Here on the Isle of Bute I only get West FM, Clyde 1, Cool FM, Classic FM and Argyll FM on FM and West sound, Clyde 2, RTE1, Manx radio, Absolute and Talksport on AM.. Some parts of the island also have good reception of Galaxy, Real and Smooth.
BBC , I get on FM 1,2,3,4,Scotland, Ulster and Nan Gaidheal and on AM 4,5, Scotland, Ulster and Cumbria.
From what I've experienced on my travels West Norfolk, particularly around Hunstanton, is extremely poor for radio choice. Given the town is in West Norfolk you get a very weak signal (if you're lucky) from KLFM, a poor signal from BBC Radio Norfolk (although no where near as bad as KLFM), no regional service (Kiss 105-108 is on par, if not worse than KLFM), and national FMs come from Belmont, Lincolnshire (i.e. BBC R1-4 & Classic).
BBC Radio Lincolnshire and Lincs FM come belting in, which isn't a surprise considering they come across the Wash from Belmont too. Also you can usually hear Viking (96.9) and Galaxy (105.8) on the road running along the Hunstanton cliffs. BTW, there is no official local AM commercial radio service for that area (Gold 1332 and Magic 1161 are weak, and Gold 1152 is much weaker). TalkSport and Absolute aren't too bad, as they come from a site near Boston (you can see Boston from the cliffs on a clear day).
PS - The last time I was up that way there was no DAB service. Do any forum members know if that has changed now??
Stoke is shielded from the Midlands Regionals by the hill Meir Heath sits on. This makes Kerrang/Smooth 105.7/Heart 100.7 very ropey round town.
Century gets interference from Leicester Sound (105.4) and Heart 106 used to be OK till Rock Radio 106.1 / City Talk 105.9 started
I reckon an Eton E5 portable would separate City Talk, Heart and Rock Radio to listenable levels and also get you 97.7 XFM Manchester and Galaxy 102 and 102.2.
Although for the £90 it's now priced at you might as well buy an internet radio and stream what you want.
I reckon an Eton E5 portable would separate City Talk, Heart and Rock Radio to listenable levels and also get you 97.7 XFM Manchester and Galaxy 102 and 102.2.
Although for the £90 it's now priced at you might as well buy an internet radio and stream what you want.
Thank you for the tip.
Most of my radio listening in the home is either done online, DAB or satellite.
On FM Both Galaxys, both Hearts, all 3 Smooths, XFM, Cheshire FM, both Beacons, Century, City, Rock FM, Marcher, The Severn, Silk, Ram, Touch, are listenable where you may be but are useless on the the move and, news weather, traffic etc do not cover us.
Hence, Stoke has a poor commercial official coverage.
Newark-on-Trent has to be even worse served - Smooth Radio and patchy coverage (at best) from the nationals! The whole Trent line is a bit poorly served (in relation to the conurbation sizes) - squashed between the North West/Yorkshire and West Midlands!
In Norwich, until 2006 we only had 8 FM stations:
BBC R1-4
BBC Norfolk
Classic FM
Broadland
Vibe FM/Kiss
...but we now also have Radio Norwich and community station Future. On a good radio (e.g. the one on my MP3 player which is the best one I have in the house, it's even quite good for DXing!), KLFM from Kings Lynn is usually in listenable stereo, but it can get interfered by Future which is on a very close frequency to it. North Norfolk Radio and The Beach sometimes get picked up quite well on my parents' car radio.
This summer on a visit to London, I was getting a station every 0.2MHz whilst sitting outside Liverpool Street train station. I'd never experienced anything like it, haha.
We've got extended family who own a house way up in the Highlands (we're talking an hour or two NORTH of Inverness).
I was there just over 10 years ago. You couldn't get terrestrial TV, or FM. Radio 4 came in on Long Wave, but that was about it. Even if you went towards the coast, either East or West, where most of the larger settlements are in that part of the world such as Ullapool, Bonar Bridge, or Lairg, all you could get on FM was the BBC Nationals, and often no Classic FM.
I haven't been up that way since, so I don't know whether it's improved. I was surprised to discover that there does now appear to be decent mobile reception up that way these days, which must be a recent development.
NORTH of Inverness? Shock horror.
I find the mobile reception dismal on all but Vodafone (and possibly O2 but I've never used them myself), but your mileage may vary depending where you are in the Highlands.
