On Fri, 16 Nov 2012 07:11:14 -0800 (PST), fred wrote:

TuneIn on her iPhone sounds like a good idea though she doesn't like
buds or cans and likes to carry the radio from room to room

With it on or just so she has it in the room with her?

Plenty of docking stations with built in speakers about for iThingies
these days but not sure I've seen anything that would be a easily
portable and with batteries as a radio. A docking station would probably
charge the phone at the same time if mains powered.

--
Cheers
Dave.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:
In article
,
Steve Firth wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:
[snip]

And let's face it, even had the question been for advice on how to
pick up R4 on FM, your answer - use a Nokia phone would be ****witted
enough to be a Drivel answer.

As was yours about using a phone etc where the OP obviously wanted
some form of portable radio.

Shame a slack handful of people disagree with you, eh? Err and you do
note the massive hypocrisy of your response, given that you are pushing
a phone that doesn't even work via the Internet?

[Sigh] I simply offered a solution to the poor sound quality and battery
life you seem to have with your iPhone.

[sigh] no you didn't. "That's progress? My old Nokia phone has an
excellent FM radio built in with decent sound quality and good battery
life..."

But, of course no comment on that perfect device is allowed by you.

And you're talking ******** since (a) I criticised the sound and (b) I'm
more than happy for anyone to say what's wrong with *any* device made by
any maker.

What I don't seen the point of is making up **** and pretending that it is
true.

Still, don't buy an iPhone because I heard one once electrocuted a granny
to death then mugged two socialists waiting in the queue at the local block
soviet.

Oh and on the positive side Android phones can be powered from two lemons a
stick of chewing gum and chanting Buddhist mantras.

It's true because I read it on the Internet.

[snip ****]

--
€¢DarWin|
_/ _/

Steve Firth wrote:


Oh and on the positive side Android phones can be powered from two lemons
a stick of chewing gum and chanting Buddhist mantras.

Wish mine could - the Galaxy S2 when doing actual work really needs a small
plutonium reactor.

:-

--
Tim Watts Personal Blog: http://www.dionic.net/tim/

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."

"fred" wrote in message
...

On Thursday, November 15, 2012 4:14:33 PM UTC, fred wrote:
SWMBO wants a battery operated radio that can pick up Radio 4 via the
internet (we have a domestic wifi network.



What are her options ?

Thanks to all for the input.

FM and LW reception is too poor in this case hence the suggested WiFi
radio.

She had an old battery powered Sony FM/MW/LW for yonks but it is rapidly
expiring and the newer version I have is hopeless at LW reception.

Wasn't aware of the power consumption problems with WiFi radio making
battery operation problematical.

TuneIn on her iPhone sounds like a good idea though she doesn't like buds
or cans and likes to carry the radio from room to room Perhaps a small
speaker might fit the bill. She has streaming radio in the kitchen and I
suggested extending this to the other rooms but no, wouldn't do at all.
Must be a portable

Ah well.

Wife uses her iPhone radio app just on internal speaker - no headphone and
seems to manage

AWEM

fred wrote:

SWMBO wants a battery operated radio that can pick up Radio 4 via the
internet (we have a domestic wifi network.

What are her options ?

Having got interested for my own purposes, not many options I suspect.
Pure seem to have if not the cheapest then the cheaper WiFi radios and
the "One Flow" is portable and has a rechargeable battery it just limbos
under the £100 barrier at around £80ish. There seem to be some negatives
such as having to pay a subscription fee if you want access to their
radio programme guide. That seems a bit unfair when TuneIn does it for
free.

The Mutant pocket WiFi radio used to get rave reviews - 10 hour battery
life - but as far as I can see it has been discontinued.

There's a Sansui portable for about £90 and the OXX Vantage portable for
£70.

I don't know if any of these are any good or are getting into SWMBOs
price range.

The OXX gets rave reviews from customers:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B005BR1P9M/

it only seems to be available in red or white at the moment:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002THGT8Y
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002TH9J18

fred :
She has streaming radio in the kitchen and I suggested extending this
to the other rooms but no, wouldn't do at all. Must be a portable

Nothing to stop her carrying a radio from room to room and plugging it
in wherever. I dare say you could even make a carrying handle out of the
mains lead.

--
Mike Barnes

In message , Andrew May
writes
On 16/11/2012 09:15, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Thu, 15 Nov 2012 18:55:06 -0000, Brian Gaff wrote:

Many seem to use their smartphones for this sort of stuff.

