alt Hacker NewsLuckily the FAQ already mentions why this is a bad idea.
> Please note that due of the hardware of the raspberry pi, harmonics ARE generated on 3x, 5x, 7x and 9x the desired frequency. Those harmonics are polluting important services like emergency services a d others.
Please do not use the GPIO of a Raspberry Pi to generate a high frequency to emit radio waves. Putting square waves on the air is always asking for trouble. A simple filter is not a proper solution if the source is so dirty.
For a project as well built of this seems, it seems odd that they would advice people to use such a hacky way. Syncing networked clients to play audio at exactly the same time is a solved problem.
Replies
> Syncing networked clients to play audio at exactly the same time is a solved problem.
Say more?
> Syncing networked clients to play audio at exactly the same time is a solved problem.
I was going to point out that with the variance in FM demodulation chips, using a pile of FM receivers probably wouldn't get you perfectly synced audio these days at all, even more so if it's going through usb/software/audio stacks.
Then I re-read the Ops comment and this actually seems to be a network of _transmitters_. I'm not sure what problem they're trying to solve, but I can't believe multiple PiFMs is ever the answer.
Commercial DAB radio does use single frequency networks (with tight timings and clever calculated offsets), and I am somewhat curious how analogue FM responds with regard to offset destructive interference, but this isn't that.
Please don't do this. For context, a car FM transmitter is limited to 250nW (in many jurisdictions). A Pi GPIO pin with the right bit of wire is potentially capable of 10mW or more. 40,000 times more powerful and a lot more noisy. One could be causing problems for people surprisingly far away.