aha, that works. well, sort of, it turns the sound on! oddly, volume 100 in pyFMR is much much louder than I can get the tablet set to, which is about 65.

it doesn't set the station, I get this:
# ./example.py
Frequency range: 87.50 - 108.00 MHz
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "./example.py", line 39, in <module>
radio.set_frequency(90.10);
File "/usr/local/pyFMRadio-0.22/FMRadio.py", line 279, in set_frequency
assert(freq == 0 or low <= freq <= high)
AssertionError


this also happens if I try freq 96.00, so it's not the numeric value!