You seen the unsubsidised price of smartphones? B-)

But if you already have a WiFi smartphone (or an old one in a drawer) and
some means of connecting to decent speakers it might not be a bad option.

Tried the TuneIn (free, ad supported version) app mentioned earlier on an
Android tablet. Very slick and easy to use.

Doesn't have to be a smartphone. Works just as well on an iPod touch
and the first generation ones can probably be picked up cheaply
secondhand. And she can store her music on it as well. Or, record from
the radio using Tunein Pro.

The latest update to TuneIn Pro however has left it crashing regularly.
(Mostly when you end a recording.)

--
Simon

12) The Second Rule of Expectations
An EXPECTATION is a Premeditated resentment.

In article , fred
scribeth thus
On Thursday, November 15, 2012 4:14:33 PM UTC, fred wrote:
SWMBO wants a battery operated radio that can pick up Radio 4 via the
internet
(we have a domestic wifi network.



What are her options ?

Thanks to all for the input.

FM and LW reception is too poor in this case hence the suggested WiFi radio.

She had an old battery powered Sony FM/MW/LW for yonks but it is rapidly
expiring and the newer version I have is hopeless at LW reception.

Wasn't aware of the power consumption problems with WiFi radio making battery
operation problematical.

TuneIn on her iPhone sounds like a good idea though she doesn't like buds or
cans and likes to carry the radio from room to room Perhaps a small speaker
might fit the bill. She has streaming radio in the kitchen and I suggested
extending this to the other rooms but no, wouldn't do at all. Must be a
portable

Ah well.

You could .. use an FM sender they are easily available, find an unused
frequency connect to either a fixed FM radio with a decent aerial loft
one perhaps or a wi-fi radio or PC or similar "tuned" to the desired
station then she can use a simple FM portable around the house listening
to her very own station...

Does work rather well...
--
Tony Sayer

On Fri, 16 Nov 2012 19:58:39 +0000, tony sayer
wrote:

You could .. use an FM sender they are easily available, find an unused
frequency connect to either a fixed FM radio with a decent aerial loft
one perhaps or a wi-fi radio or PC or similar "tuned" to the desired
station then she can use a simple FM portable around the house listening
to her very own station...

Does work rather well...

You are hacking into my exact thoughts!

On Fri, 16 Nov 2012 19:58:39 +0000, tony sayer
wrote:


TuneIn on her iPhone sounds like a good idea though she doesn't like buds or
cans and likes to carry the radio from room to room Perhaps a small speaker
might fit the bill. She has streaming radio in the kitchen and I suggested
extending this to the other rooms but no, wouldn't do at all. Must be a
portable

Ah well.

You could .. use an FM sender they are easily available, find an unused
frequency connect to either a fixed FM radio with a decent aerial loft
one perhaps or a wi-fi radio or PC or similar "tuned" to the desired
station then she can use a simple FM portable around the house listening
to her very own station...


I use a variant on that when I do wish to use the mains radio or it's
CD or radio from the connected Freesat box. Often have a pair of
sennheiser cordless headphones connected . Other half sometime wants
to listen as well in a different location like her green house.
Amongst my box sorry ,crate of obsolete electrical bits I remembered
the Sky Gnome* which in a previous era I used to listen to a variety
of radio stations before I gave up Sky. Tried the receiver and it
picked up the signal from the headphone base unit a treat so SWMBO has
it the greenhouse now.
Not really applicable to the OP but someone may have one gathering
dust and be able to do the same. Obviously only on/off and volume
controls and the link channel selector controls work when it used like
this.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Gnome For them who wonder what I'm
on about.

G.Harman

usenet2012 wrote:
[snip]

The latest update to TuneIn Pro however has left it crashing regularly.
(Mostly when you end a recording.)

The latest update that I downloaded (3.0) fixed that for me.

Do I need to not download further updates? checks no updates in the
queue.

--
€¢DarWin|
_/ _/

On Fri, 16 Nov 2012 08:30:15 +0000, RJH wrote:

* Out of interest, does the mobile data connection kick in when out of
wireless range?

Trivial to set it to not use datalink and use wifi only.

On Fri, 16 Nov 2012 17:01:15 -0000, "Andrew Mawson"
wrote:

Wife uses her iPhone radio app just on internal speaker

I do too, but the sound quality isn't all that. Ok for a speech
programme.

On Fri, 16 Nov 2012 07:11:14 -0800, fred wrote:

FM and LW reception is too poor in this case hence the suggested WiFi
radio.

