What functions does a radio need so that I can listen to an internet station

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Other than wi-fi what else do I need to look for in the spec? How does it search for stations, will it have an address bar to search for stations like a computer? I am a totally ignorant of how these things work.
Well I have a Roberts Stream 94i, so can't speak for others but I suspect the search criteria is similar for most, you can search by genre, country, period etc or just enter the actual name of the station and without a keyboard it can be a little laborious/clunky entering various details as you need to rotate a knob and press a button to enter each letter, what bugs me about the Roberts is that you only get 5 internet presets, I don't know why, it'd be good if there were a few more.

I have to say, if all I was interested in was say BBC it would make no sense to have an internet radio, a DAB would be fine but I tend to listen to quirky music stations at home and have found several stations from various locations around the world that are completely ad and talk free - bliss! Weirdly some stations from say San Francisco for instance have UK ads which is just an instant turn off for me.
 
Well I have a Roberts Stream 94i, so can't speak for others but I suspect the search criteria is similar for most, you can search by genre, country, period etc or just enter the actual name of the station and without a keyboard it can be a little laborious/clunky entering various details as you need to rotate a knob and press a button to enter each letter, what bugs me about the Roberts is that you only get 5 internet presets, I don't know why, it'd be good if there were a few more.

As an alternative, might an ipad or similar tablet, even an old one work better, be more user friendly? That connected via a pair of bluetooth speakers, or directly wired to an amp.
 
Weirdly some stations from say San Francisco for instance have UK ads which is just an instant turn off for me.
Known as ad insertion. During ad breaks local UK ads are inserted into the UK stream.

In the analogue days cable TV companies did the same thing. It was a right pain as the cuts were non sync and teletext was lost for the duration.
 
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Referring back to the DAB v. FM discussion, we have a brand new car which has both options and have found that we often lose the DAB signal, or at least the sound quality, whereas the FM signal remains strong.
 
Known as ad insertion. During ad breaks local UK ads are inserted into the UK stream.

In the analogue days cable TV companies did the same thing. It was a right pain as the cuts were non sync and teletext was lost for the duration.
Ahh interesting, anyway as mentioned it's just an instant dismissal from me, weirdly I quite like the little local ad's for say Joe's Diner or Bill's Air-conditioning or something equally quaint when listening to some little local US Deep South radio station for instance.

In other news I haven't listened to an FM transmission for about 5 years, love my car's DAB radio.
 
Referring back to the DAB v. FM discussion, we have a brand new car which has both options and have found that we often lose the DAB signal, or at least the sound quality, whereas the FM signal remains strong.

DAB frequencies are higher than FM, even more line of sight and I would guess there are not as many transmitters as for FM or as much power.
 
I just checked here. Some stations are 80kbps, unacceptably poor quality, including BBC R4 and R4x, speech. R5L and WS are 64, very poor and muffled.

Classic is 128kbps, and acceptable for music, but speech is poor

BBC R3 192kbps and acceptable for music, speech is fair.

None of them is as good as FM.

There are some at 56, and quite a number that the tuner can see and identify, but not hear, e.g. Jazz.

Kiss is shown as "station not available"
 
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J

There are some at 56, and quite a number that the tuner can see and identify, but not hear, e.g. Jazz.
Jazz and I guess the others you can’t hear use DAB+ and I guess your receiver is DAB only. If you bought it recently reject it as not suitable for purpose.
 
It is not new. I have a newer Susie Q but it is also not as good as FM, though it has reasonable internet access.

The one I mentioned is a portable Roberts 25 for the bathroom.

I don't know if Roberts actually have a factory, but for many years they have been selling some rebadged Sangean radios, which traditionally have 5 presets per band, even on multiband sets. They must have the UK distribution rights. I understand others are made by Sony and the brand is actually owned by the group that makes Glen and Dimplex heaters.

Roberts badge sells better in UK, and Sangean brand sells better overseas, including on the second-hand market. You notice Ebay prices are different.
 
We have problems with VHF (FM) seems to work in car with aerial but in the house useless, I am sure I could put up an aerial on the house, but DAB is half way between UHF and VHF so likely worse than VHF.

So I have three options, freeview, satellite, or internet.

