Is there such a thing as a USB radio?

  • Thread starter Thread starter dos-man
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dos-man

I'm jumping through a lot hoops here to record music off of FM radio.

* I've got my radio connected to my DVD recorder to record several
hours of music. Then I have to take the DVD-RW to my computer and I'm
using dreamlinux to create/edit MP3s of the individual songs. Finally,
I jump into windows to create MP3s.

* And then I have another DVD recorder (that I just bought at big lots
for $30) getting stuff off the satellite radio stations. Repeat
procedure as above.

* I also have a sandisk sansa express which records into wave files
for 2 hours at a clip. Then I have to retrieve the wave files from
linux due to a lack of drivers for windows.

I can't help but think that a simple FM radio on USB would make this a
lot easier. I could record entire days on a given station instead of
these 2 hour intervals. You'd be surpised how many commercials there
are in 2 hours, about 45 minutes worth :(
 
What is wrong with plugging an FM radio, into the line input
of your sound card ? Your PC can store a lot of sound, as long
as you have a program that writes out the recorded sound directly
to disk. (Some sound editor programs, record to RAM, which
can be a limitation. Recording directly to the hard drive,
would make your 24 hour target easier to do.)

    Paul
Click to expand...

Hi, Paul. What I've noticed in the past is that hooking up to the
soundcard creates a lot static and "white noise". PCs aren't quiet
like DVD recorders. They hum, they vibrate, they make quite a bit of
noise. I've never been happy with the sound quality I got from doing
that.

Actually, I used to have a wintv PCI card which had a radio tuner on
it. Seemed buggy and quirky so I got rid of it. Wish I still had it :(
 
There's the Radio Shark 2
(http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/radioshark2) that I have.
The recording function works very well, but I would rate the quality
of the radio as average to poor.

Another one that I don't have personal experience with is Radio
Extreme (http://www.radio-xtreme.com/RadioXtreme.htm).
Click to expand...


Thank you for the suggestions. I need to do a little research and see
which one fits best and which one can possibly work in linux. The
second one has linux drivers, but that doesn't guarantee I can
configure it :)
 
Were you connecting to a decent quality sound card, or a
low-end or integrated audio?  The former tend to be quieter.
Click to expand...


I really can't recall. I mean I've had a small army of PCs over the
past few years and at one point I even had an ISA sound blaster. I
just remember a lot of air in a seashell type background noise.


Another option is a USB sound *card*, one with a line in,
input.  They tend to be quieter by virtue of the impedance
across the USB cable, though I suppose some of those are
better than others too.
Click to expand...


I haven't heard of those before. I will have to look around.

As you mentioned a PCI tuner card is another option, and
fairly inexpensive.
Click to expand...


My old wintv card was hard to work with, as well as being costly.
Wasn't so much a problem with the hardware, but the software to
control the device was buggy. Well, that was a long time ago when I
had that. Possibly 2002 or earlier.
 
I can't help but think that a simple FM radio on USB would make this a
lot easier.
Click to expand...

Well, almost a decade ago there were PCI TV/Capture cards with FM Radio
as well, so I'd imagine that similar stuff exists in USB format these
days. One of these might suit the bill.

It would just be a matter of loading the appropriate drivers and
software and ignoring the unneeded parts.
 
dos-man said:
I'm jumping through a lot hoops here to record music off of FM radio.

* I've got my radio connected to my DVD recorder to record several
hours of music. Then I have to take the DVD-RW to my computer and I'm
using dreamlinux to create/edit MP3s of the individual songs. Finally,
I jump into windows to create MP3s.

* And then I have another DVD recorder (that I just bought at big lots
for $30) getting stuff off the satellite radio stations. Repeat
procedure as above.

* I also have a sandisk sansa express which records into wave files
for 2 hours at a clip. Then I have to retrieve the wave files from
linux due to a lack of drivers for windows.

I can't help but think that a simple FM radio on USB would make this a
lot easier. I could record entire days on a given station instead of
these 2 hour intervals. You'd be surpised how many commercials there
are in 2 hours, about 45 minutes worth :(
Click to expand...

Google for "USB FM RADIO" (without the quotes).
 
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