Shilling for an old employer. This is a neat super simple device that takes incoming headphone and converts to FM.
Whole House FM Transmitter (https://wholehousefmtransmitter.com/)
I replaced Spotify with a homemade FM radio station
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Re: I replaced Spotify with a homemade FM radio station
#12Did something like this for janky whole-venue music at my wedding reception back in '07. We had a low power FM transmitter connected to a laptop playing the music. We borrowed a bunch of old "boom boxes" with FM radios from friends, tuned them to our "station", and arrayed them throughout the event space. We kept the volume fairly low on each radio so we didn't have to worry about echoes.
Re: I replaced Spotify with a homemade FM radio station
#13I miss the experience of having career professionals 100% dedicated to the music world curating a list of what I would hear. Of course, it was not perfect, there were ads, most stations played pop slop, but most of the time there was a few stations for your taste, your knew your preferred DJs times and there was a certain sense of community in being a regular fan of a show.
I miss that as well but more than likely (at least in the US) that "curated" channel you use to listen to was probably owned by Clear Channel and probably the same exact content played in every other city where everyone else felt like it was for them as well.
Re: I replaced Spotify with a homemade FM radio station
#14I miss the experience of having career professionals 100% dedicated to the music world curating a list of what I would hear. Of course, it was not perfect, there were ads, most stations played pop slop, but most of the time there was a few stations for your taste, your knew your preferred DJs times and there was a certain sense of community in being a regular fan of a show.
What fills that void for me: https://www.nts.live/
I have a list of "Shows" I follow, with regular updates from star guests (Tim Reaper for jungle music [1] , Lena Raine for video game OST [2], ...)
Their "NTS Guide to..." [3] is really great to peek into a new genre as well.
I highly recommend.
[1] https://www.nts.live/shows/tim-reaper
Re: I replaced Spotify with a homemade FM radio station
#15I miss the experience of having career professionals 100% dedicated to the music world curating a list of what I would hear. Of course, it was not perfect, there were ads, most stations played pop slop, but most of the time there was a few stations for your taste, your knew your preferred DJs times and there was a certain sense of community in being a regular fan of a show.
How much of that do you think is rose tinted glasses and nostalgia? On paper that doesn't sound too different than Apple Music Radio for example where there's radio shows with local DJs or hosts that talk, play music and have curated play lists by a human editor.
I'm sure other streaming services have the same and curators can pick from a much larger set of music, from any part of the world. More than they ever could at a radio station where they had to order and ship CDs around.
There's also many independent internet radio stations or music podcasts these days which can be launched for little money, don't require a broadcasting license and can be listened to from any place in the world.
I understand the nostalgia angle, but objectively it seems like what we currently have is better and more open on all counts.
Re: I replaced Spotify with a homemade FM radio station
#16Here in Germany you have to be careful when setting up a homemade radio signal - it might be illegal depending on frequency and transmit power. I personally prefer a combination of duckdns.org Beets Navidrome Audiobookshelf Substreamer / DSub PaulWoitaschek/Voice / Audiobookshelf Wireguard You can even make a script do download smart playlists to usb-sticks for kitchen radios without wifi or old car USB.
there are similar concerns in the US but you can legally send a signal a couple hundred feet in most cases
Re: I replaced Spotify with a homemade FM radio station
#17Here in Germany you have to be careful when setting up a homemade radio signal - it might be illegal depending on frequency and transmit power. I personally prefer a combination of duckdns.org Beets Navidrome Audiobookshelf Substreamer / DSub PaulWoitaschek/Voice / Audiobookshelf Wireguard You can even make a script do download smart playlists to usb-sticks for kitchen radios without wifi or old car USB.
> Here in Germany you have to be careful when setting up a homemade radio signal - it might be illegal depending on frequency and transmit power.
In Germany and everywhere else. The difference is how much it's enforced.
Note that this project isn't using that horrible Raspberry Pi GPIO PWM hack that shits all over RF but an off-the-shelf low power car FM transmitter product. I guess if someone knocks on your door you can point your finger to whoever in Germany sold you that.
Re: I replaced Spotify with a homemade FM radio station
#18They make low power AM transmitters as well. I bought one for my dad so he could "stream" old music from the Internet to his old tube radios.
Re: I replaced Spotify with a homemade FM radio station
#19I have something similar, but cleaner setup, an old iPhone connected to a speaker through lightning, and it had FM radio app and also connected to my navidrome server, works very well. If I want local FM radio however, I have an FM receiver that can be plugged into that speaker too.
Re: I replaced Spotify with a homemade FM radio station
#20I miss the experience of having career professionals 100% dedicated to the music world curating a list of what I would hear. Of course, it was not perfect, there were ads, most stations played pop slop, but most of the time there was a few stations for your taste, your knew your preferred DJs times and there was a certain sense of community in being a regular fan of a show.
How much of that do you think is rose tinted glasses and nostalgia? On paper that doesn't sound too different than Apple Music Radio for example where there's radio shows with local DJs or hosts that talk, play music and have curated play lists by a human editor. I'm sure other streaming services have the same and curators can pick from a much larger set of music, from any part of the world. More than they ever could…
> There's also many independent internet radio stations or music podcasts these days which can be launched for little money, don't require a broadcasting license and can be listened to from any place in the world.
Indeed - radioparadise.com is a quite nice Internet Radio