Interfacing a normal radio to computer (PC radio)

Hello everyone

I am a new member and this is my first post.

I am an electronics student and want to make this project for final year

The idea is simple. Make a radio and listen to it on the computer

I thought of 2 ways. Use pots etc to ctrl the volume and station on the circuit made...or have a GUI/software side to digitally do that, which i guess will require a microcontroller.

I also guess a serial port interface will be necessary (not found in lappies) or a usb.

Please, i would like this thread to 'brainstorm' on this idea and make this project possible.

Bye

you can get an ic which is an fm radio receiver similar to a tda 7000, it has autoscan tuning, one of these is quick and easy.
Probably aquiring a cheap autoscan fm radio is a good place to start, you could use the handshake signals on the serial port to control the scan/reset, and feed the audio out back to the line in on the soundcard.
Altogether a very minimal circuit, if you use a lappy then you could use a usb to serial adaptor.
You can also get usb to relay modules, this would also work well and the software is allready done.
If you want direct control and display of the frequency and volume etc then your into a more complex project, still doable.

Look at Silicon labs, they sell a USB control radio stick USB FM Radio RD

Thanks for all the suggestions

that 80 pin IC looks formidable

I was thinking of doing something more component level.

I have thought of 2 options. One to make a normal analog Fm receiver radio...and then feed the analog speaker o/p to the line in using some buffer stage or something....another option is make a digital radio on a micro-controller/micro-processor (like avr, atmega, pic etc.)....will have to use dsp in there and then directly connect the o/p to comp as they have usb/serial port outputs these mups etc. Problem is i am not well versed with mups as i am with analog component level and pspice. the dsp part of it...will have to test in matlab or what. Please help. A direct chip won't be a project at all!

Thanks in advance

---------- Post added at 14:58 ---------- Previous post was at 14:51 ----------

The SDR thing is superb!

A question: The radios in our mobile phones....do they have such a thing or some tiny IC embedded in its board?