Tag Archives: Pocket FM Radio Transmitters

BBC: Raspberry Pi-powered transmitters broadcast Syrian radio

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Richard Langley, who shares the following:

Latest item, which provides more information, on this previously mentioned news story:

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35690688

Here’s an excerpt:

Raspberry Pi computers are being used to power “micro” radio transmitters in Syria.
The Pocket FMs, as they are called, were designed by a German organisation as a way of providing Syrians with independent radio.

The devices have a range of between 4 to 6km (2.5 to 3.75 miles), which is enough to cover an entire town.

At the heart of each is a Raspberry Pi, the credit card-sized single-board computers.
About two dozen have been built, and the designer says they are intended to be as easy to set up as a piece of flat-pack furniture.

“We lost one device in Kobane”, Philipp Hochleichter told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme.

“But due to the bombing – not due to a malfunction.”[…]

Continue reading on the BBC website…

The Raspberry Pi is an amazing little computer; capable of so much at such a low cost. I just purchased a Raspberry Pi 3 yesterday; hoping I can think of a clever way to use it for a little radio fun..

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NPR: European Pirate Radio Network Broadcasts Alternative To Syria’s State Media

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Pocket-FM-Diagram-Berlin-Syria-Syrnet

(Source: NPR)

A non-profit organization in Berlin has invented a small portable transmitter that can download satellite signals and rebroadcast them on FM for Syrians to listen to on their car or household radios.

If this story sounds familiar, it’s because we posted something about the organization a few weeks ago.

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Berlin group distributes tiny radio transmitters for Syria

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In this photo taken Monday, Dec. 21, 2015, Philipp Hochleichter of the MICT (Media in Cooperation and Transmission) organization talks behind Pocket FM Radio Transmitters in Berlin, Germany. As part of the Syrian radio networking project, MICT has designed small modular FM transmitters. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

(Source: Yahoo News via Dan Robinson)

BERLIN (AP) — On the top floor of an old brick building in the heart of Berlin, a group of journalists and tech enthusiasts are working to spur the Syrian media revolution.

Their weapon is an unassuming black case the size of a shoebox that allows opposition radio stations in Syria to transmit inside hostile territory.

Dubbed PocketFM, the device is basically a low-powered radio transmitter. Coupled with a satellite dish to receive new programs, a car battery for power and a one-meter (three-foot) antenna, it can broadcast FM radio within a 5-kilometer (3-mile) radius.

That’s enough to cover a town or a city district, said Philipp Hochleichter, who oversees development of the device for the Berlin-based nonprofit organization Media in Cooperation and Transition.

The group has been training journalists in conflict zones for more than a decade and often relies on FM radio to reach populations in far-flung areas that don’t have access to the Internet or smartphones. But when the group realized that shifting front lines and the brutal treatment of journalists meant operating large broadcast antenna could become too cumbersome or risky, it developed PocketFM.

Continue reading on Yahoo News…

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