Propeller Based FM Radio.....Record audio to file for later playback? (yes, a DAR)

WBA Consulting · 2012-07-16 00:04

Hello all,
While channel surfing the radio this evening while waiting in the car, I happened to catch a couple rather funny shows on NPR (Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me and Says You!). I already miss the Prairie Home Companion more than I wish, and tonight sparked an idea. I have a DVR (well a Win7 MediaPC with digital tuners) to record TV while I am away, so why not a DAR to record radio shows while I am unable to listen to the radio.
After some Googling, I found a few DARs on the net (one being DAR.fm) but I didn't find something that gave me what I truly wanted unless you paid for a subscription. I thought of the FM Radio module from Parallax and know that a program could be easily setup to schedule audio output at predetermined times. But, what about the recording side of the project?

Anyone have a solution to record audio from a Propeller? WAV object that goes TO uSD? (speed issues right?) USB Memory Stick Datalogger? (same speed issues?) Control some standard recording Voice Activated device like a Sony PX820?

ps. The recordings are for my personal listening use only, so yes, it is 100% legal.

Duane Degn · 2012-07-16 00:47

One of Kye's SD demos included a way of recording and saving a wav file to a SD card.

I'd think with a little wiring change you should be able to record the audio out from the radio instead of the audio from a mic. I don't recall what the sample rate was of Kye's program. I'd think it would be good enough to record a talk show.

WBA Consulting · 2012-07-16 15:17

Duane, Thanks! from your post I did some searching and found a few things by Kye. The KISS WAV Recorder appears to be exactly what I need.

KISS WAV Recorder Driver

KISS WAV Player Driver

SD2.0-Full-FAT32-16-File-Sytem-Driver

Looks like I should have all the code needed, I just need to add a Real Time Clock to one of my boards so I can setup the record/stop timing. Need to grab an FM Receiver Module as well.

idbruce · 2012-07-17 05:39

Sounds like an interesting project. Good luck with it.

Bruce

WBA Consulting · 2012-07-18 00:12

Looks like I am not the only one that had this idea.... Here is a good 2008 Senior paper on a Linux based DAR from Florida International University that had a budgetary figure of $20k for development with a target price of $200 per unit.
http://web.eng.fiu.edu/fanj/course_materials/2008/senior_summer08/sr_design_summer08_recorder_final.pdf

I did finish my block diagram from my notes and it continues to look extremely feasible. When I finish my three active projects, this will be next. (I only allow 3 active projects so that something gets done from my list)

tdlivings · 2012-07-18 08:28

You might consider this Radio Breakout from Sparkfun
http://www.sparkfun.com/search/results?term=si4703&what=products

The added feature compared to the Parallax one is it decodes the RDS data.
RDS data is the text of what is playing and station letters. What gets displayed
depends on a given station.

I have been playing with one using a Quickstart board and it does work.
Right now the code I have is in the build a kludge and learn version.
I will have to spend some time to clean it up and add some comments
before posting it.

Tom

WBA Consulting · 2012-07-19 13:02

Tom, Glad you brought that up. I just found out about RDS from my research and it would be nice to have that included into the design. I will definitely look into the Sparkfun board as well. I would be interested in seeing your code once you get it cleaned up.

I am changing this thread to solved because my question had to do with recording the audio which is solved with Kye's KISS Wave Recorder.

tdlivings · 2012-08-03 15:48

Andrew
I posted some status on my Si4703 experimentation in the Projects section
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?141657-Sparkfun-Si4703-FM-Radio

Tom

Propeller Based FM Radio.....Record audio to file for later playback? (yes, a DAR)

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