Comments on: Freesat Radio From The BBC

By: Bill Naismith

Bill Naismith — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 18:02:04 +0000

We have Free-Sat at home and it’s great. However we don’t want TV in our bedroom but would like to use one of our spare dish terminals to have a fixed radio channel receiver in our bedroom for reveille. There don’t seem to be any simple such receivers on the market.

By: John Haslam

John Haslam — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:26:00 +0000

BBC world service on shortwave in Europe already switched off. Radio 4 Longwave an uncertain future after 2015 if the analogue switchoff goes ahead. Need a portable Freesat radio only facility in the future to keep up with test match special when on holiday in rural Europe away from WiFi hotspots. Small freestanding dish feeding box similar size to typical DAB radio would be great. Would encouraging reception of UK only rights content eg 5 Live football be an issue that prevents this hapenning

By: Donald

Donald — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 13:28:14 +0000

With digital radio as the next hurdle there are some of us in the Highlands and Islands who have little or no am reception and variable fm reception and I expect that the same problem occu.rs in other places. Myself I can manage using a laptop but my wife wants a “Radio Set” at her bedside that she can tune in
herself. We have freesky and hebrides broadband and could get freesat so a set on wifi or sky gnome from ebay might work. Any better ideas???

Donald

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 20:39:20 +0000

Lets face it guys talk as much as you like about terresrially transmitted signals of any kind, we all know these are doomed. I have now given up with all ideas of using these and gone totaly over to freesat and once commited to this I need a stand alone freesat radio. I want to listen to radio in the kitchen my pvr box is in the lounge why do people assume that I would have my tv in the same room as my radio.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:50:02 +0000

I use Sky ‘Freesat’ (the single £20 payment card) and a sky digibox (£20 from ebay) to listen to radio thro my Hi-Fi (I inherited the sat dish). I agree with the others – what is needed is a Freeview or Freesat ‘tuner’ with a small display for the Channel ID and ideally the text (similar to most DAB radios). This could be a STB without TV out (if it made it significantly cheaper).

By: Steven

Steven — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 11:33:06 +0000

It would be interesting to hear what $ky would have to say if you requested a ‘Radio Only’ installation?

I believe there is a satellite radio system running Michael called Worldspace, I assume it’s still operational.

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:42:07 +0000

Fortunately in the Bath area we do have a choice as even with a simple indoor ariel the reception from DAB is good, despite the hilly terrain.

My only concern about satellite radio through the tv speakers, is the environmental issue, especially as most of the modern flat panel sets use more energy.

I think the point about a FTA satellite radio set option is a good one . If I recall there was a German system on Astra many years ago which was very popular with classical music fans.

By: Davei

Davei — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:19:57 +0000

Radio via satellite is certainly worthwhile, if only because the sound quality is generally a lot better than DAB.

I’m not a frequent listener to satellite radio, but I do use it on occasion and am very glad of it, so much so that I took our none-too-good FM aerial down. It seemed a bit excessive having three aerials, one for TV, one for DAB – can’t get much DAB here without a roof-top aerial – and one for FM, not to mention the two sat dishes!

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:12:26 +0000

My Freesat box is hooked up to my amp for sound, anyway. This, combined with the fact that the channel number appears on the Freesat box itself, means that I don’t need to switch on the TV to listen to radio.
As I get lousy reception on FM, DAB and any other airwave you can name, satellite radio at least gets me a clear signal, even if higher bitrates would be nice…

By: Jamie

Jamie — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 04:44:57 +0000

Steve P. You put the point rather better than myself. I agree fully. Steven. Delighted you see the point. I agree with your comment re. a better interface. Also Sat radio has a golden opportunity to add detailed notes to programmes being broadcast and those to follow. Text as we know has a very small overhead and on this count could leave DAB gasping for breath.