Vintage Internet Connected Radio

This retro radio project brings back old to meet the new. A trendy old radio that plays any music you want, not just the boring stuff that you can get through the radio waves!

Using the credit card sized computer, Raspberry Pi–the sky is the limit. To get the best streaming music experience for this project once you have the Raspberry Pi, use the free Linux distribution, Pi MusicBox. Pi MusicBox offers the cream of the crop:

Spotify, Google Music and Sound Cloud
Remote control it with a nice browser-interface, or with an MPD-client
Web Radio
AirTunes/AirPlay streaming
Last.FM scrobbling
Play music files from the SD, USB, Network
and more!

Select any old Radio of choice. These can be found everywhere; eBay, garage sales or your grandma’s basement. Don’t worry, they don’t have to be in working condition because all of what is inside them will be thrown out!

Follow the creator’s instructions for disassembly, installation and reassembly:

Two old Radios found on eBay. Used the best parts of both for this project.

A lot useless non-working stuff inside.

Everything out and cleaned.

I had to measure the electrical resistance to estimate its impedance (multiply with 1,25)

Small amplifier (9 euro) that can be powered by USB (5V) and was even able to use the volume control of the old radio! Just soldered together provisionally.

Putting it all together!

Attached amplifier.

Mount for the Raspberry Pi! Two pieces of wood, two thread-inserts and two mainboard spacers.

Mounted Raspberry Pi.

Mounts are glued in.

Overview- everything is working!

Poweron/reset-switch just has to be connected to the Paspberry’s P6-port, but for the power-off-switch you have to use a pull-up-resistor and write a small bash-script (inotify) to respond to that switch.