WinAmp. It is very convenient for listening to mp3 music files. But it also has one more interesting feature - it is listening to radio stations. Of course, you will not surprise anyone with such functions; sometimes it is enough to go to the site of a popular radio station and listen to the Internet broadcast. But WinAmp offers users almost 9000 radio stations. And not only offers, but sorts by style, direction, language and country.
How to tune the radio in WinAmp
To tune the radio correctly, you need to additionally install the WinAmp Library component for the WinAmp player. It is available for download from the Internet from the manufacturer's website. After downloading and installing the additional component, launch WinAmp. Let's start tuning the radio. Go to "Settings" and in the Online Media tab set the number of radio stations to listen to. By default, there are only 600 stations installed, and there are thousands of them on the Internet. We set the value with a margin of 20 thousand. We leave the player and start looking for radio stations.
Choose Internet Radio from the menu. Then, in the window on the right, activate the Refresh button. The download of the list of available radio stations will start. From now on, you can listen to radio stations.
To tune the radio correctly, you need to filter the list by styles and directions. To do this, in the Genre menu, you can specify several types - classical, rock, pop, jazz, etc., and you can also select countries. If the user's priority list includes not only music, but also news, then you can activate filters by topics - politics, sports, regional news. In addition, there is a function to search for radio stations by name. Having chosen the radio station of interest, we activate playback either using the Play button, or by double-clicking the mouse. The radio stations you like can be added to your “Favorites” list.
With the WinAmp player, you can find many unexpected radio stations on the Internet. Foreign radio amateurs often broadcast "intercepted" police or air traffic control radio communications on the Internet. In short, the survey of the radio broadcast is as entertaining as a simple "browsing" on the Internet. Studying radio stations will take several months of time and a solid gigabyte traffic.
It should be borne in mind that WinAmp in radio mode consumes about 62 megabytes of Internet traffic per hour of listening. Radio stations transmit at 128 kbps, so owners of limited packages should take this fact into account.
Once upon a time there was a Sony radio tape recorder, at the sale they said that it was Japanese, the price made me believe, later he assured everyone that she was from there. Its objective merit is pure sound. True, there was a small nuance - the scale of the FM range of 88-108 MHz, but at the store there was a magician who, for a "small fraction", created a miracle - he filled the scale with many Russian-speaking radio stations. They exploited the radio tape recorder in full, but remembering how much was paid for it, they did not throw it or at it. So it was not badly preserved, despite its very respectable age. That's just the broadcasting stations that she caught, at first diminished, and then there were no more.
On the Internet, about setting up sound-reproducing equipment, the information is sea, it is written competently, in detail. This is happiness for students of radio engineering universities, you can easily use it instead of notes to prepare for exams, and this infa won't help the owner of a radioactive radio, it's not to improve his intellect, but to fix the receiver. Or throw it away, it's no longer a pity.
I opened the case, began to disassemble it into its component parts. There are no complaints either to the power supply unit, which turned out to be super primitive, which is at the bottom left, or to the tape drive mechanism of the tape recorder, to the right of it. One gives out "to the mountain" its 12 V, and the second regularly pulls the magnetic tape.
But the printed circuit board wanted to understand a little. For warm-up, I checked all electrolytic capacitors for the actual presence of capacity and ESR. It's hard to believe, but everyone turned out to be in perfect order. I soldered and disassembled the volume control - a variable resistor, for example, a revision. Somehow a long time ago he got a little runny and was, through a syringe with a needle, awarded a portion of machine oil. Does it need a supplement? And there was so much oil in it that even now I blotted the excess in the pan, put it back in place. I washed the board from the side of the printed conductors with formic alcohol specially bought at the pharmacy (they did not give anything else), and then, so that there was no white coating from it, with hot water and shampoo. It turned out not bad, although it is perceived by ear, this method is wild.
