Pirate radio station powered by VLC running on Raspberry Pi Zero. Just install and connect your Pi up to an FM transmitter via the 3.5mm jack and you're away laughing!

1. Download NOOBS and install the latest version of Rapbian on your Pi. Included in the download are installation instructions on how to format and copy the install files to your SD card. At least an 8GB high-speed card are recommended.

2. Log into the pi after install and set up your wireless network.

3. Change the Pi settings to boot to the console only when the Pi is turned on as well as forcing the audio output to the 3.5mm headphone jack.

4. Change the pi user's password in Pi settings.

5. Install Git:

   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install git
   

6. Clone this repository:

   cd /home/pi
   git clone https://github.com/HAZARDU5/frontier-radio.git
   

7. Run the install script install-pi.sh. Note that this may take several minutes to complete. You will need an internet connection to run the installer:

   cd /home/pi/frontier-radio
   ./install-pi.sh
   

You can adjust the volume of playback by opening sudo alsamixer and adjusting the levels in there for each device to set them permanently.

If you're using Raspbian Jessie which is based on Debian 8 you can edit the /etc/asound.conf file to set the priority of the card entry to use card 1.

defaults.ctl.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 1

Check the number of the card matches yours by inserting the USB sound card and running:

aplay -l

The following configuration will allow connecting to WPA/WPA2 WIFI networks automatically when in range.

Edit /etc/network/interfaces and change the below line from wpa-conf to wpa-roam:

wpa-roam /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Add the following lines to /etc/network/interfaces:

iface network1 inet dhcp
iface network2 inet dhcp

Edit /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

network={
    ssid="YOUR_SSID"
    psk="WIFI_PASSWORD"
    id_str="network1"
}

network={
    ssid="YOUR_SSID2"
    psk="WIFI_PASSWORD2"
    id_str="network2"
}

Run sudo ifdown wlan0 then sudo ifup wlan0 to load the new changes.

1. Download and install VLC into your /Applications folder.

2. Download and install Python 3.5.1 or higher.

Run the following command from your OSX or Linux computer to copy the contents of a folder containing mp3s to the pi:

rsync -v -a DIR pi@REMOTE_IP:/home/pi/frontier-radio/music/tracks

Where DIR is the path to the local folder containing mp3s, and REMOTE_IP is the IP address of the Pi. You can find the IP address of your Pi by running ifconfig while logged into the Pi.

You will be asked for the pi user's password before rsync begins. Note that this won't remove any mp3s already present on the Pi.

You can also add other mp3s to the following folders to change the advertising / DJ announcements between songs:

• adverts - Advertising typically 30 seconds to 1 minute long
• goodbye - Segments announcing the radio station played when the radio station starts up or before a Radio Play begins
• psa - Public service announcements
• radioplays - Radio plays. Typically run between 2-10 minutes.
• tracks - Music tracks
• transition-commercial - DJ announcements before an advert begins.
• transition-music - DJ announcements before a track begins.
• transition-psa - DJ announcements before a public service announcement begins.