Most of the larger villages and towns on the west coast have had their own FM community station since the late 90s/early 2000s. The stations aren't "community radio" as we know it in England, but are run on full commercial licences with high power and often multiple transmitters. However, they don't get much advertising, they're run by volunteers and funded by Europe, HIE, the lottery and various other bodies.
In Ullapool you can hear Lochbroom FM, while a bit down the coast in Gairloch, Two Lochs Radio is available. Cuillin FM broadcasts to Skye, Nevis Radio in Fort William and Mallaig then Oban FM in, erm, Oban. There aren't many populated places in the West Highlands without a community FM service these days.
In North Cumbria we have BBC Nationals, BBC Cumbria, and CFM Radio (a Big City Network station) and Manx stations in coastal areas.
In South Cumbria there is BBC Nationals, BBC Cumbria, The Bay, Abbey FM (Barrow), Lakeland Radio (Kendal), and Century Radio.
With regard to Stoke-on-Trent, I agree wholeheartedly. Considering the population base, the offerings on radio are very bleak. Just as was said previously, the Potteries seem to be located in an FM no-man's land between Birmingham and Manchester.
Another area with less than inspiring reception of FM choices is Loughborough. You need a very good FM receiver to pick up anything beyond Oak FM, Leicester Sound and a few Nottingham stations. With an average FM receiver, Oak FM is so powerful that it overloads your radio.
I had a decent Sangean portable with me and I did pick up the likes of Heart 106 from Nottingham/Darby with a slightly less than perfect signal, but nothing from the west Midlands. Your basic choices there seem to be the usual compliment of BBC signals, Oak, Leicester sound, Heart 106, and 2 weaker than local feeds of Smooth FM. At least that was the case last winter.
Mercia/Beacon/BRMB/ Leicester Sound/Wyvern are all the same with a similar networked output.
Touch is the only one that does anything for me and Kerrang is a decent listen most of the time, but rumour has it that that the Kerrang name will be short lived.
Hmmmmm Since the WMN (which Leicester is not part of ) joined together the midlands now has a local netowork... the output is better and they can actually sound better IMO... its what the BBC do with their midland stations at night.
So you dont mind touch's networking but you do mind the West Mid Network....
I think you are confusing the issue of network with the fact you dont like the songs the west midlands network play.
Thats it.... Well, you can get other commercial stations, but they are only relays of the same thing (Chiltern) on a different frequency, either a second or 2 ahead or behind each other all playing the same repetitive narrow playlist! :mad::mad::mad:
I reckon that Red Dragon should have a rely to broadcast in Swansea - Considering that their tag line is " South Wales' Hit Music Station". Swansea is in South Wales, yet the signal cannot be heard there. There is no CHR station in Swansea.
Why should Red Dragon have a relay anywhere near south west Wales? Red Dragon is a *local* radio station for Cardiff, Newport and surroundings. South Wales' Hit Music Station is just a tagline for a radio station that is simply based in south Wales.
96.4 FM The Wave used to use South Wales' Number One Hit Music Station for a while, but it's still only a *local* station for Swansea and surroundings. (That was before they morphed into a replica of Swansea Sound and Swansea Bay Radio)
Kent has some bad choice. Invicta used to be one of the best stations in the UK(in the late 80's and early 90's), nowadays it is a GCap owned station so it is bland-o-thon a registered trademark of that company. All the decent presenters (Rod Lucas, Ian Collins, Neil Francis, Julie Maddox, etc) have gone. The all night music shows are gone. They use Steve Penbks networked late night talk show on it, there used to a call in show on late Sunday night which was good, no more nowadays.
Radio Kent is a bit stuffy for me, I used to listen to Barbara Sturgeon on it, sadly she left in 2004.
KMFM is just has the same playlists and none of the presenters are any good on it.
In north Down ,just 10 miles from Belfast i can only get the usual BBC radio 1,2,3,4&5,
BBC Radio Ulster, the usual BBC local mish-mash, some good ,some bloody awful.Good news & nightime, the rest pretty dreary.
U105, for those who find Hugo Duncan's woeful irish country bollocks on Radio Ulster a bit too avant garde.Jerry Lang's on it now though which is a step in the right direction.
