How do i get BBC radio 1 and 5 live?

quarryman

I'm sick of poor reception on the Englinsh stations on MW. Radio 1 is an excellent station but i can only get it online and the bitrate is pretty low. What's the solution to getting a decent quality on these?

1. Digital Radio (DAB)

from reading here it seems DAB can't be received unless in the mountains. I'm from Celbridge. Is there any point in picking up one of these?

2. Standard Radio (AM/MW)

Is there a way of boosting the signal somehow. I'm fairly unfamiliar with radio tranmission etc.

3. Sky Digital

I think these stations are available on Sky but i'm looking for a solution for my stereo in my room.

3. PC solution

is there a way of receiving FM and AM transmission throught the PC. those Hauppage cards don't look the best.

Mossy Monk

the only option you have that i know of is Sky

but if someone knows of an fm booster out there let me know

DMC

DAB is a no-no in Celbridge, I have tried there. Line of Sight for DAB is cruical, but, with a direct path over the Mournes and Cooley, which other places dont have, and with Celbridge with no height, I'd say it would be slim. I have heard of people outputting Sky to their stereo.... dunno how tho. Hauppage TV cards only do FM in addition to TV, there would be too much interference for MW.

byte

Get a Free To Air satelite receiver and get hundreds of radio channels, including BBC Radio 1 and Five Live. Assuming your stereo has a stereo phono input, just connect the phono outputs on the back of receiver to inputs on back of stereo. Voila! Loadsa digital radio on your stereo

quarryman

are they not designed for receiving tv signals though? the radio is basically a bonus?

could i use the signal of the sky minidish somehow and hook it up to a free-to-air box?

Zaphod

It doesn't matter to the satellite receiver whether the channel is TV or radio. It treats radio essentially the same as TV, just minus the picture.

The best way to share the signal from your minidish would be to replace your existing LNB with a dual output LNB and then the two receivers can work totally independently of each other.

BTW, as regards getting BBC R1 and R5 on your PC, a PCI DVB card would be worth considering. You would then be able to directly record the radio as an mp3 file to your HD.

byte

Yeah, a PCI DVB-s card would also be an option. I have a FTA receiver with LNB loopthruogh which I have connected to the DVB card. Basically, when the FTA box is off, the DVB card has control of the LNB. Handy for me, though maybe not suitable for everyone.

quarryman

So if i got a DVB-s card i take i'd still need to connect it to an LNB?

i've found one here at Elara. Is this the type of thing we're talking about. Seems a bit expensive.

Zaphod

Yeah, still need to connect it to an LNB.

That card in the link is one of the high-end ones (onboard MPEG2 processing, RC, Tv-out etc). A cheaper alternative would be the Technisat Skystar 2 which has loads of freeware available for it on the net.
http://www.satonline.co.uk/shop/products.php?g1=3965df&PHPSESSID=b3f815f3614635a83f8abb02db34fbf5

You could probably find it even cheaper on eBay.

SF1

I got bbc radio 1 in my rds car radio last night

John R

eireman1916 wrote:

I got bbc radio 1 in my rds car radio last night

Not in Celbridge though.







There is one other option worth considering Quarryman, ntl analogue.

As well as the tv channels they also transmit several radio stations on FM including all the BBC radio networks.

Can you get ntl in celbridge?

celticfc

John R wrote:

There is one other option worth considering Quarryman, ntl analogue.

As well as the tv channels they also transmit several radio stations on FM including all the BBC radio networks.

Can you get ntl in celbridge?

Full list here

DMC

Celbridge is a Chorus area, not NTL.

Mike 1972

BBC Radio 1 is available on FM in much of the East/North East Of Ireland on either 99.7 (Divis) 98.3 (Camlough) 99.0 (Brougher) or some of the Welsh transmitters (97.6-99.9 range)

Not sure if any of them make it into Celbridge though (try it on the car radio first)

DMC

In my car, and I've tried around Celbridge, BBC Radio on FM isn't great. And I pride myself in the fact I've a decent car reciever

Net1

Get a 4 element FM antenna, place it horizontally on your chimney, point it NNE and you will almost certainly pick up BBC1 on 99.7MHz

wheels of ire

If you are on cable, like I am on ntl, you should find a second connection labelled FM. I have it hooked up to the aeriel connection on my stereo tuner.I have plagued ntl in an effort to find what frequecies they were sending them down the cable. By trial and error I have found some, (BBC R1 , R2, 3, 4, World,etc.)
There are, seemingly ,loads more channels on ntl, just they won't tell you. And they are not where they should be. and how I wish my tyner had a rotating frequency knob. I find them easier to use than the push-button options.
About 5Live.
Hardly surprising if you remember it's a MW station.
They even had a running item on how far away it could be picked up, and even a discussion of which cars could receive it, in which countries.
Sorry, rambling a bit.
Oh, and if you don't have an FM connection from ntl,make their lives hell till they give you one,.You're already paying for it.
Hope this is useful.

wheels of ire

I hadn't seen that you are on Chorus.
But I'm on BB and get pretty ace reception usingWMP, selecting the high rate some of stations offer. 6Music sounds great with 6.1
Even if your Chorus is MMDS or cable, I still reckon FM radio would be part of your package.

dub45

wheels of ire wrote:

If you are on cable, like I am on ntl, you should find a second connection labelled FM. I have it hooked up to the aeriel connection on my stereo tuner.I have plagued ntl in an effort to find what frequecies they were sending them down the cable. By trial and error I have found some, (BBC R1 , R2, 3, 4, World,etc.)
There are, seemingly ,loads more channels on ntl, just they won't tell you. And they are not where they should be. and how I wish my tyner had a rotating frequency knob. I find them easier to use than the push-button options.
About 5Live.
Hardly surprising if you remember it's a MW station.

