[GreenKeys] Looking for Alternative Method of Receiving Internet Broadcast of TTY Modem Tones

Paul Newland, ad7i ad7i at ad7i.net
Sat Oct 3 11:51:06 EDT 2026


I'm looking for some help to fill in my knowledge gap(s), and see if I can
find a lower cost way of receiving internet broadcasts of TTY tones.

My current setup to drive my Model 28RO consists of a Raspberry Pi 3B which
is connected to my home WiFi network.  Connected to the Pi is a cheap ($3)
USB sound card dongle. I run the Pi headless and control the Pi from my
primary W11 PC using VNC over my home network.  In order to play TTY modem
tones from the Pi, on the Pi I open the Chrome web browser and connect to
one of the various internet TTY sources (ITTY, W6IWI, etc).  This brings up
a small window with audio player controls on the W11/VNC/Pi display
monitor.  I click the play button, adjust the Pi's speaker volume output
for max (because bigger is better) and the  audio modem tones appear at the
headphone output of the attached USB Sound Card dongle, which is connected
to a HAL ST-5000 (and the 28RO).  And with that setup complete I get modem
tones for days and days, which is just what I want.

The problem is that Raspberry Pis have now become "unobtainium", at least
at a reasonable price.  Data Centers have sucked up all the RAM mfg
capacity so that RPi can't get ram at a reasonable price to make more Pis.
So I'm now looking for alternatives to the Pi (because I want to repurpose
my now scarce R-Pi to something other than internet RTTY).

So, for potential alternatives, I note that the ESP32-S3 can connect via
WiFi to the internet.  It also supports a USB port that can be configured
as On The Go (OTG) which makes me think that it might support a USB sound
dongle.  The ESP32-S3 seems to have great availability and is priced at
less than $6 delivered to my front door.

So my question to the TTY-Internet cognoscenti is: can the ESP32-S3 go out
onto the internet, connect to an ITTY-like website, ask for that website to
send it packets of audio data that represent TTY modem tones and have those
tones be reproduced by the USB-sound dongle?  In a perfect world I'd like
to configure the ESP32-S3 so that every time it powers up it should go to
that ITTY-like website and cause modem tones to be generated by the sound
dongle, without any user intervention.  Does anyone know if this is
possible and if so can you provide me with any pointers that would help me
to implement this functionality.

Thanks,

Paul, ad7i
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