Old radios have the station locations (cities all over the world) as labels for the tuner: https://www.radioheritage.com/story354/
Or: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/european-cities-rad...?
A further (well, different) hack would be to combine this hardware dial with stream URLs e.g. from https://radio.garden/ ...
You can simplify it even further. List of things you need.
1. Smartphone or DAP.
2. Car Bluetooth FM Transmitter (~$20)
3. USB to 12 V car adapter(~$10)
4. Existing FM radio.
You can set this up in 5 minutes. Connect the smartphone/DAP using BT or AUX cable. Select a free FM channel and you are ready to go.
Also, in the photos, the FM antenna is fully extended which is unnecessary as these FM transmitters put out plenty of RF power.
P.S. On AliExpress, you can buy both for < $15 while on Amazon it is around $30.
P.P.S. Just the USB FM transmitter is only $5 on AE. For the cost of a cup of Coffee!
Along with the ability to blacklist and add new songs, I hope that I will eventually end up with a huge collection of only the best songs (for my taste)
I personally prefer a combination of
duckdns.org
Beets
Navidrome
Audiobookshelf
Substreamer / DSub
PaulWoitaschek/Voice / Audiobookshelf
Wireguard
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.
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
Whole House FM Transmitter (https://wholehousefmtransmitter.com/)
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.
Indeed - radioparadise.com is a quite nice Internet Radio
Are we being 'nudged' to like certain genres or musicians because they are being promoted? Of course, this could happen with a DJ or traditional FM station too, but with centralized AI, you impart that 'nudging' on literally millions of people.
dredmorbius•1h ago
NB: Not my project, but it tickles an interest.