Nokia DAB Radio on Linux, an interesting challenge
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Nokia DAB Radio on Linux, an interesting challenge
Hi to all!
Here's an interesting challenge that I've been struggling with for a few years now:
Nokia made a small DAB+ Radio USB dongle around 2011.
You would connect it to you Nokia.
Then connect your 3.5mm earphones to the dongle.
(The headphones double as the antenna just as they would for an FM radio)
You would listen to DAB+ Radio via an app on your Nokia.
I have connected one to a Linux computer and Android phone.
The first signs were very promising: sound would play trough the dongle/headphones.
The buttons on the dongle would also function: play, pause, mute, etc. All this with no effort whatsoever!
It would even work on Windows.
However, I could not get the DAB radio to work.
When running "lsusb -v" it is actually detected as "Radio Receiver".
I want to determine the actual DAB chip inside, but I don't know how to do it.
Opening the dongle is easy, but the chip/s are behind a metal shield.
I don't have a hot air station so I can't safely remove the shield.
The benefits of getting it work would be many:
- you get a radio on your phone. (radio coverage is more wide than data coverage.)
- you get a 3.5mm jack for your phones
- you get 7 buttons on the dongle that you could re-assign
This would work on newer USB type-c. All you would have to do is replace the dongle's mini-USB cable with a type-c one.
So where do I go from here? How can I determine what chip is inside?
There are DAB for Android solutions out there, but those are so clunky...
I'm running Manjaro 5.5.6 . I have access to other Linux computers.
Distribution: openSuSE Tumbleweed-KDE, Mint 21, MX-21, Manjaro
Posts: 4,629
Rep:
The output of "lsusb -v" should also contain a pair of numbers separated by ":". One of them encodes the device type (see "man lsusb"). Maybe that can help.
The dongle's commercial model is CU-17A.
Running lsusb correctly identifies it as
"Bus 002 Device 013: ID 0421:0754 Nokia Mobile Phones CU-17A"
Running lsusb -v reveals that it is a composite USB device with the buttons assigned as a HID device.
It draws a maximum of 114mA of current.
I also have the *.sis application from Nokia that was used to access the device.
I don't know how to unpack it and search in it for the answer.
Could that help any of you?
What other info could I post?
Below is the full branch for the device after running "lsusb -v":
The dongle's commercial model is CU-17A.
Running lsusb correctly identifies it as
"Bus 002 Device 013: ID 0421:0754 Nokia Mobile Phones CU-17A"
This?
The buttons just work, much in the same way as the media buttons on your keyboard?
And there's an actual FM radio inside it which you would like to use via the same headset connected to it? So, in layman terms, the radio does not enter the computer at all, it goes from the dongle straight into the headset, no?
My next step would be to monitor the whole thing with
Code:
dmesg -w
and see what drivers are assigned to it (if any), and how it reacts to attempts to start the radio.
BTW, Nokia phones were true Linux phones back then, so there's a good chance of advanced compatibility.
Yes, that's the one.
Sometimes it pops up on eBay for £5 or so.
Yes, the buttons work like the media buttons on the keyboard, even in Windows.
1) The radio inside is a DAB+ radio. It is detected by "lsusb -v" as
Code:
wTerminalType 0x0710 Radio Receiver
2) Originally, you would need a piece of software to make use of the DAB radio. (e.g. scan for frequencies, change stations)
Points 1) and 2) lend me to believe that the radio would pass through the computer/phone.
That piece of software came as a .sis file, which I do have, but don't know how to open it.
This .sis file can only be installed on Symbian 3 which is a closed source OS, no connection to Linux.
When plugging in the dongle, dmesg -w reveals:
Code:
[75228.622546] usb 2-9: new full-speed USB device number 15 using xhci_hcd
[75228.764456] usb 2-9: New USB device found, idVendor=0421, idProduct=0754, bcdDevice= 0.01
[75228.764459] usb 2-9: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[75228.764460] usb 2-9: Product: CU-17A
[75228.764462] usb 2-9: Manufacturer: Nokia
[75228.788386] usb 2-9: 1:1: cannot get freq at ep 0x5
[75228.847276] usb 2-9: 2:1: cannot get freq at ep 0x86
[75228.872556] input: Nokia CU-17A Consumer Control as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb2/2-9/2-9:1.4/0003:0421:0754.0009/input/input26
[75228.929508] hid-generic 0003:0421:0754.0009: input,hiddev1,hidraw3: USB HID v1.11 Device [Nokia CU-17A] on usb-0000:00:14.0-9/input4
[75229.655229] usb 2-9: 1:1: cannot get freq at ep 0x5
[75334.206226] usb 2-9: USB disconnect, device number 15
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