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Kitchen radio with "old-fashioned" presets

uncl_nigel

uncl_nigel

pfm Member
Touch screens are not all that helpful for the blind (or people with shaky hands), so I was happy to find a kitchen radio with old-fashioned presets. The sort which you just press to get Radio 4 or whatever else you want. Not a touch screen in sight :) Another plus on my find - at switch on it reverts to the last station and volume used.

My find is the Tangent Pebble @ 50€

Any other members found something along the same lines?
 
I use a Tangent Quattro. Originally for internet radio, but its supporting IR access, RECIVA, is no more. It has a separate FM tuner and presets.
 
My Tivoli DAB has 5 numbered presets on the DAB input. It’s not a bad radio for what I use it for. I picked it up used locally for £25 with the second speaker option (not really needed imo). When I got it home, I found it was missing the external aerial which is needed for DAB! The Tivoli FM radios use the mains cable as an aerial and I thought the DAB would be the same....picked up a cheap replacement aerial on ebay. Works good.
 
uncl_nigel said:
Touch screens are not all that helpful for the blind (or people with shaky hands), so I was happy to find a kitchen radio with old-fashioned presets. The sort which you just press to get Radio 4 or whatever else you want. Not a touch screen in sight :) Another plus on my find - at switch on it reverts to the last station and volume used.

My find is the Tangent Pebble @ 50€

Any other members found something along the same lines?
Click to expand...
Is voice control any use to you? I have a Sonos Roam on order which is voice controlled, and also often use “Hey Siri” do do things on my iPad iPhone and watch. Siri is very useful, I can easily make a phone call hands free, and dictating text is also incredibly good, almost perfectly accurate as long as you don’t rush.
 
I use an Alexa to do this. It sits in the kitchen connected to a stereo. "Alexa play 6 Music" or similar and that's you. When I tire of Radio 4, 6 Music and Radio Paradise I can explore Korean death metal without leaving my seat. Or Ethiopian string quartets.
 
brab said:
I use a Tangent Quattro. Originally for internet radio, but its supporting IR access, RECIVA, is no more. It has a separate FM tuner and presets.
Click to expand...
My Quattro in the garage still works fine on internet radio. Are you saying it will stop working someday soon?
 
Nero said:
My Quattro in the garage still works fine on internet radio. Are you saying it will stop working someday soon?
Click to expand...

Reciva's webpage says the webpage is shutting down April 30. Along with other reports of Qualcomm, Reciva's parent, shutting down Reciva, I'm pretty sure this means the system will shut down then or soon after. I now use a tablet to get internet radio stations and use the Tangent as an AUX speaker via the tablet's headphone output. SQ is better than before with the Tangent's internal IR tuner.
 
Been looking into this - yep, looks like my Quattro will die this month. I guess I can pick up a uPnP IR stream from a server somewhere else in the house? Is there such a thing? Maybe on a Synology or ReadyNAS (as I have those)? Should I start another thread?
 
If someone can solder then note that CPC/Farnell sell a cheap and simply-to-make kit for an FM radio with 4 buttons for preset stations. It can autotune these and just uses a few buttons. I made one just for fun and if you have a fairly decent VHF signal level and use a decent speaker it sounds better than most portables. (I did mod it a bit, but only trivial changes.)
 
Are presets really that much easier than a classic old-school analogue radio with a tuning knob? I’ve got a couple of classic old-school Roberts analogue radios (an R25 and a Revival 200). I could very easily use either without sight as they are so simple and well laid-out. All the BBC FM stations are pretty close to one another, so not much tuning effort required, though I have to admit I just leave them tuned on R4 90% of the time (it’s only religion or The Archers that will hoof me elsewhere).
 
Tony L said:
Are presets really that much easier than a classic old-school analogue radio with a tuning knob? I’ve got a couple of classic old-school Roberts analogue radios (an R25 and a Revival 200). I could very easily use either without sight as they are so simple and well laid-out. All the BBC FM stations are pretty close to one another, so not much tuning effort required, though I have to admit I just leave them tuned on R4 90% of the time (it’s only religion or The Archers that will hoof me elsewhere).
Click to expand...
The ease of use navigating a very crowded FM band is not the same without the presets, especially for my wife who is only interested in 3 stations widely spread along that very band..
 
Tony L said:
Are presets really that much easier than a classic old-school analogue radio with a tuning knob? I’ve got a couple of classic old-school Roberts analogue radios (an R25 and a Revival 200). I could very easily use either without sight as they are so simple and well laid-out. All the BBC FM stations are pretty close to one another, so not much tuning effort required, though I have to admit I just leave them tuned on R4 90% of the time (it’s only religion or The Archers that will hoof me elsewhere).
Click to expand...

ditto: the dial is a pleasure under the fingers. Ours stays on all night in our bedroom. Occasionally it get kicked off it’s setting but it’s easy to dial in again in the dark. It also has a light that brightens as you hit the sweet spot: very satisfyingly. I think I had something similar on a bit of Quad tuner back in the day...
 
If you want a proper radio these days you'll need to get one at least 30 years old S/H. This in fact applies to virtually all electronics now other than hi fi where there is still loads of gear built the same as 30 years ago.
 
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