She had an old battery powered Sony FM/MW/LW for yonks but it is rapidly
expiring and the newer version I have is hopeless at LW reception.

Wasn't aware of the power consumption problems with WiFi radio making
battery operation problematical.

TuneIn on her iPhone sounds like a good idea though she doesn't like
buds or cans and likes to carry the radio from room to room Perhaps a
small speaker might fit the bill. She has streaming radio in the kitchen
and I suggested extending this to the other rooms but no, wouldn't do at
all. Must be a portable

Why carry a whole radio about? Carry one of these:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Creative-Wir...4K/ref=sr_1_3?
ie=UTF8&qid=1353107662&sr=8-3

and provide the sound for it from a computer with bluetooth, or try one of these:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wireless-Blu...14/ref=sr_1_1?
s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1353107813&sr=1-1

Works a treat...

--
Terry Fields

On 16/11/2012 00:51, wrote:
On Thu, 15 Nov 2012 22:58:58 +0000, Martin Brown
wrote:

On 15/11/2012 20:46, wrote:
On Thu, 15 Nov 2012 16:45:37 +0000, Martin Brown
wrote:


Most that are capable of that are also capable of DAB and FM.
Digital radios eat batteries quickly so it is a bad idea!

Some of the Pure or Revo ranges have rechargeable batteries .The Revo
I have runs for about 7 to 8 hours on a charge.
Seems a bit limiting to tie oneself to a mains socket if you are using
a WIFI radio.

And a decent FM radio will run for about ten times longer.

Battery time of 8 hours on a charge is more than adequate, I've no
need to spend 80 hours in the bath or down the garden before plugging
it in again and I doubt many others need to , If the set used U2's at
the rate of four a day it might be something to worry about.

It almost does... having to recharge one daily isn't my idea of useful.

I'm not sure it would last ten times longer anyway , have used the set
on FM a few times as it was a convenient thing to do ,can't say I
noticed it lasted that much more. Internet radio is more efficient
than DAB.
G.Harman

A set with the DAB decoder in is quite likely to consume power at a
prodigious rate whether the thing is working or not. You need a
classically designed FM/AM radio to avoid battery trashing.

In the event of a national emergency digital DAB radios will be worse
than useless since their battery life is so pathetic.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

In message

g, Steve Firth writes
usenet2012 wrote:
[snip]

The latest update to TuneIn Pro however has left it crashing regularly.
(Mostly when you end a recording.)

The latest update that I downloaded (3.0) fixed that for me.

Do I need to not download further updates? checks no updates in the
queue.

You are lucky. The latest update improved the situation but here it
continues to crash as above.

--
Simon

12) The Second Rule of Expectations
An EXPECTATION is a Premeditated resentment.

On Sat, 17 Nov 2012 14:14:13 +0000, Martin Brown
wrote:


I'm not sure it would last ten times longer anyway , have used the set
on FM a few times as it was a convenient thing to do ,can't say I
noticed it lasted that much more. Internet radio is more efficient
than DAB.
G.Harman

A set with the DAB decoder in is quite likely to consume power at a
prodigious rate whether the thing is working or not. You need a
classically designed FM/AM radio to avoid battery trashing.

Just as well mine hasn't got one in then isn't it. FM and Internet by
WIFI or cable connection only..

In the event of a national emergency digital DAB radios will be worse
than useless since their battery life is so pathetic.

The OP was asking about a WIFI cabable Internet radio, Not how to
survive the Bomb, neither DAB which you introduced no doubt excited by
the trouser wetting chance to promote your prejudices some of which
may well be justified not but pertinant to answering his question.
In case of real national emergency then there will more to worry about
than how long a radio's batterys last. A wind up one would be good
thing to consider then ,I have two which are also torches there is
also an old bike with a dynamo lying about somewhere.
This being a group for DIY there will be many combinations to to the
problem and a vehicle with a tank of fuel will provide power for small
radios for a long time. But that wasn't what the OP wanted to know.

G.Harman

In article ,
wrote:
The OP was asking about a WIFI cabable Internet radio, Not how to
survive the Bomb, neither DAB which you introduced no doubt excited by
the trouser wetting chance to promote your prejudices some of which
may well be justified not but pertinant to answering his question.
In case of real national emergency then there will more to worry about
than how long a radio's batterys last

Quite - do people expect the radio transmitters and all of the chain
feeding them to run on air, if there is no mains power?

