The FM Radcap PCIe is a radio capture card designed for simultaneous recording of multiple radio stations. The frequency of each station is set in software and its audio appears as a standard Windows audio input device. RDS decoding is also supported. The card uses a high-speed A/D converter to digitise the entire FM band, with up to 32 individual tuners. The Radcap achieves exceptionally low audio distortion through the use of linear phase filtering and mathematically precise FM demodulation and stereo decoding. FM demodulation and stereo decoding is done in FPGA fabric, while RDS decoding, if enabled, is performed in the driver using the host CPU’s SSE-2 instruction set. This division of labour between the FPGA and driver allows greatest flexibility in catering for future baseband technologies while minimising the CPU overhead of the card. A WDM driver for Windows XP (SP2 or later), Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008, Windows 7, Server 2008 R2, Windows 8, Server 2012, Windows 10/11 is supplied as well as software for setting the tuner frequencies and monitoring the received audio. A programming API and DLL for software control and monitoring are also supplied. The card can be configured to operate in stereo, mono or paired mono (two mono stations combined on a 2-channel audio stream) modes.
Product Features
Simultaneous capture of multiple FM stations.
Available in 6, 12, 18, 24 and 32 station versions with field expansion option.
Tunes 87.5-108.5 MHz in 25kHz steps.
Stereo and RDS decoding.
Each station appears as a standard audio input device.
32 and 64 bit drivers for Windows XP and all later versions, as well as Debian Linux.
WDM-compliant supporting Wave, DirectSound, DirectShow and Core Audio APIs (Windows) and ALSA (Linux).
API for monitoring and control.
Typical Applications
Audio logging, station monitoring, media tracking.
Product Category
Capture Cards
Technical Specifications
Operating Systems Supported
Platform: Windows XP (SP2 or later), Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008, Windows 7, Server 2008 R2, Windows 8, Server 2012, Windows 10 & Server 2016 (32-bit and 64-bit versions), Windows Server 2019
Processor: 2.5GHz Pentium 4 or better
Memory: 256 MB minimum (1GB for Vista Windows 7/Server 2008, 2GB for Windows 8/Server 2012)
Bus: Single lane PCI Express v1.1
Other: Sound card or motherboard sound port for monitoring
Note: Some HPE Gen11 and Dell server platforms may require compatibility checks. Please contact Sonifex Technical Support if planning installation in a server environment.
Specification
Tuning Range: 87.5MHz to 108.5MHz in 25kHz steps
Sensitivity: 10uV for 40dB S/N
Maximum Input: 150mV RMS
RF Input Impedance: 75Ω
De-emphasis: Configurable as 50us or 75us
Audio Distortion: <0.01%
Audio Sampling Rate: 48kHz (all other rates automatically supported via Windows sampling rate converter)
Number of Stations: 6, 12, 18, 24 or 32 (factory configured but end-user expandable)
RDS Decoding: Optionally enabled in driver configuration
Equipment Type
PC-FM18: Radcap FM - 18 channel FM PCIe Radio Capture Card
Physical Specification
Dimensions (Raw): 14cm (L) x 12.5cm (H) x 2cm (D)
Dimensions (Raw): 5.5” (L) x 4.9” (H) x 0.8” (D)
Dimensions (Boxed): 27cm (L) x 22.5cm (H) x 6cm (D)
Dimensions (Boxed): 10.6” (L) x 8.9” (H) x 2.4” (D)