In the main I used internet, pure laziness, easier to say hey Google play radio 4 than to switch on a TV to select, but quality wise satellite likely best, I use a optical link to HiFi unit so once program is selected I turn TV off, just satellite box and audio unit left on.

Did use freeveiw boxes but less stations avaible and freeview boxes no longer used.

It would be nice to have a satellite radio, no reason can't be done, but not seen one, for at home no real point in DAB as more channels on satellite, and for mobile use it drops out too often, so just a waist of band width, and it seems every so called advance needs more power to recive, MW I could get on a cristal set, no batteries.

I have one good radio with a beat frequancy osilator and I can pick up all sorts on it, but side band no good for music.

So in the main as said lazy and use Nest mini's two paired in living room so stereo, so easy to just say hey Google play David jags or hay Google stop when phone rings.
 
We have problems with VHF (FM) seems to work in car with aerial but in the house useless, I am sure I could put up an aerial on the house, but DAB is half way between UHF and VHF so likely worse than VHF.
VHF extends from 30 to 300MHz so DAB IS VHF.

DAB works well in large centres of population and along most motorways and is being expanded all the time. My car radio auto defaults to the equivalent FM service if DAB drops out and returns to DAB when it can.
 
We do have a rather large frequency range within the Short Wave, Medium Wave, VHF, and UHF. These are split into bands, aerials can be designed with traps and as 1/4 wave for one band and 1/2 wave for another, this
upload_2021-5-25_11-17-11.png
is a typical duel band aerial note the lump in the centre which allows whole aerial to be used with one frequency and part with another, the other method is band pass filters, plates like this
991HV_P
have filters built in to split the signals but it needs multi aerials to be combined to start with
j-yKXzQPrA4dcWTvPzH0dvx7JLyNToWpHw3GnU_-4WzYM2Q8-0RTiiBhHY1h-FM7O7Ra1PzL8WHBgtskRqlvJtHiFv9LWxQsjzY
as shown, and I is amazing how many people think the radio will work from the TV/Radio splitter without combining first. It seems some of the retail outlets are the same.
Screwfix questions said:
Do Dab and UHF signals feed in through a single coaxial cable? Does it need a specific cable connector(s)?
the answer was
Schneider Electric said:
Thank you for the enquiry this would be related to the satellite or dish you have this picks up the signals and sends down a coax cable., like freeview tv etc.
which simply does not answer the question, Screwfix do sell a range of boxes to combine and split upload_2021-5-25_11-39-20.png an example is shown with a VHF and UHF input, no DAB so it would need a special duel band aerial as well, and the spec for the box says "Carries FM, DAB, Digital TV & Freeview" which seems odd as I thought Freeveiw was Digital TV? and frequency range 470-782 MHz which seems to be terrestrial TV only?

I am sure @Lucid could tell us exactly what needs to go in the loft and what needs to go in the living room to get all the range, but to get the DAB signal into the room is not easy in mid Wales, on the Cheshire plan it is likely much easier but the big question is why bother, we have satellite or terrestrial TV into most homes and these also have radio broadcasts, so why mess around with another band with extra aerials? Well in the main so we can turn off the TV screen. The Icecrypt STC3250CCIHD box I use has got audio outputs, and I can select radio, and it is duel band Freeveiw and Satellite, the only problem is I need to turn TV on as a display to see what I am doing, the display on the box is useless, down stairs I use Sky Q and yes I can press button and simply say Radio 4 extra and I can select without turning on TV.

But it is so much easier to simply say hay google play radio 4 extra and let Nest Mini do it's job. OK not the best speakers, but it's easy, one plugged in either side of the room, no aerial wires, no wires other than the power, there are others that do the same, alexa for example, if I want HiFi it is a CD or DVD, but if just want to listen to the goon show really don't need HiFi which is what is on Radio 4 extra now.
 
Schneider Electric said:
Thank you for the enquiry this would be related to the satellite or dish you have this picks up the signals and sends down a coax cable.
Hm, don't think many people possess satellites!

which seems odd as I thought Freeveiw was Digital TV?

It is but that doesn't mean digital TV is Freeview.

Bit like saying Welsh are good singers therefore all good singers are Welsh.
 

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