More Radio Days

This time last year I was asked by someone from Ipsos Mori to take part in one of the regular surveys of radio listening carried out for RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research). (Read Again Here). As part of the survey I had to state how many radio sets I owned. In a small terraced house we had six. Plus one in the car, one in the shed on the allotment, the radio that comes through the TV and three on the boat.

The three on the boat are now in the house, making nine sets plus the others in the car, telly and allotment. (We've loaned one to Hilary's mum so she's now got four). But you can never have too many radios. Last September I bought a Roberts DAB set for the spare bedroom, where I also have my "office" (ha!) and where I'm writing this blog. I had a Roberts on the boat and was very pleased with it (it's now in the kitchen) but digital radios can only sensibly be run off the mains (they eat batteries) so you tend not to regard them as portable.

This week, I've gone even further and bought a Bose. These really are top-of-the range radios. I know, because I've already got one. A second Bose was quite an extravagance but the ageing Sony mini-HiFi in the front room suffered from poor FM reception and was only used for playing CDs.FM radio reception is a problem in Lancaster apparently and to be honest, the Bose isn't much better although it does, of course, have the DAB option. DAB itself is a bit hit-and-miss locally. My four sets can receive different stations depending on which room in the house they are used.

The Bose radio/CD. The Internet bit is the bit at the bottom.

But the new Bose has an added extra: Internet radio! What more could a radio fan ask? Radio from all over the world - with perfect reception. I've been listening to Jazz from California, Local news from Tasmania and various sorts of stuff in incomprehensible languages from all over the globe. All over the globe except Lancashire that is! Despite all the technology, if I want to listen to my own BBC local station, BBC Radio Lancashire, downstairs I can only do so on what I still know as "Medium Wave" although on the Bose the AM reception is pretty good.

And if you are wondering if I ever find time to watch TV,then I do; but this is being written by someone who was still watching telly on a small black-and-white portable well into the 1990s, by which time we must have been one of the few holders of a £25 "Mono only" licence. So unusual was this by then that we received regular visits from the people who check up on such things to inspect our set to make sure we couldn't get colour!