Feed Upgrade Suggestions

[W2SOX]

Hi everyone,

Currently running a feed for broadcastify with the following hardware:

• Raspberry Pi 3 B+
• Sabrent USB audio card (mono)
• Uniden BC125AT

The results I get from my feed have been pretty hit or miss, audio quality isn't great either. Antenna placement doesn't seem to make a huge difference.


My feed comes from a non-trunked analog broadcast, I need to be able to at least listen to two separate frequencies one for alerting and one for dispatching. I would like to eventually add in other frequencies but not overly concerned.

The biggest thing for me is the low cost of power when running this entire setup, I can run this for less than $5 a month in electricity costs and it has a very small footprint. Any suggestions would be great. Thanks!

 

[DC31]

unplug the audio cable from your scanner. How is the audio quality from the speaker on the scanner? your stream is never going to be better quality than your scanner. need to sort out the root of your problems.

 

[avery_k]

I have the exact same scanner and USB audio adapter as you, and when I upgraded my setup from an old Lenovo desktop I had to decide between the Pi and a Windows Nucbox. I went with the Nucbox and don't regret it. I'm not averse at all to running Linux on a Pi, but after looking at the software options between the two platforms and the possibility of going digital in the future, I felt that the Nucbox/Windows setup would be more versatile, at least for my application.
That being said, I agree 100% with what DC31 said above- make sure you have good reception & audio quality from the scanner first. Something else worth mentioning is putting a ground loop isolator in your audio line between the scanner & computer. Doing this cleaned up the audio considerably.