Citybeat Belfast, not too bad but suffers from the usual commercial playlist & ad disease, but not half as bad as,
CoolFM, makes all the rest look like nuggets of gold. Must be the worst station in Britain, unless you compare it too its sister station,
Downtown, I heard it was once considered to be the most popular radio station in the UK ( per head of population) but now couldn't grab anyone's attention if it stood up drunk & pissed in the font of St Pauls Cathedral during a Xmas service. Run into the ground so much that it will soon start broadcasting in Melbourne. A scandal.
Chuck in ropey reception of whatever Virgin's called this week & TalkSPORT & thats it.
I don't list any DAB stations as i can't get any where i live.
Kent has some bad choice. Invicta used to be one of the best stations in the UK(in the late 80's and early 90's), nowadays it is a GCap owned station
KMFM is just has the same playlists and none of the presenters are any good on it.
I suggest the fix is a couple of redundant trawlers hooked to the bottom of the north sea off Clacton or Felixstowe. Just let them get on with doing what they like. 40Kw of AM down the LF end of the band and if it works allow another at Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Get an established entity to run it ( Ronan O'Rahilly may be a good start), allow an open form of payola rather than the current covert system (Wogan for xmas #1 WHY ?) let us all enjoy the music, Oh - 1967 had something in it's favour after all.
Comments
BBC , I get on FM 1,2,3,4,Scotland, Ulster and Nan Gaidheal and on AM 4,5, Scotland, Ulster and Cumbria.
Unfortunately where I live there is no DAB.
BBC Radio Lincolnshire and Lincs FM come belting in, which isn't a surprise considering they come across the Wash from Belmont too. Also you can usually hear Viking (96.9) and Galaxy (105.8) on the road running along the Hunstanton cliffs. BTW, there is no official local AM commercial radio service for that area (Gold 1332 and Magic 1161 are weak, and Gold 1152 is much weaker). TalkSport and Absolute aren't too bad, as they come from a site near Boston (you can see Boston from the cliffs on a clear day).
PS - The last time I was up that way there was no DAB service. Do any forum members know if that has changed now??
I reckon an Eton E5 portable would separate City Talk, Heart and Rock Radio to listenable levels and also get you 97.7 XFM Manchester and Galaxy 102 and 102.2.
Although for the £90 it's now priced at you might as well buy an internet radio and stream what you want.
Thank you for the tip.
Most of my radio listening in the home is either done online, DAB or satellite.
On FM Both Galaxys, both Hearts, all 3 Smooths, XFM, Cheshire FM, both Beacons, Century, City, Rock FM, Marcher, The Severn, Silk, Ram, Touch, are listenable where you may be but are useless on the the move and, news weather, traffic etc do not cover us.
Hence, Stoke has a poor commercial official coverage.
Newark-on-Trent has to be even worse served - Smooth Radio and patchy coverage (at best) from the nationals! The whole Trent line is a bit poorly served (in relation to the conurbation sizes) - squashed between the North West/Yorkshire and West Midlands!
Hmm, to be honest I'd be tempted to use an I-Trip with recordings of some decent stations or my own MP3's.
There will be one commercial station receivable :-
Heart (on 103.3, 97.6, 96.9, 96.6 and 102.6)
No regionals, no small ILR's (sallies) and no community stations.
Not bad, for a city with a population of 200,000+!!!!
BBC R1-4
BBC Norfolk
Classic FM
Broadland
Vibe FM/Kiss
...but we now also have Radio Norwich and community station Future. On a good radio (e.g. the one on my MP3 player which is the best one I have in the house, it's even quite good for DXing!), KLFM from Kings Lynn is usually in listenable stereo, but it can get interfered by Future which is on a very close frequency to it. North Norfolk Radio and The Beach sometimes get picked up quite well on my parents' car radio.
This summer on a visit to London, I was getting a station every 0.2MHz whilst sitting outside Liverpool Street train station. I'd never experienced anything like it, haha.
2 Hearts (Global)
2 Smooths (GMG)
Mercia (Global West)
Leicester Sound (Global Hit Music)
Gold Coventry (Global)
Oak FM Hinckley (Lincs)
Kerrang (Bauer)
NORTH of Inverness? Shock horror.
I find the mobile reception dismal on all but Vodafone (and possibly O2 but I've never used them myself), but your mileage may vary depending where you are in the Highlands.
