I am a Junior EE student that is interested in putting together a small radio receiver project for fun and to get some general practice with design. I have found these receiver chips from Silicon Labs Si4732/34/35. I would like to hook up the final design with a small LCD screen to show the frequency and then be able to listen with a standard pair of headphones through a 3.5mm headphone jack. My question is does anyone have experience with these chips or are there other chips out there that will better suit my needs? My second question is am I attempting to embark upon a project that is too ambitious for one person? Thank you for the help and advice. This is also my first post so if I have violated any rules around here please let me know.
Radio Receiver IC
amfmradioRF
Related Solutions
Looks like you doing a time carrier for Europe. Ironically there was a discussion early about these types of antennas. Here is an example of a module for time code reception in case that is what you're looking for.
For a totally passive FM set you can use something like a resonant circuit that is tuned somewhat off the carrier frequency so variations in carrier frequency result in changes in output voltage from the detector at the baseband frequency. This is called 'slope detection'.
For example, from this website:
This should also work to pick up AM signals.
An even simpler circuit is presented here.
Best Answer
If you are happy with that series of wireless chips from Silicon Labs then you should check out their reference design kits which may be more suitable for getting started with development than simply ordering the standalone.
With design kits, you usually have options of adding LCD screens and other connectors much more easily and they usually come with some IDE for developing software right off the bat, and even some sample code.