All-Band Radio records Signals, plays MP3s.
In these days of everything-streaming, it’s great to see an old school radio build. It’s even better when it’s not old-school at all, but packed full of modern ICs and driven by a micro-controller like the dsPIC in [Minh Danh]’s dsMP3 build.
![This build does it all: Radio, MP3 playback and records incoming Signals.
The radio portion of the build is driven by an Si4735, which allows for receiving both in FM and AM [with all the AM bands, SW, MW and LW available]. The FM section does support RDS, though because [Minh Danh] ran out of pins on the dsPIC, isn’t the perfect implementation.
<https://youtu.be/qxlcWu3C5f4>](https://nerdculture.de/system/media_attachments/files/114/806/258/672/706/594/original/4f51c27834996b32.jpeg "This build does it all: Radio, MP3 playback and records incoming Signals.
The radio portion of the build is driven by an Si4735, which allows for receiving both in FM and AM [with all the AM bands, SW, MW and LW available]. The FM section does support RDS, though because [Minh Danh] ran out of pins on the dsPIC, isn’t the perfect implementation.
<https://youtu.be/qxlcWu3C5f4>")
![[ImageSource: Minh Danh]
The audio section is a good intro to audio engineering if you’ve never done a project like this:
[Minh Danh] using a TDA1308 for headphones, which feeds into a NS8002 to drive some hefty stereo speakers — and he tells you why he selected those chips, as well as providing broken-out schematics for each. Really, I can’t say enough good things about this project’s documentation.
In this documentation [Minh Danh] tells you how he manages to get the dsPIC to read out MP3s from a USB drive, and write WAVs to it. One very interesting detail is how he used the dsPIC’s ample analog inputs to handle the front panel buttons on this radio: a resistor ladder. It’s a great solution in a project that’s full of them.](https://nerdculture.de/system/media_attachments/files/114/806/260/199/246/937/original/855ddcef94220f3e.jpeg "[ImageSource: Minh Danh]
The audio section is a good intro to audio engineering if you’ve never done a project like this:
[Minh Danh] using a TDA1308 for headphones, which feeds into a NS8002 to drive some hefty stereo speakers — and he tells you why he selected those chips, as well as providing broken-out schematics for each. Really, I can’t say enough good things about this project’s documentation.
In this documentation [Minh Danh] tells you how he manages to get the dsPIC to read out MP3s from a USB drive, and write WAVs to it. One very interesting detail is how he used the dsPIC’s ample analog inputs to handle the front panel buttons on this radio: a resistor ladder. It’s a great solution in a project that’s full of them.")
![[ImageSource: Minh Danh]
Just look at that thru-hole goodness.
Of course I have seen radio receivers before, and plenty of MP3 players, too — but this might be the first time I’ve seen an electronic Swiss army knife with all these features.
👾Best of all is when you get enough details that the author needs two blog posts {one for hardware and one for firmware} like [Minh Danh] has done.👾
<https://www.toughdev.com/content/2023/05/dsmp3-my-custom-built-lwmwfmsw-radio-with-mp3-recordingplayback-via-usbsd-card/>
<https://www.toughdev.com/content/2023/07/dsmp3-my-lwmwfmsw-radio-with-mp3-recordingplayback-part-2-firmware-design/>](https://nerdculture.de/system/media_attachments/files/114/806/261/022/328/475/original/fd8df048c43875d6.jpeg "[ImageSource: Minh Danh]
Just look at that thru-hole goodness.
Of course I have seen radio receivers before, and plenty of MP3 players, too — but this might be the first time I’ve seen an electronic Swiss army knife with all these features.
👾Best of all is when you get enough details that the author needs two blog posts {one for hardware and one for firmware} like [Minh Danh] has done.👾
<https://www.toughdev.com/content/2023/05/dsmp3-my-custom-built-lwmwfmsw-radio-with-mp3-recordingplayback-via-usbsd-card/>
<https://www.toughdev.com/content/2023/07/dsmp3-my-lwmwfmsw-radio-with-mp3-recordingplayback-part-2-firmware-design/>")