My Raspberry Pi Radio Project

My Raspberry Pi Radio Project

When I was a kid, long before the advent of computers, digital media and so on, there was radio. When I was a child, we had a single channel television but I probably learned more things from the radio than the television.

I remember that when I was getting ready for school in the mornings, our radio would be on. I would listen to it when revising in the evenings.

The actual physical radio we had was a "Grundig Satellit Transistor 5000". This must have been an expensive piece of equipment at the time. This radio featured long wave, short wave, medium wave and even FM.

Here is a page that features some information on the exact model:

http://www.radiocorner.de/candies/satellit1/205/

And this is the picture from this chap's web site, featuring the "5000".

A pristine specimen of 1960s engineering from an enthusiast

Then things changed; my sisters and I moved out of our parents' home. I got involved with all sorts of things life had to throw at me and I fell out with our radio. The Grundig fell out of fashion and eventually ended up on a shelf (in my uncles home!) for at least 20-25 years.

But, I never forgot this radio. So last summer I asked my father and we found out where it was. I brought it to the UK. It is not light; it is a serious piece of equipment with a lot of wires, metal bits and a wooden case!

My aim was to replace the innards of the Grundig with a modern Internet radio. And what better hardware to construct a radio than the Raspberry Pi.

Here in the UK, there are hardly any medium wave stations left. The FM will be replaced with DAB in the future. Clearly the radio had no future pupose.

So the first thing I did was to open the case, admire the German engineering of 1960s for a while and remove almost all of the components. I left the knobs and the loudspeaker but everything had to go.

First day in the UK - A lovely summer's day

Some readers may think that I ruined the radio by removing everything inside and that it is no longer a Grundig. But my aim was not to conserve an antique radio sitting idle on a shelf getting more and more obsolete every year. I believe that by converting the radio to an internet radio, I gave it a new fresh lease of life and purpose. As the web site above proves, there are genuine enthusiasts around the world and I am sure those specimens will eventually find their ways to museums.

Innards...

Above, my radio when I first opened the case after bringing to the UK.

Side note: as I removed the bits in pieces, it became clear that there were at least 4 distinct receivers inside.Especially the short wave receiver was very delicate.

My New Lovely Radio

I spent the next 6 months rebuilding the radio. So where am I now? I am writing this whilst listening to my new radio.

Right now, I am listening to a stream from my country of birth. Probably similar sort of music that we have been accustomed to listen on this radio. You would not be able to tell if this radio was an internet radio just by looking at it.

I started this blog to talk about my Raspberry Pi adventures and my Grundig / Raspberry Pi radio is my first adventure. Hopefully over the next few weeks I will document all I did, how I used custom hardware to manage the radio controls and so on. Perhaps this can inspire others.