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Welcome to the BotWave wiki!

BotWave (often referred to as bw or BW) is a distributed FM broadcasting system designed for Raspberry Pi devices.

This documentation will often mention:

• a Server Unit (SU),
• a Client Unit (CU), and
• a Standalone Instance (SI).

Originally, BotWave’s primary purpose was to sync multiple Raspberry Pi clients with a centralized server to broadcast audio via FM. Nowadays, it can do much more, including:

• Running a standalone instance (SI) to control a single Pi without a parent server.
• Processing and streaming SSTV signals.
• Supporting RDS while broadcasting.
• Providing remote shells to connect to the SU or SI (e.g., BWSC).

Caution

Before continuing, note that this software may be illegal to operate in some regions, especially in open areas. Improper use of the CU or SI may also damage your hardware. For more details, please read the header of this file.

Note

Please note that only Raspberry Pis 0 to 4 (zero 2 included) are supported.
Raspberry pi pico and 5 (all of them) are unsupported since they don't share the same hardware used to generate a FM signal.

BotWave has many more features to explore. If you’re new, we recommend starting with the Base/Setup Guide. Other wiki pages are available in the sidebar.