fm radio use in France

[Gardengirl]

We are thinking of taking a radio/alarm clock to France at the weekend. It works on FM and is also digital. Could anyone tell me if we might get French radio stations using it? We aren't yet fixed up for TV and internet yet - leaving that till the autumn. I understand the digital signal won't work in France but it would be good to listen to French radio programmes sometimes on FM.

Thanks, Jo

 

[Martin963]

No problems with the FM part in France.   Coverage is pretty universal for the main public stations,   and most areas have a good range of commercial stations too.

You will find that - unlike in Britain - the stations are all jumbled together across the band (cf in Britain where for example Radio 3 is exclusively 90.2 - 92.4 and Radio 4 is mainly between 92.5 - 94.7 MHz).   In France there is no sub-band pattern.

So if the radio has RDS with the FM it will make identifying what is where much easier!.

If it has DAB   (not all radios described as digital do have it) that will NOT work in france,  as you rightly surmised.     (Some shops call a radio digital if it has a digital frequency read-out!)

If you want to identify what you might find you can use this search-engine

http://www.brume.org/radios/

[Gardengirl]

Thanks for your message, Martin. Our radio is a DAB one, not that I know what that means. Did you mean it won't work on FM if it's a DAB one, or would the FM part still be OK?

Jo

[Anton Redman]

If the radio is dual standard and  FM part works in the UK it will work in France.

Be warned French Radio is split. The majority of stations which make Capital FM sound like they have an extensive play list. Classique which makes BBC Radio Three sound like Classic FM and on one occaision discused the evlolution of St James Infirmary Blues from and ancient Scottish Ayre via the Streets of Laurado during a 45 minute programme without once playing a record. When they started I thought it was a Rambling Sid Rumpole in French and kept waiting for the punch line.

[Martin963]

Sorry - yes I could have worded that better.    It's just the DAB part (as Anton has already said) that won't work in France.

France is in the process of leap-frogging our rather long-in-the-tooth (from a technical  point of view) DAB system for something rather more efficient.   But not compatible!

[Gardengirl]

Thanks for the help, I now know a lot more; Jo