FM(1)

📦
version 2.0.8 · 2 versions
, in fedora 43, fedora 44, ubuntu jammy

🎀 FM(1) — fmscan, bestie edition 🎀

okay so this is the manual for fmscan, and yes the page header says FM(1) but the program itself is fmscan. it's a General Commands Manual situation, section 1, and honestly? iconic. let's get into it 💖

✨ NAME ✨

fmscan — scan the FM band for radio stations 🌸

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

fm [ -h ] [ -d device ] [ -t tuner ] [ -s freq ] [ -e freq ] [ -i freq ]
[ -q ]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

fmscan is a whole program whose entire job is scanning a frequency band for radio stations 🦋 it does this using the video4linux interface, the one that showed up in the 2.1.x series Linux kernels (iykyk, vintage behavior fr).

and then — the main character moment — it shows you which stations have an accumulated signal strength of 50% or higher ✨

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • -h — prints a usage message to standard output and then dips. bye bestie 👋
  • -d device — sets device as the device to tune. the default is /dev/radio0 📻
  • -t tuner — sets tuner as the tuner on the selected device to adjust. default is tuner 0. most radio devices have only a single tuner, so like, don't stress 🌈
  • -s freq — starting frequency for the scan, in MHz. default: 87.9 ⭐
  • -e freq — ending frequency for the scan, in MHz. default: 107.9 ⭐
  • -i freq — increment between scanned channels, in MHz. default: 0.2 ⭐
  • -t percent — signal strength threshold to consider a channel. default: 50%. yes bestie, -t is listed twice in this page, once for tuner and once for percent — that's literally what the original says and I am NOT touching it, not my business 🙈
  • -q — quiet mode. suppresses progress output 🤫

💀 BUGS 💀

this process can take a while, and the results vary greatly depending on the radio card you're using. no cap. and if your card's hardware cannot report signal strength, it will not produce useful results. that's just how it is 😭

this program may not do much if your radio card's driver doesn't support fine tuning in 1/16000 MHz offsets. by default, V4L2 assumes 1/16 MHz tuning units, which introduces evil rounding errors on many frequencies. evil. rounding. errors. periodt 💅

it supports only tuner 0 on any given device.

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

additional documentation:

  • /usr/share/doc/fmtools/README

the fmtools homepage:

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Russell Kroll <rkroll@exploits.org>, now maintained by Ben Pfaff <blp@cs.stanford.edu>. this manpage was written by Ben Pfaff. absolute legends, both of them 🫶

lowkey a warning: the scan takes a minute, and your results depend entirely on your hardware. if your card can't report signal strength, don't expect useful results, bestie. and those V4L2 1/16 MHz tuning units? evil rounding errors on many frequencies. be aware.

and that's the whole page, no skips, no cuts — this was fmscan 1.0.2, from the FM(1) manual, and it's giving very much "read me before you tune" energy. slay, go find some stations 💖📻✨

📦 where this page comes from