LW was the favourite for an emergency as one transmitter could just about
cover most of the country. And it does have its own backup generators.
Which I very much doubt every DAB or even FM transmitter has. There was
also at one time at least a single DC pair telephone line direct to the
Droitwich LW transmitter, so even with power failure to the lines,
something could be transmitted from London.

--
*Always borrow money from pessimists - they don't expect it back *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article o.uk,
says...

On Thu, 15 Nov 2012 18:58:41 +0000 (UTC), Steve Firth wrote:

Why eat into your bandwidth allowance when there's a perfectly good FM
signal available?

Bandwidth allowance? Are you using the poor people's Internet?

Most mobile phones have a download limit... As some one has pointed out
if using a mobile make sure it doesn't drop across to 3G if it loses the
WiFi...

A 128kbps stream is roughly 60MBhr and will chomp through 1GB in around
16 hours. (If I've got the maths right...).

That's always been my objection to 'internet radio' - most ISPs have a
monthly useage limit.

If you could use a Freeview box to supply the feed instead...

--
Sam

On Sat, 17 Nov 2012 19:58:12 -0000, Sam Plusnet wrote:

If you could use a Freeview box to supply the feed instead...

Or a Sky box - dozens of free radio channels on that. I think I might
utilise the suggested FM mini-broadcaster with that.

Steve Firth wrote:
Having got interested for my own purposes, not many options I suspect.
Pure seem to have if not the cheapest then the cheaper WiFi radios and
the "One Flow" is portable and has a rechargeable battery it just limbos
under the £100 barrier at around £80ish. There seem to be some negatives
such as having to pay a subscription fee if you want access to their
radio programme guide. That seems a bit unfair when TuneIn does it for
free.

There's many things to be wary of about internet radios:

1. The UI: the little LCD screens can be terrible to set anything on and jog
dials are a clumsy way to set up. Just imagine setting your wifi password
with a jog dial and you get the idea. This means searching for stations is
painful if that feature even exists.

2. The station database. Internet radio is often fragmented, because the
manufacturers are fighting against the broadcasters. Broadcasters want
people to listen on little Flash applets in their browser window so they can
push ads. To hook the stream into an internet radio (which runs neither
Windows nor IE nor Flash) means reverse engineering the website to work out
the stream URL... but such stream links often break.

Is the database well-structured, and is it easy to find things? How do you
get things added? Does anyone actually care about it? Stations might
listed as things like:

!!!111 HITS (lots of !!! to get to the top of the list)
103.6 Love FM (have to scroll through a lot of these to get to the interesting
stuff)
Alan's Rantz (internet-only bedroom radio station)
BBC Radio Somewhere AAC
BBC Radio Somewhere WMA (station in database twice)
Elsewhere BBC Radio (sorting order broken)
KAAA New York
KAAB Kentucky Bluegrass
....
KZZZ Alaska (there are /lots/ of American Wxxx and Kxxx stations)

Unless the database is well-curated, it's often full of dross.

3. Do they interact with more complex services like BBC iPlayer? Can you
access the recorded programmes, not just the current broadcasts? Can you do
the same for stations not explicitly supported (eg if the Voice of North
Korea decides to offer listen on demand, do I depend on the radio
manufacturer to support that station, or can I just point the radio at the
RSS feed?)

4. Can you use a third-party database? If the manufacturer gets bored, the
stream database will bit-rot very quickly, even if the servers stay up.

5. Does your idea of support match the manufacturer's?

My salutory lesson is I have two radios based on a platform from a Cambridge
company called Reciva. These are/were fitted to many models from Roberts,
Pure, Dixons, Oxx, BT, and many other brands. The UI is clunky, finding
stations is a pain, the build quality is poor, and Reciva have basically
said that 5 years is sufficient product lifetime and they've given up. The
database servers are still up, but they put little effort into maintaining it
and it's a mess. But I needn't worry about that, because both my radios
have died anyway (BGA soldering fault).


So, my lessons would be:

1. Get a touchscreen. It so much easier to use than an awkward jog dial
2. Buy a radio on an extensible platform (eg Android). If the vendor gives
up, you can switch to a different radio app.
3. Put up with the fragmentation. One size fits all, doesn't. For an easy
life, you might end up listening to BBC streams with the iPlayer app,
Brazillian radio with a Brazillian radio app, etc. If you're interested in
obscure stations you can guarantee that some won't be listed in the
mainstream apps.


I haven't looked at the current range of wifi radios in too much detail, but
I think I'd be wary in general. I think a tablet or a phone in a docking
station with speakers might be an approach worth looking at rather than a
'kitchen radio' box. But check that a slower device can actually keep up
with the streams.

