Basic radio

looksee

I do not listen to radio (or tv) a lot, but I would like a radio just to have in the kitchen. It doesn't have to be amazing sound or anything elaborate, and I would prefer it it were not too expensive.

However, what I do want, and have not been able to find in several radios that have been bought and discarded, is a radio that will stay on signal. I find that I get them tuned to the station I want then gradually they slip off station and there is lots of static and poor sound.

Can anyone suggest a simple radio that will be reasonably reliable? Or maybe there is a reason for this problem?

Quaderno

Well, if the same problem happened to occur with several different devices I think it might actually not be something to do with the radios itself.
What station(s) would you normally listen to? If you have experienced fading in the signals on FM (87-108MHz, basically every modern radio receives this range as a standard) I would rather think of an antenna problem or maybe some kind of interference from devices around or near the house. A noticeably drifting radio would rather surprise me.
If you would listen to something like RTE1 on 252kHz long wave on the other hand then the normal change in the ionospheric conditions during day/nighttime hours would spring to mind. Could you please be a bit more specific as to what kind of radios you have tried already and what stations you are trying to listen to? That would make finding a solution easier.

looksee wrote: »

I do not listen to radio (or tv) a lot, but I would like a radio just to have in the kitchen. It doesn't have to be amazing sound or anything elaborate, and I would prefer it it were not too expensive.

However, what I do want, and have not been able to find in several radios that have been bought and discarded, is a radio that will stay on signal. I find that I get them tuned to the station I want then gradually they slip off station and there is lots of static and poor sound.

Can anyone suggest a simple radio that will be reasonably reliable? Or maybe there is a reason for this problem?

looksee

I would mostly have been listening to the standard rte stations, mostly Lyric and wlrfm. I have had two or three radios of no particularly well known make, I can find plenty on google that look similar but I don't know which I have had - those very common round shape ones with the bug-eye speakers and a cd player on top. I have used them in two entirely different buildings with the same problem so presumably it is the radio that is the problem.

The one I previously used in the kitchen had to be arranged at a very precise (and inconvenient) angle with the antenna exactly right, and even then it was not reliable, okish for wlrfm but could not hold lyric.

Should I be able to get consistent reception with just the antennae provided?

I am quite willing to pay more for something a bit better, but I have no idea what to look for.

Quaderno

If you experienced the same problem with various radios in different locations I would just guess that you are in an area where the coverage for the stations you are trying to receive is not great, i.e. you are quite a distance away from the next transmitter and/or possibly in the shadow of a hill that blocks the line of sight to the transmitter. A rather crude map of RTE transmitter sites can be found here, this should give you some indication as the the signal strength you should expect: http://www.rte.ie/radio/page/138471-rte-radio-ways-to-listen/#analogue-air
Radios are of course different in terms of the way they are able receive (weak) signals and some cope better than others, but without a sufficient signal any receiver would struggle. What I would do first is try to find a relatively short piece of simple wire (about 1.5m would do, a bit more doesn't hurt) and attach it to the telescopic antenna of the radio. Straighten the wire out as good as you can and see what that does. If you have a window near the radio where you can simply let the wire hang down on the outside that would be even better. That should go a long way to improve the signal if that's indeed the reason for the problem and it shouldn't cost anything to try out.

looksee wrote: »

(...) I have used them in two entirely different buildings with the same problem so presumably it is the radio that is the problem.

The one I previously used in the kitchen had to be arranged at a very precise (and inconvenient) angle with the antenna exactly right, and even then it was not reliable, okish for wlrfm but could not hold lyric.

Should I be able to get consistent reception with just the antennae provided?
(...)