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Getting Started
This page takes you from a freshly installed plugin to a playing station.
Open the plugin's settings (Plugins > Installed Plugins > FM/DAB Radio > Settings). The dongle is looked for each time you scan or play, so it can be plugged in at any time; if it is missing or held by something else, the plugin says so then.
The plugin comes set for Europe: 87.5 to 108 MHz in steps of 100 kHz. Elsewhere, open FM Radio Region, switch on Show FM Region Configuration, and choose your region. It sets the band, the channel raster and the de-emphasis; where your country's de-emphasis differs from its region's, choose it under FM De-emphasis. If your country's stations sit on odd tenths with 200 kHz spacing (88.1, 88.3, 88.5 ...), also set FM Scan Offset to 100 kHz. See Scanning.
DAB needs no region.
In the plugin's settings:
- FM Radio Settings > Scan FM Stations takes about a minute on a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5.
- DAB/DAB+ Radio > Scan DAB Stations takes about three minutes.
The same scans can be started from the Station Manager, which shows their progress. Nothing has to be set beforehand: the gain is measured, and the dongle's frequency error is found by the plugin itself.
If a scan finds nothing, the antenna is the first thing to look at; see Troubleshooting and the Antenna Positioning Tools.
Open Volumio's Music Library and choose FM/DAB Radio. Stations are listed under FM and DAB (DAB also by ensemble), with Favorites and Recently Played above them. Choose a station and it plays.
- An FM station starts within a few seconds; the first time, its gain is measured first, which takes about two seconds more.
- A DAB station starts in about six seconds: the decoder measures its gain, synchronises to the ensemble and finds the service.
The player shows the station's name and logo, the text it sends, and a five-step reception indicator. See Playing Radio.
Open the Station Manager (Radio Station Management > Open in New Tab in the plugin's settings, or http://<player address>:3456 in a browser) to rename stations, mark favourites, hide the ones you never listen to and give stations a logo. See Station Manager.
- A backup of the station list once it is the way you want it.
- Artwork and Metadata, to adjust how album artwork is looked up.
- Antennas, if reception is not what it could be.