[Cialug] Raspberry Pi hacking @ Area515

[Matt Stanton]

I just went to the FCC's website and found a site built specifically for answering public questions on setting up a radio for transmitting on the AM or FM broadcast bands.  There is a "Part 15" section that allows for the unlicensed use of these two bands for transmitters that use less 0.05W or less on the AM broadcast band, or 0.01uW (yes, microwatts) or less on the FM broadcast band (the rule actually states a field strength reading measured as 250uV/m at 3 meters from the antenna).

The website on which I found this information (via a link to a PDF on part 15 transmitters) is here:
http://www.fcc.gov/guides/low-power-broadcast-radio-stations#UNLICENSED

There are a few frequencies that are commonly used by in-car FM MP3/CD player "adapters" that you might consider using, simply because those frequencies are chosen to avoid interference with broadcast stations.  They tend to be at the borders of the broadcast range, and are frequencies avoided by broadcast stations since they are far from the "center" of the broadcast range where most receiver's antennas are tuned by default.

-- Matt (N0BOX)

Sent from my ASUS Transformer

-----Original Message-----
From: David Champion <dchamp1337 at gmail.com>
To: Central Iowa Linux Users Group <cialug at cialug.org>
Sent: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 5:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Cialug] Raspberry Pi hacking @ Area515

If you watch the video, they shot that part with the guy in the back seat
of a police car.

Disclaimer: we will show you how to run this, it is up to you to decide
where and when you should use it.

-dc


On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 4:11 PM, Barry Von Ahsen <vonahsen at gmail.com> wrote:

> did you not read the note? :)
>
> NOTE: The Raspberry Pi's broadcast frequency can range between 1Mhz and
> 250Mhz, which may interfere with government bands. We advise that you limit
> your transmissions to the standard FM band of 87.5MHz-108.0MHz (see Step 3)
> and always choose a frequency that's not already in use, to avoid
> interference with licensed broadcasters.
>
> *wink, wink*
>
>
> -barry
>
>
>
> On Mar 10, 2014, at 4:07 PM, Dave Weis <djweis at sjdjweis.com> wrote:
>
> > SDR seems like one of those great ideas I could use to get in a lot of
> > trouble very quickly.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 3:27 PM, David Champion <dchamp1337 at gmail.com
> >wrote:
> >
> >> Speaking of Raspberry Pi...
> >>
> >> I'm planning to have a demo of the Pirate Radio project - streaming
> audio
> >> files over a software defined FM transmitter on a RPi. The only
> additional
> >> hardware is a piece of wire for an antenna.
> >>
> >>
> http://makezine.com/projects/make-38-cameras-and-av/raspberry-pirate-radio/
> >>
> >> Will be at Area515 this Tuesday 3/11 during the Open House, starting at
> >> about 6:30 pm. If we can get it working, may try to get another machine
> >> with a SDR doing analysis to see what the noisy RPi FM signal looks
> like.
> >>
> >> Will be some other fun stuff going on, i.e. some guys are planning to be
> >> playing with burning raster images with the laser cutter / engraver.
> >>
> >> -dc
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