DAB integration?

[daviestar]

Hello,

I'm researching the best fit for a car audio project, and came across RPI/Digi+/headless Rune Audio as a possible candidate (main concern is optical out to feed into a ). From what I've read I can easily have a large music library and high bit-rate digital output with this setup, using a phone/tablet for UI

Has anyone been able to integrate DAB into a RPI, and get even basic support through the Rune Audio UI? If so, what DAB tuner did you use, dongle or board?

I'm a web developer and understand there are complexities integrating DAB with the UI - track names, signal etc would need to be updated using web sockets. However I only ever listen to one radio station! So I'd be perfectly happy setting the DAB tuner up and tuning through CLI then just having the basic ability to switch from music library to DAB and back again through Rune Audio UI.

Does anyone have any experience of this and can point me in the right direction?

Thanks, Dave

[chsims1]

This isn't an answer to your question, but a pointer to someone else asking a similar thing.

[daviestar]

Thanks for that, I'll post over there too

There are a few DAB radio solutions for RPI. has a C-based UI. This one is pricey but appears to have a lot of resources to help a n00b like me.

I don't know much about C or electronics/hardware (hoping to learn a bit with this project!). What general steps would be involved to bring that C touchscreen interface to a PHP app? The bit that is very fuzzy for me is getting the DAB hardware to communicate with PHP - after that I should be able to take it from there.

If anyone with complimentary skills is looking for a project - as part of Rune or standalone - I'd be happy to contribute the UI side of things! Don't mind which hardware is used as long as it works and can accept an external aerial (exterior car DAB aerial).

[Dohmar]

I received my DAB dongle last week but haven't had much of a chance to test it. I'd need to have the drivers for the stick compiled in the kernel which will be my first step when I get a day or two free, then compile a version of sdr-rpi

Will post results when I can

-D

[daviestar]

Thanks Dohmar, I'll be eagerly awaiting your update

Which dongle are you using?

Over the last few weeks I've been researching car audio with one good D/A conversion. The aftermarket situation is very strange in that there are plenty of good DACs, but almost no head units with digital outputs! Car audiophiles are using iPads connected wirelessly to Airports to provide optical out at 96kbps.

I started looking for DAB radio's outside of car audio, portable and separate, and found very few with a digital output. Am I thinking about it the wrong way? Isn't DAB radio a digital signal, meaning in theory it should be easy to provide a digital output? Or because it's still a "radio" does that mean the signal is actually interpreted as analog by the "tuner"? (I use parentheses here to highlight my stupidity ) If this is the case, maybe I should be less concerned with optical out from DAB, if it needs to be A/D converted to provide digital output.

The best portable DAB radio for in-car use I've found is the , in case anyone is interested.

[Dohmar]

[hondagx35]

[Dohmar]

[daviestar]

I'd be happy to contribute - submit pull requests to your github repository for someones approval, or whatever way you guys prefer to work - for DAB proof-of-concept too.

Many hands make light work!

Cheers, Dave

[hondagx35]