Most of the larger villages and towns on the west coast have had their own FM community station since the late 90s/early 2000s. The stations aren't "community radio" as we know it in England, but are run on full commercial licences with high power and often multiple transmitters. However, they don't get much advertising, they're run by volunteers and funded by Europe, HIE, the lottery and various other bodies.
In Ullapool you can hear Lochbroom FM, while a bit down the coast in Gairloch, Two Lochs Radio is available. Cuillin FM broadcasts to Skye, Nevis Radio in Fort William and Mallaig then Oban FM in, erm, Oban. There aren't many populated places in the West Highlands without a community FM service these days.
In South Cumbria there is BBC Nationals, BBC Cumbria, The Bay, Abbey FM (Barrow), Lakeland Radio (Kendal), and Century Radio.
Another area with less than inspiring reception of FM choices is Loughborough. You need a very good FM receiver to pick up anything beyond Oak FM, Leicester Sound and a few Nottingham stations. With an average FM receiver, Oak FM is so powerful that it overloads your radio.
I had a decent Sangean portable with me and I did pick up the likes of Heart 106 from Nottingham/Darby with a slightly less than perfect signal, but nothing from the west Midlands. Your basic choices there seem to be the usual compliment of BBC signals, Oak, Leicester sound, Heart 106, and 2 weaker than local feeds of Smooth FM. At least that was the case last winter.
Hmmmmm Since the WMN (which Leicester is not part of ) joined together the midlands now has a local netowork... the output is better and they can actually sound better IMO... its what the BBC do with their midland stations at night.
So you dont mind touch's networking but you do mind the West Mid Network....
I think you are confusing the issue of network with the fact you dont like the songs the west midlands network play.
The BBC Nationals.
BBC 3 Counties.
Chiltern 96.9 (soon to be Heart)
Classic FM.
Thats it.... Well, you can get other commercial stations, but they are only relays of the same thing (Chiltern) on a different frequency, either a second or 2 ahead or behind each other all playing the same repetitive narrow playlist! :mad::mad::mad:
BBC R1-4
Ocean FM
Classic FM
Galaxy South Coast (Was Power FM which i now miss
Wave 105
The Coast
IoW Radio
The Quay
Why should Red Dragon have a relay anywhere near south west Wales? Red Dragon is a *local* radio station for Cardiff, Newport and surroundings. South Wales' Hit Music Station is just a tagline for a radio station that is simply based in south Wales.
96.4 FM The Wave used to use South Wales' Number One Hit Music Station for a while, but it's still only a *local* station for Swansea and surroundings. (That was before they morphed into a replica of Swansea Sound and Swansea Bay Radio)
Radio Kent is a bit stuffy for me, I used to listen to Barbara Sturgeon on it, sadly she left in 2004.
KMFM is just has the same playlists and none of the presenters are any good on it.
BBC Radio Ulster, the usual BBC local mish-mash, some good ,some bloody awful.Good news & nightime, the rest pretty dreary.
U105, for those who find Hugo Duncan's woeful irish country bollocks on Radio Ulster a bit too avant garde.Jerry Lang's on it now though which is a step in the right direction.
Citybeat Belfast, not too bad but suffers from the usual commercial playlist & ad disease, but not half as bad as,
CoolFM, makes all the rest look like nuggets of gold. Must be the worst station in Britain, unless you compare it too its sister station,
Downtown, I heard it was once considered to be the most popular radio station in the UK ( per head of population) but now couldn't grab anyone's attention if it stood up drunk & pissed in the font of St Pauls Cathedral during a Xmas service. Run into the ground so much that it will soon start broadcasting in Melbourne. A scandal.
Chuck in ropey reception of whatever Virgin's called this week & TalkSPORT & thats it.
I don't list any DAB stations as i can't get any where i live.
I suggest the fix is a couple of redundant trawlers hooked to the bottom of the north sea off Clacton or Felixstowe. Just let them get on with doing what they like. 40Kw of AM down the LF end of the band and if it works allow another at Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Get an established entity to run it ( Ronan O'Rahilly may be a good start), allow an open form of payola rather than the current covert system (Wogan for xmas #1 WHY ?) let us all enjoy the music, Oh - 1967 had something in it's favour after all.
Luxury
Mid Wales/Cardiganshire area, only 1 LOCAL commercial radio station; Radio Ceredigion.