Sorry but that is nonsense NTL publish a list of frequencies on their website:

http://www.ntl.com/locales/ie/en/athome/frequency.html#dublin%20radio

And if you look at the list you will see that 5 live is available on FM.

As far as I know NTL now take most of their FM stations from satellite and the push them the cable through as FM. They used to take them from Divis.

wheels of ire wrote:

They even had a running item on how far away it could be picked up, and even a discussion of which cars could receive it, in which countries.
Sorry, rambling a bit.
Oh, and if you don't have an FM connection from ntl,make their lives hell till they give you one,.You're already paying for it.
Hope this is useful.

You dont have to make NTL's lives hell to get a signal - most electrical accessory shops will sell you a replacement box for a few euros with both a tv and and fm output. Make sure you get someone to wire it properly for you as a poor connection will mess up your signal bigtime

dub45

wheels of ire wrote:

I hadn't seen that you are on Chorus.
But I'm on BB and get pretty ace reception usingWMP, selecting the high rate some of stations offer. 6Music sounds great with 6.1
Even if your Chorus is MMDS or cable, I still reckon FM radio would be part of your package.

I am virtually certain that Chorus dont supply FM reception.

dub45

quarryman wrote:

I'm sick of poor reception on the Englinsh stations on MW. Radio 1 is an excellent station but i can only get it online and the bitrate is pretty low. What's the solution to getting a decent quality on these?

1. Digital Radio (DAB)

from reading here it seems DAB can't be received unless in the mountains. I'm from Celbridge. Is there any point in picking up one of these?

2. Standard Radio (AM/MW)

Is there a way of boosting the signal somehow. I'm fairly unfamiliar with radio tranmission etc.

3. Sky Digital

I think these stations are available on Sky but i'm looking for a solution for my stereo in my room.

3. PC solution

is there a way of receiving FM and AM transmission throught the PC. those Hauppage cards don't look the best.

As a general rule for FM line of sight and under 100 miles to the transmitter seems to be obligatory. And unless you are really close a good roof aerial is mandatory. If you are consdidering a roof aerial it is always recommended to get a professional installer to do it and to test the signal beforehand. Theres lots of information at the bbc site - http://www.bbc.co.uk/reception/analogue_radio/reception.shtml

Theres so much interference on MW that is very difficult to boost the signal without boosting the interference as well and in most cases reception from the bbc website via their radio player (provided your on bb of course) should easily match MW. But even a piece of wire attached to the aerial socket on the back of the tuner is worth experimenting with if you are desperate.

You can add all the bbc radio stations plus 6,7 etc via the additional channels facility on the sky digibox - there are instructions on how to do this in the Sat forum. At least you could get to listen when nobody else is in or run a long lead to your amp:)

If you add an hauppauge analogue card you will still need an fm aerial signal. With an good signal the hauppuages give good reception but they dont make it easy to record the signal onto the pc.

If you listen via at the pc and the web at least you can avail of the facility to pick up programmes you missed.

wheels of ire

dub45 wrote:

Sorry but that is nonsense NTL publish a list of frequencies on their website:

http://www.ntl.com/locales/ie/en/athome/frequency.html#dublin%20radio

And if you look at the list you will see that 5 live is available on FM.

As far as I know NTL now take most of their FM stations from satellite and the push them the cable through as FM. They used to take them from Divis.




You dont have to make NTL's lives hell to get a signal - most electrical accessory shops will sell you a replacement box for a few euros with both a tv and and fm output. Make sure you get someone to wire it properly for you as a poor connection will mess up your signal bigtime

Consider myself duly corrected. And I had meant to thank celticfc, for link to page.I was basing my comment on the responses I got on phone.

dub45

wheels of ire wrote:

Consider myself duly corrected. And I had meant to thank celticfc, for link to page.I was basing my comment on the responses I got on phone.

I did not mean to sound so stern so dont feel so corrected!
They have had a list of the stations on their site for ages it seems incredible that they did not suggest you have a look there or that they dont have a list to hand.

I agree with you about the telephone service they appear to be extraordinarily incompetent when it comes to the radio side of things. A while ago there was an intermittent problem of digital hash on the fm side and what a job I had trying to get them to let me get in contact with the radio section itself to try and get it sorted (constant contact with the telephone people had of course been a waste of time) . I had to get on to Comreg eventually. Years ago you could get straight through to the radio section and chat with the guys in charge of the area. Funnily enough when I eventually spoke to someone there he told me they were looking for customers to give them feedback on the noise problem!

Well even if you are 'corrected' at least you have your list of stations now but apologies anyways!

DMC

I remember when 5 Live went off analogue Astra 1 some years ago, and I phoned up and complained... they didnt have a bulls what I was talking about! It came back after about a month and enough people like me complaining.

Nice to see it all so cordial! MiWadi's all round