Improving radio signals

[ericd]

Hi all. We have a combine CD/Radio kit that looks very nice in the stone "niche" of our new house, unfortunately the only radio signals 2we seem to be able to get are "France Inter" and "France Culture"....enough to send us all to sleep after 10 minutes. Has anyone got any advice on how to improve the radio reception? Many thanks.

[Anton Redman II]

If Radio has an coaxial socket fit something like :

http://www.bricodepot.fr/bordeaux/node/468249

If it does not see if it has any external aeriel socket if so try a suitable indoor wire

If it does not have one of those then move it round the house.

[ericd]

Many thanks Anton. Am back in UK at the moment but am sure the radio has a coaxial socket. Answer next summer (or may be around new year)......

[Dave&Olive]

hi ok

before you spend you cash ... isn`t radio going digital next year ????

Dave

[Martin963]

No,  at least not in the sense of closing analogue.

Britain had pencilled in 2015 as the date to close national radio on FM,   but anyone with any knowledge on the subject knew that this was just New Labour pie-in-the-sky.

The new government still has that date but on a much more flexible "if sufficient people have moved" basis.

As to France,   they've gone back to the drawing board as far as digital radio is concerned and are only now rolling out a completely new and incompatible (with DAB) system.

So don't worry,   analogue radio is safe for quite a few years yet!

As to the OP,  if you can get Int and Cult you should be able to get Musique as well.   However,   if you are very rural you may find that that is about it on FM,   particularly if you're in a valley.    Most commercial stations are designed to serve main urban areas and some rural areas get a raw deal.

On MW you will probably only get France Info (if even that);  on LW if you have it there should be Inter/Europe1/Monte Carlo/Luxembourg,   all in very limited quality of course.

As Anton says,  some sort of aerial is vital,  even a 5 ft length of wire attached to the aerial socket will make a huge difference if there is nothing else provided.

[Pierre ZFP]

A quick way to check what you might receive is to see what stations you get on your car radio (I assume you have a car with a radio in it [:'(] )

As was said above, even a most basic aerial will work wonders.

For Long wave, you may even get BBC Radio4 (Next test match starts 18th Aug)

I always use my satellite disk to listen to the radio, in fact I use it much more for that than TV.  Hundreds of stations to choose from

 

Just as a small thread hijack, how does any country expect to turn off analogue radio given the millions of radios in cars that would need changing?  Not to metion that DAB on the move doesn't work too well anyway.