I need to verify if mpd can play music that is NOT in its database. If so, then I may continue with my plans of RFID or barcode “cards” that launch a script that loads the associated playlist.

I am completely stoked on these as ‘embedded’, networked controllers, however, and intend to figure out some projects for them. Thanks again for getting me hooked!

The noise is coming from the soundcard as it’s still there when I’m plugging in headphones directly. I had some very weird and loud noises with a pair of cheap computer speakers, but once I started using a real hi-fi amplifier from the 80′s, that was gone, but the WLAN noise is still there. I’m now considering putting the soundcard in a box of unetched PCB, soldered shut on all edges and grounded. If that still doesn’t work, I think I’ll have to use yet another soundcard (the self-made ones Miroslav mentions look great, if I can get any of the chips I’ll give that a try).

Oh, and the heatsink was there from the beginning, interesting that your router didn’t have one — maybe Asus noticed the CPU was running (too) hot? There is a slight possibility that the previous owner added the heatsink (I bought my router used as they’re not as cheap here in Germany as they are in the USA), but it didn’t look like it had ever been opened before I got it.

– Arne

Jeff

Are you hearing noise with just the USB-audio adapter attached, or with an additional audio amplifier attached? I have noticed some noise as well, usually it is due to the PC speakers I am using being too close to the antenna. Some PC speakers are worse than others. Also, there is definitely some noise in the USB-audio adapter, I have noticed this as well, but it is not so severe as to be noticeable if there is music playing, only during silence.

Your photos are great, very cool soundcard hack, too bad it does not work well enough for you. I like the heatsink on the CPU, I should consider that as well as it gets quite hot during operation!

Jeff

I am also (still) building a webradio inspired by your blog posts. I am currently stuck with some noise that occurs when I connect the WLAN antenna, but goes away when I disconnect it (though the radio can still use WLAN, maybe that’s because the access point is two meters away ). I put some photos and all the files I changed (I think) here, including a web interface to set up to 100 streams (currently using the CS495 sound-card as the sound-stick did not provide good enough sound quality):

http://elektronik-kompendium.de/public/arnerossius/temp/webradio/

But now that has been decommissioned, I intend to give the asus router a new life on maybe a sonar or a submarine… Lets see how that turns out!

Currently I’m trying to work through a problem with ntp/time. It turns out that my router was losing 11 seconds a minute, which I tracked to a problem in sbmips.c, which set the clockk rate to 240Mhz instead of 200Mhz. I changed that, but now am getting some warnings from the MTD flash driver when it does flash writes. I’m currently trying to track down a fix, and have posted some queries for help on the openwrt developer’s forums.

I also noted that the USB sound card I have from startech is rather limited, and can only sample at 48khz or 44.1khz, so I’ll have to do some extra work to downsample to help keep the computational work to a minimum.

That’s my progress report.

Unfortunately here in Czech Republic the lowest cost for WL-520gu router was more than 70$ so it is not so nice like in US, but the experience which I will receive from this project are uncountable .

You can see my current status of the receiver in following picture.
http://picasaweb.google.com/miroslav.batek/Other#5356542067378857410
The OpenWrt is installed, configured and ruining, I’m able to listen Internet radio station, but I control the receiver by SSH from my laptop.

Because I wanted to have more space for my trials I added 2GB flash drive, with help from these web site:
http://www.macsat.com/macsat/content/category/3/14/30/

Than I needed USB hub so I bought this one from dealextreme:
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.9476

Unfortunately I was not able to buy USB sound card which you recommended so I used this one also from dealextreme:
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.5831
But I was not satisfied with sound quality and decided to try to use my own USB sound card built from Texas Instruments PCM2702 some times ago:
http://diy4fun.blogspot.com/2008/04/make-sound-card-with-pcm2702.html
I had to change the drivers to kmod-alsa, the sound quality was much better, but each 10-30 second the sound stop and instead of sound I heard noise for 2 second and it was still repeating. Than I made new sound card, much smaller and nicer , around PCM2704:
http://picasaweb.google.com/miroslav.batek/Other#5356542071929537938
I works well, but still small issue remain, I let the radio play whole night and my USB card was disconnected and again connected 3 times. But it is not big deal.

Now I’m working on LCD connection. I’m using my own arduino clone:
http://diy4fun.blogspot.com/2009/04/coreduino.html
with my USB to serial interface with FT232RL:
http://picasaweb.google.com/miroslav.batek/Other#5356542072991850690
I’m using 16×2 quite standard display, but afterthat I would like to connect graphic display or cool VFD 16×4 display.

On my to do list is also:
- rotary encoder for station and volume change
- IR remote controller
- time/date display
- auto switch off to be able to listed radio before I fall asleep
- mp3 player
- nice box
- …

A lot of work is before me.

Thanks again for great project. I really wish to meet you personally.
Best regards
Miroslav

I’m studying to upgrade to General this summer. I’m hoping to start playing with PSK31 and other stuff on HF once I get my license and set up a station.

I’ve been a Tech for many years and was active on microwave bands around 2000-2002, but when I moved to the bay area I shelved most of the ham equipment. I’m finally ready to drag it out again!

According to the OpenWrt wiki, the MN-700 is the only Microsoft router supported by OpenWrt: http://oldwiki.openwrt.org/OpenWrtDocs(2f)Hardware(2f)Microsoft.html

If you want to want to experiment with that MN-500, probably the first thing to do is see if you can get a serial port hooked up somehow so you can see the boot logs and get a console. You might be able to telnet into the router if the port is open and you can find the default password online (or guess!).

http://brainwagon.com/asus/

Hopefully over the next few weeks, I’ll get it all running.