What no web addresses?

Why do you not put the radio stations web addresses up - I was looking for 102.8 Ram FM.

Ahh, but we do! You need to go to the directory part of the site and click on the map. We only have live audio links on the "listen live" page. Most of the audio links are kept separate from the main directory as it makes it easier for me to check and modify the links. Ed.

received via feedback form

What happened to Mercury in Harlow?

Whilst browsing yesterday, I noticed that you have 96.6 Mercury FM listed, but on checking the koko.com site, it seems to be 101.7 Mercury FM in Harlow, Essex. You are right though to say that 96.6 is in South Herts and, as far as I can tell, will be the last one to go live. The Mercury stations are a little confusing unless you know which one you are looking for.

Robert, via feedback form

The Mercury you mention on the koko.com site is 96.6 Mercury FM covering South Herts, but you have brought up an important point: Where is the site for Mercury FM in Harlow? Have koko overlooked the station? Did the team at koko at some point sit down and make a conscious decision not to produce a site for 101.7 Mercury FM? More likely, the site will be up at a later date. Perhaps, though, there are plans to merge the station with either Essex FM or Mercury in St. Albans? Does anyone know? At time of writing, 2CRFM, Northants FM and 96.6 Mercury FM do not have active links for live audio: the speaker images are there, but are not clickable. Ed.

Steve from the koko site for South Herts has kindly replied that the 101.7 Mercury FM site is within the Essex FM site as the service area for 101.7 Mercury FM is within that of Essex FM. He has passed on my comments about the lack of an audio link for 96.6 Mercury FM to the programmers in London.

Sunday, 25th March

When are the Beeb going to broadcast local live audio?

Hi, any news on whether the Century stations plan to have live audio? Also, I wish the BBC local stations would revert to a live feed rather than just playing the latest news broadcast. Still, I suppose it is small progress. I hope that Radio York provide an audio service in due course as I originally come from there and it's great to hear news from that part of the country, although Radio Leeds goes some way to making up for this. However, it's great that Stray FM can now be heard over the web. Keep up the good work.

Robert, via feedback form

It's a shame the BBC don't offer a couple of their larger local stations outside of London on the web - stations like BBC WM in Birmingham, GMR in Manchester and so on. I agree with your comments - if BBC London Live can be made available on the internet, why can't other stations? As for the Century stations, the only website up at the moment is for 105.4 Century FM in the North West, so it may be while yet before we'll be hearing these stations over the web. Ed.

Friday, 2nd March

How much would you pay for a digital radio?

The results are in! In our Quick Vote we asked our visitors how much they would be prepared to pay for a digital radio for the home and car.

Broadcasting minister Janet Andrews warned last month that the price of digital radios would have to fall significantly before listeners switched from ordinary FM and AM radios to the new technology. The minister said:

'Digital hi-fi radios currently cost from £300 to £2,300 while in-car radios range from £250 up to £6,500. For more people to take up this fantastic new experience in sound, the radios need to be more affordable...'

The vote provided few surprises, with the majority - or 68% - of voters willing to pay between £80 and £140 for a standalone digital tuner that plugs into an existing hi-fi. 24% were prepared to pay a little more - between £140 and £200. 6% could see themselves forking out more than £275 for the opportunity to tune in to more stations, which presumably means an imminent purchase of the technology! Just 2% of voters already own a digital radio, which is surprising given that this is a site dedicated to radio! This bodes well with the fact that the most popular national radio station links on this site are to the established AM/FM radio stations. In the eyes of our visitors, then, digital radio has a long way to go in terms of affordability for the average listener.

4% of voters had a car hi-fi with digital radio, with the remaining 43% willing to pay not much more for digital radio than an ordinary car stereo - between £80 and £130. 53%, however, wouldn't mind spending between £130 and £200 to have digital radio in the car. No-one voted to pay above £200 for a car simple car hi-fi with digital radio. Ford has a 5% stake in MXR (local digital radio operator) and is planning to give its customers the option of having a digital radio fitted in the near future.

Some of your comments included:

'I have been waiting for the prices to drop and have just ordered a Technics DAB for £350. The system will not really take off until they produce a portable for around £50.'

