Re: gEDA-user: Looking for a project

[al davis <ad136@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Friday 30 March 2007 19:24, Jason Aron wrote:
>  I'm a hardware guy with lots of experience in building
> radios and audio systems (RF and audio).


I just had another idea ...  Equipment for low-power FM radio.

Some of these stations are on a very low budget.  Commercial 
broadcast equipment is very expensive because of low volume.  
This is where the free/open-source approach, with kits for 
sale, has a place.

Before someone else points this out .....  Unless you want it 
just to prove you can do the whole thing free/open-source, 
certain things like CD players don't make sense.

Whether a mixing console makes sense or not depends what you 
want to do.  If a disco or band mixed does the job, you won't 
beat it.  The free/open-source modular approach opens up the 
possibility of building big ones like API makes.  That would be 
worth doing.

I see a few possibilities ...

-Test equipment: modulation monitor, frequency meter.
A box that tells you that your transmitter is working correctly.

- signal processing, compression and limiting.  You can buy one 
cheap that was designed for bands, but it is far from optimal 
for broadcast.  How about a multi-band limiter for FM?
(yes ... I do know how to do it.)

(for the USA) ..  emergency action notification system.  
Broadcasters need to monitor other stations for the alarm.  
It's just an FM radio with a little extra circuitry.  How about 
the extra box to attach to an ordinary FM radio?

FM stereo generator.  The broadcast ones are very expensive.  
You can buy one made for a lab cheap.  It sort of works.  A 
real broadcast one is simple but much more expensive.


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