What program can we use to automate our music between passing periods at school?

[Trent Schroeder]

At my school, we want to play music between periods in the hallways over our PA system.

After tons of research, we've found that in order to play the radio station we want without finding ourselves in copyright issues, we need to have a physical radio connected to a computer that opens/closes the audio channel at the proper times. That computer will be connected to the PA via its headphone jack.

What kind of software can schedule when to turn on/turn off the audio coming in the "mic in" port and ensure that only music is heard between our classes?

I'm looking at the Task Scheduler to open/close a live "microphone" program that will properly open the audio channel at the programmed times, and send the audio from the "mic in" to the headphone jack and the PA.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[hang-the-9]

This won't work too well, if it's a radio station, how do you know they will have music on when you turn on the audio?

You don't need to actually tun the port on or off, all you need to do is mute/unmute the sound on the computer. If you mute the speaker, you will mute the mic output as well.

I found this script that works perfectly in Win 7, just paste these two lines in a text document, rename it to mute.vbs or something, and run it.

Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

WshShell.SendKeys(chr(&hAD))

 

[Alabalcho]

Get a simple ON/OFF timer switch (like the one you use to Xmas lights), and power the radio through it. Make it turn on the radio when necessary. Don't involve computers at all.

Option 2: Make an external gadget which breaks or connects radio-out to PA-in connection, and control this gadget from the computer - this would be good hobby and learning project.