'There just isn't enough public awareness of digital radio, unlike digital television.'

'I would only buy a digital radio at current prices if the analogue service was discontinued and digital was the only way to listen to radio - the same for digital television!'

'They should make a portable dab radio tuner!'

We have reviews of the VideoLogic and Sony home tuners here.

Thursday, 15th February

LBC back on the air!

Hi
LBC is back on air in london on 1152 - I don't know since when, but I have been listening to them during the day, since Talk Radio became talkSPORT.

Your info an all these stations is rather out of date to say the least, but you have a great site anyway. There's also some good information about the background of stations that aren't around any more.

Anon, via e-mail

Yes - LBC has been back on the air for a good while now. It's been around since 1996/1997, if I remember correctly. The station is the re-launched London News Talk and it is still owned by London News Radio. The 'new' LBC has no connections with the original LBC (which lost its licence to London News Radio in 1993) except by name. GWR Group plc used to provide the programming for the station up until about 2 years ago, when ITN assumed responsibility for the station's output.

I always encourage feedback from visitors and, in the case of information about formats (i.e. news, talk, adult contemporary music, etc.), I'm grateful for visitors' help in keeping our listings current. Maybe I should set up some sort of list of contributors and call it the 'Hall of Blame'! I obviously can't tune in to every UK station from here in Bristol, so I rely mostly upon station websites for information. If the information on these is incorrect, then so is its listing on the site! Needless to say, your corrections and contributions are always welcome!

Ed

Imagine stations without a website

Please can you find out for me why radio stations such as The Wave in Blackpool and Imagine FM in Stockport, both of which I listen to quite a lot and both owned by the Wireless Group, don't have a website. It has been more than a year since The Wave's website has been on line. What's going on? As for Imagine FM - this is a relatively new station so you can expect some wait, but do you know if there is there one in the pipeline?

David, via e-mail

Those 'holding' pages have been around for a long time! I think The Wireless Group may be reviewing their online strategy: I have read on some newsgroups that they may be thinking about standardising the design of their websites for all of their stations (along the lines of GWR Group's koko.com) and, if this is true, it does make sense since TWG do have a large number of stations under their belt. I think one of the reasons some stations do not have websites is that the maintenance of these can be expensive - getting a page up is relatively cheap, but having a maintenance contract is another matter!

Having said that, I took a look at the site of The Pulse yesterday and the site seems to have had a design makeover since I last looked. However, the live audio link has been removed. Unfortunately, The Wireless Group do not yet have an e-mail contact on their website, so I can't even put the question to them!

Ed

Great site

Great site - I'm so pleased to see Radio Caroline!

anon, via feedback form

It was about time I put a link up for the station! Cheers

Ed

Sunday, 3rd December

Listening to Capital FM in Blackpool?

I can listen to digital radio through Sky television, but how would I listen to other digital radio stations, such as Capital Radio in London, if not through Sky? By the way I live in Blackpool, Lancashire.

Sandra Braithwaite

(i) If you wanted to listen to Capital from Lancashire, then the only way I can see that you could listen is through your PC whilst connected to the internet. Obviously the quality isn't going to be great through a standard 56k modem connection, being of an inferior quality even to medium wave. If you have access to an ISDN line the quality would be much better, but this is unlikely to be the case! I have seen a standalone radio that connects to the internet so that, in theory, you could listen to any station in any part of the world that streams its output over the internet, but this would be no different to listening through your PC. Unless you have signed up with an ISP that gives you completely free internet access at times when you want to listen to Capital, this option is obviously always going to cost you extra money.

(ii) The only way to listen to digital radio stations without using your Sky box is to buy a digital radio tuner. There are home tuners available, but these are beyond the reach of most people's pockets and aren't readily available on the high street. I'm a bit out of touch with the prices, but I would guess that you'd be looking at a miniumum of £300-500 for a digital radio for the home. There are car digital radios starting at around £300 for the base unit. Psion manufacture a small unit that hooks up to your PC to receive digital radio, called the Wavefinder. The price of the unit is around £299. The Wavefinder website is definitely worth visiting and also offers valuable information about digital radio. An excellent resource for digital radio can also be found at Digital One's website.

Ed

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