The contacts of the wires, suitable for the speaker, are soldered. And around the circumference of the speaker I installed a rim - a flexible tube cut along the length from a medical dropper. This is to prevent the metal of the speaker from resting on the plastic of the case - it certainly won't be worse for the sound characteristics.
And then, very by the way, I remembered that the master who was finalizing the radio tape recorder was talking about some kind of wire spirals. There were several of them on the board and all in the area of \u200b\u200bthe variable capacitor. Partially assembled the device, turned it on and, at the desired range, began to touch the copper wires wound with rings with a screwdriver. Two did not respond, but barely touched the third, characteristic changes in sound appeared in the dynamics. Found! In the photo below. I touched it well with tweezers, but it dangles. I dropped it out, straightened it and rewound it, on a mandrel of a suitable diameter. Soldered in place. The FM band came to life. Then I became completely bold and let's move the turns with a screwdriver (increase and decrease the gap between them). In response to my actions, the location and number of stations on the scale began to change. But the most convenient for setting were two tweezers. He stretched and squeezed them like an accordion, only gently. You can clearly see this action in the video.
Video
As a result, I chose a combination of stations suitable for myself and optimal in terms of location on the scale. The difficulty is only in doing everything slowly, otherwise, you know, you want everything faster. Good luck! The simplest option for a possible refurbishment is the settings shared by Babay iz Barnaula.
1. WE DETERMINE HOW WE WILL REBUILD THE RECEIVER.So, observing reasonable care, we open the device. We look at what the frequency control knob is connected to. It can be a variometer (a metal, several centimeters gizmo, usually two or one double, with longitudinal holes into which a pair of cores slide or slide.) This option was often used before. Until I write about it. () And it may be a plastic cube a few centimeters in size (2 ... 3). Several capacitors live in it, which change their capacity at our whim. (There is also a method for tuning with varicaps. In this case, the tuning control is very similar to the volume control. I have never seen such an option).
2. LET'S FIND A HETERODYNE COIL AND CONDENSERS CONNECTED TO IT.
So, you have KPE! We proceed further. We are looking for copper coils around it (yellow, brown spirals of several turns. Usually they are not even, but crumpled and knocked down. And this is correct, they are tuned this way.). We can see one, two, three or more coils. Don't be alarmed. Everything is very simple. We turn on your device in disassembled form (do not forget to connect the antenna longer) and tune it to any radio station (better not to the loudest). After that, touch it with a metal screwdriver or just with your finger (contact is optional, just slide something near the coil. The response of the receiver will be different. The signal may become louder or interference may appear, but the coil we are looking for will give the strongest effect. several stations and the reception will be completely disrupted. So this is what a HETERODY coil. The frequency of the local oscillator is determined by a circuit consisting of this very coil and capacitors connected in parallel to it. There are several of them - one of them is in the CPE and controls the frequency tuning (we catch with it different stations), the second is also located in the cube of the KPI, or rather on its surface. Two or four small screws on the back surface of the KPE (usually it is facing us) are two or four trimming capacitors. One of them is used to adjust the local oscillator. Usually these capacitors consist of two plates that slide over each other when the screw rotates. the ny plate is exactly above the bottom, then capacity is maximum ... Use a screwdriver to touch these screws. Move them back and forth a few (as little) degrees as possible. You can mark their starting position with a marker to insure against trouble. Which one affects the setting? Found it? We will need it in the near future.