Theo

In article , grimly4
@gmail.com says...

On Sat, 17 Nov 2012 19:58:12 -0000, Sam Plusnet wrote:

If you could use a Freeview box to supply the feed instead...

Or a Sky box - dozens of free radio channels on that. I think I might
utilise the suggested FM mini-broadcaster with that.

Freeview seems to have 25 radio channels, according to
http://www.freeview.co.uk/Channels - although I'd be hard pushed to find
more than 4 I would ever use.

Choice between Sky & Freeview would depend on what hardware you already
have. I can't imagine someone subscribing to Sky just for the radio.

If you had an aerial & a Freeview box from which you only took audio
output, I assume you wouldn't need a TV licence.

Mind you I wouldn't think it possible to select radio channels on the
Freeview box without using a TV to set it up.

--
Sam

On Sun, 18 Nov 2012 00:54:09 -0000, Sam Plusnet wrote:

I can't imagine someone subscribing to Sky just for the radio.

Nobody would - it's free and any old cardless Sky box gets the radio
channels.

If you had an aerial & a Freeview box from which you only took audio
output, I assume you wouldn't need a TV licence.

Only if you'd no method of displaying video - you could invite the
TVLA ******* in and show him the box and amp but no telly or vid
recorder.

On 16/11/2012 22:35, Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
On Fri, 16 Nov 2012 08:30:15 +0000, RJH wrote:

* Out of interest, does the mobile data connection kick in when out of
wireless range?

Trivial to set it to not use datalink and use wifi only.


Ah yes I see, thanks.

In article ,
Sam Plusnet wrote:
In article , grimly4
@gmail.com says...

On Sat, 17 Nov 2012 19:58:12 -0000, Sam Plusnet wrote:

If you could use a Freeview box to supply the feed instead...

Or a Sky box - dozens of free radio channels on that. I think I might
utilise the suggested FM mini-broadcaster with that.

Freeview seems to have 25 radio channels, according to
http://www.freeview.co.uk/Channels - although I'd be hard pushed to find
more than 4 I would ever use.


Choice between Sky & Freeview would depend on what hardware you already
have. I can't imagine someone subscribing to Sky just for the radio.

You don't need the Sky subscription for radio. But do, of course, need a
dish. Or just use any old satellite dish/receiver.

If you had an aerial & a Freeview box from which you only took audio
output, I assume you wouldn't need a TV licence.

Dunno.

Mind you I wouldn't think it possible to select radio channels on the
Freeview box without using a TV to set it up.

Many - especially older - only listen to the one station anyway. Although
a cheap FreeView box with a front panel display of the (favourite?)
selected would be useful. However, most retain their memory even when
powered down, so getting to the station you want is possible via the
remote control, after you've set things up using a TV.

--
*Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 17 Nov,
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:


Quite - do people expect the radio transmitters and all of the chain
feeding them to run on air, if there is no mains power?

LW was the favourite for an emergency as one transmitter could just about
cover most of the country. And it does have its own backup generators.
Which I very much doubt every DAB or even FM transmitter has. There was
also at one time at least a single DC pair telephone line direct to the
Droitwich LW transmitter, so even with power failure to the lines,
something could be transmitted from London.

But they can't get the valves anymore, or so they say.

Other broadcasters can still manage to install long wave transmitters. I
wonder how RTE manage after moving from medium wave (567kHz) to long wave
(252KHz)

There's a lot (not) to say for privatisation.

--
B Thumbs
Change lycos to yahoo to reply

In article , Sam Plusnet
scribeth thus
In article o.uk,
says...

On Thu, 15 Nov 2012 18:58:41 +0000 (UTC), Steve Firth wrote:

Why eat into your bandwidth allowance when there's a perfectly good FM
signal available?

Bandwidth allowance? Are you using the poor people's Internet?

Most mobile phones have a download limit... As some one has pointed out
if using a mobile make sure it doesn't drop across to 3G if it loses the
WiFi...

A 128kbps stream is roughly 60MBhr and will chomp through 1GB in around
16 hours. (If I've got the maths right...).

That's always been my objection to 'internet radio' - most ISPs have a
monthly useage limit.


We're on VM and I don't know if they do cap it anymore since we went to
the 30 meg speed but it does get hammered these days mainly with U tube
and iplayer...


If you could use a Freeview box to supply the feed instead...

Yep...
--
Tony Sayer