[GreenKeys] Old Dog with some New Tricks.

[John Spigel]

I thought I'd pass on a quick way to access ITTY and other streaming 
audio sources.

I've been developing several Python packages for TTY use on the 
Raspberry Pi. To make my tests across the room to my M15 I've been using 
bluetooth. Yes, the same bluetooth that's on your smartphone. Any audio 
streaming will play well from your phone including the familiar music 
from ITTY. No PC needed.

So what do you need?.. A small bluetooth audio module with a big price 
tag of two for $6.99. If you want 5, that'll be $10.99, please.

Amazon description:

"MakerHawk 2pcs Bluetooth Audio Receiver Board BT 5.0 Stereo Audio 
Amplifier 3.7-5V Car Speaker Amplifier for DIY"

You'll also need a 5V power supply with usb-c connector or cable, if you 
look close you can see solder pads on the device where wires can be 
tacked on. You probably already have a 1/8" audio patch cable and 
adapter to connect to your TU.

Just pair the device with your phone power up your gear and your good to 
go.

OK, Now the projects:
I wanted to make demonstrations easier with my M15. So I made a portable 
cart with casters to make moving easier. This can be disassembled and go 
in the car. The "TU" is The Deramps Interface. The audio source can be 
either a local Raz Pi, or optionally bluetooth from a phone for ITTY. 
That's a fairly simple setup. No screen necessary. All the devces are 
velcroed to the rear of the cart along with a powerstrip.

The key to all of this is the Python code. The Raz Pi is headless. Three 
miniature, think C&K, ON-OFF-ON switches control up to 27 audio internet 
streams or .pix and .pox image files saved on the PI. The code reads the 
pseudo-binary on the Pi's GPIO pins and selects the source by shell 
scripts for each! When active there is an output GPIO pin for a relay.

Also, I have a Python Text formatter in the works  the Pi. This is to 
help make text files ready for baudot. It will take mixed text files 
scanned off the internet, news sources, Wikipedia, etc.. I hope to 
eventually use OCR to grab old articles, stories, from archives efficiently.

I have: Line length selectable, word wrap with automatic CR/LF 
insertion. Options to Replace LF with Space, LF with CR/LF, a Second CR, 
Letters after Space. Also insertion of a choice of Headers and Footers. 
I'm still trying to break it to see what bugs may develop. I've also got 
it saving the 00011, 01100, etc to a ".5bit" file. That's the best way 
to see the edits along with the text. And I may just use this to run 
GPIO pins.

Another in the works. Raz Pi with "Polar output" on two GPIO pins and 
one GPIO output pin for Autostart when FSK is active. Just add some 
external parts to drive a loop.

Too much to do. So little time. At my age.

73, John W1AN