3. Once again, LET'S DETERMINE WHERE WE ARE REBUILDING AND ACTION
What range is in your receiver and what you need. Lowering the frequency or raising it? To lower the frequency, it is enough to add 1 ... 2 turns to the heterodyne coil. As a rule, it contains 5 ... 10 turns. Take a piece of bare tinned wire (for example, a lead from some long-legged element) and put on a small prosthesis. After this build-up, the coil must be adjusted. We turn on the receiver and catch some station. No stations? Nonsense, let's take a longer antenna and turn the tuning. Here, something is caught. What is it. We'll have to wait until they say, or take another receiver and catch the same thing. See how this station is located. Whether at the end of the range. Need to move it even lower? Easily. Let's move the coil turns closer. Let's catch this station again. Good now? It only catches badly (the antenna needs a long one). Correctly. Now let's find the antenna coil. She is somewhere near. The wires from the KPI must be suitable for it. Let's try turning on the receiver, insert it into it, or just bring some ferrite core to it (you can take the DM choke by removing the winding from it). Has the volume increased? Exactly, this is it. To reduce the frequency, it is necessary to increase the coil by 2 ... 3 turns. A piece of hard copper wire will do. You can simply replace the old coils with new ones containing 20% \u200b\u200bmore turns. The turns of these coils should not be tight. By changing the stretching of the coil and bending it, we change the inductance. The tighter the coil is wound and the more turns in it, the higher its inductance and below will be the working range. Do not forget that the real inductance of the loop is higher than the inductance of a single coil, since it is added to the inductance of the conductors that make up the loop.
For the best reception of the radio signal, it is necessary that the difference in the resonant frequencies of the heterodyne and antenna circuits is 10.7 MHz - this is the frequency of the intermediate frequency filter. This is called correct mating of the input and heterodyne circuits. How to provide it? We read on.
SETTING (PAIRING) INPUT AND HETERODY CIRCUITS.
FIG. 1. High-frequency part of the VHF-FM radio receiver board. It is clearly seen that the input circuit trimmer (CA-P) is set to the minimum capacitance position (as opposed to the CG-P heterodyne trimmer). Accuracy of setting the rotors of the trimmer capacitors is 10 degrees.
The local oscillator (LG) coil has a large hole in the winding that reduces its inductance. This hole appeared during the setup process.
Another coil is visible at the top of the photo. This is the input antenna circuit. It is broadband and not tunable. The telescopic antenna is connected to this very circuit (via a transition capacitor). The purpose of this circuit is to remove coarse interference at frequencies well below the operating ones.
AND ANOTHER ACTION, BECAUSE WE ARE ALREADY HERE.
Tune in to your favorite station, then shorten the antenna to a minimum when there is already interference and adjust the IF filter, which looks like a metal square with a purple circle (in the middle left of the photo). Fine tuning this circuit is very important for clear and loud reception. Accuracy of slot installation is 10 degrees.
You only need one chip to build a simple and complete FM receiver that can receive radio stations in the 75-120 MHz range. The FM receiver contains a minimum of parts, and its tuning, after assembly, is minimized. It also has good sensitivity for receiving VHF FM radio stations.
All this thanks to the Philips TDA7000 microcircuit, which you can buy without any problems on our beloved Ali Express -.
Receiver circuit
Here is the receiver circuit itself. Two more microcircuits are added to it, so that at the end you get a completely finished device. Let's start looking at the diagram from right to left. A low-frequency amplifier for a small dynamic head is assembled on the LM386 running microcircuit, which has already become a classic. Here, I think, everything is clear. A variable resistor adjusts the volume of the receiver. Further, a 7805 stabilizer has been added above, which converts and stabilizes the supply voltage up to 5 V. It is needed to power the microcircuit of the receiver itself. And finally, the receiver itself is assembled on the TDA7000. Both coils contain 4.5 turns of PEV-2 0.5 wire with a winding diameter of 5 mm. The second coil is wound on a frame with a ferrite trimmer. The receiver is tuned to the frequency with a variable resistor. The voltage from which goes to the varicap, which in turn changes its capacity.If desired, varicap and electronic control can be abandoned. And the frequency can be tuned either with a tuning core or with a variable capacitor.
FM receiver board
I drew the mounting plate for the receiver in such a way as not to check the holes in it, but to solder everything from the top, like with SMD components.Placing elements on the board
Used the classic LUT technology for the production of the board.
I printed it out, warmed it up with an iron, etched and washed off the toner.
I soldered all the elements.
