American FM radio.

connemaragerry

Hi Guys,
Just wondering if anyone on here knows if an American FM radio will work in Ireland? A friend told me that the American radios only works on even frequencies like 96.8 and so on and Europe including Ireland works on odd frequencies like 95.5 etc. Is this so?
Regards and thanks;
Gerry.

Tabnabs

I've used an FM radio bought in Ireland without any issues in the States. Can't see that you'll have any issues.

dxhound2005

connemaragerry wrote: »

Hi Guys,
Just wondering if anyone on here knows if an American FM radio will work in Ireland? A friend told me that the American radios only works on even frequencies like 96.8 and so on and Europe including Ireland works on odd frequencies like 95.5 etc. Is this so?
Regards and thanks;
Gerry.

Oddly enough it might be a problem if you want to listen to Connemara Community Radio on 87.8 MHz, that transmitter being in Clifden I believe. That frequency is also used by RTE 1 from Clermont Carn in Co Louth, and it covers many other counties. All other Irish transmitters are above 88 MHz.

The USA FM bandplan starts at 87.8 and goes up to 108. Channels are 200 kHz wide so the first centre frequency (the published frequency for a radio station) is 87.9. However this one is not in use, so the first channel in use is 88.1 then 88.3 etc up to 107.9. So if the radio doesn't tune down to 87.8 those two transmitters will not be receivable. Other than that there won't be any other problems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM_broadcasting_in_the_United_States

thelordgod

Ireland uses both even and odd frequencies. It will depend on whether the tuning steps on the radio are 100 or 200 khz. If it is the latter you wont be able to pick up all stations but it should receive some.

watty

Equalisation is wrong too
Some stations might be on 150KHz steps

To cope with internal radio drift /aging and CE FM re-transmitters for phone / MP3 you need 50KHz steps.

Generally a USA consumer anything is bad news in Europe. Record players, TV and video is worst.

Capt'n Midnight

This is where having an old fashioned mechanical dial rather than a fancy digital readout works best.

watty wrote: »

To cope with internal radio drift /aging and CE FM re-transmitters for phone / MP3 you need 50KHz steps.

Generally a USA consumer anything is bad news in Europe. Record players, TV and video is worst.

Especial anything visual. Different DVD regions. Different TV formats NTSC vs PAL , ATSC vs DVB. Different video refresh rates doesn't help, always loved the old trick of going from 24 fps film to TV. In the US they duplicate or generate a 6th frame after every 5. Here we can just run the film at 25 fps.


Different satellite systems. Here in Europe you can use a Universal LNB for most satellite television on the Ku band. Saorsat being the big exception, but that's about using the completely different Ku band and only because of geo-locking because of the cost of rights issues, and even then you could use that LNB all over Europe if/when others use it. The US on the other hand has many different proprietary lock in mechanisms on satellite systems.


As a rough rule of thumb it's not cost effective to get US consumer gear working here. By the time you get the adaptors and put up with the compromised quality you'd probably have been better selling there and buying an equivalent replacement here.

sensormatic

tis be grand boss

Ogogo

It wont work - mostly. IT will not tune into the likes of 92.2 - it will step from 92.1 to 92.3 etc.

An Irish one will work fine in the states but not the other way around.

connemaragerry

OK Guys. I got the radio. It is for my Honda Goldwing 1500 and it works perfect. As 'Ogogo' says it operates on the odd numbers tuning like 92.1 and 92.3 etc. but will not work on 92.2 or 92.4 etc. I can get all the stations I look for here so no problems.
Thanks to you all who bothered to take the time to answer.
Regards to all;
Gerry.

sensormatic

told ya boss no bothers and happy to help

connemaragerry

Yeah, thanks again guys.
Gerry.