature - it gives a nice old-time vacuume tube feel to the experience.
• Not as nice is the lag in response to volume change. That is an explicit tradeoff of how frequently you want the rPi to be wasting cycles checking the analog inputs for changes.

Dependencies for this software

Python3, vlc, SMB library Python-vlc package