Viewing 21 posts - 1 through 21 (of 21 total)
  • small DAB radio for my garage
  • breninbeener
    Full Member

    Im looking for a recommendation for a small mains powered DAB radio for the garage.

    Id like to be able to plug in my mp3 player through an aux 3.5mm jack too.

    Im not bothered about bluetooth but it may be handy.

    Mostly it will be chat radio i listen to, so it doesnt have to have great performance.

    thanks

    scaredypants
    Full Member

    do you live in an area with good DAB reception ?  If so, pretty much “anything” will work fine so all you need is one that sounds good (bit bigger box = better as my general rule, unless you can test them somewhere)

    Reception is shit round my way and I’ve found that Roberts seem better than pure (move), “lava” cheapo from Sainsburys or a John Lewis thing that looks like a lego brick (it sounds the best but faithfully reproducing screeches and gurgles isn’t helpful)

    perchypanther
    Free Member

    I bought a tiny DAB radio, a Groov-e Rio from tesco for £20ish. It only works with headphones  to use as an antenna but an aux cable and a little Bluetooth speaker have got me a portable, rechargeable or mains operated Radio that i can take from site to site in my laptop bag.

    Works really well.

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    jekkyl
    Full Member

    Old phone and Bluetooth speaker

    swanny853
    Full Member

    John Lewis DAB is pretty good in my book, although it’s gone up 5 quid since then. Takes batteries if you want, audio in and as a nice bonus if you have any exposure lights the plug is the same, so you can use the exposure usb power lead and a usb battery pack to power it.

    santacruzsi
    Free Member

    If you can get WiFi in your garage buy an amazon echo dot or similar in the sales. You can get internet radio via them and all of the dab stations.

    deadkenny
    Free Member

    WiFi + any Internet radio device / Amazon Echo etc, or phone and speaker if you’ve got a good data plan.

    Way more channels, can stream your MP3s off a PC, NAS, phone, cloud storage or just use Spotify etc, and DAB reception is pants in a lot of places and more so likely in a garage.

    Input with a 3.5 aux may be less likely. Many will have output to use headphones though. If they’re Internet devices they may have DLNA support so you can play from phone/PC/whatever to the device. But yeah Amazon stuff will just do it all for you, though I’m no fan of talking to my devices 😀

    Kuco
    Full Member

    When my DAB radio died I did as some have already suggested above and just get a bluetooth speaker and connect it to my phone.

    Dickyboy
    Full Member

    Whilst we are on the subject, anyone know if a Roberts dab radio will work in france? A bit of light googling suggests different dab types 🤔

    garage-dweller
    Full Member

    I have a little mono Roberts one that is very good. Has built in battery charger so you can leave some rechargeable AAs in it.

    duncancallum
    Full Member

    Roberts is the one

    DezB
    Free Member

    JVC D77 is a great unit. Stayed in a farmhouse where they had one and was so impressed I bought one off ebay.

    deadkenny
    Free Member

    Whilst we are on the subject, anyone know if a Roberts dab radio will work in france

    If it does DAB+, maybe. France is mostly DAB+. UK mostly DAB though a lot more services than France. There are band differences also I think with DAB.

    Though French radio is dire. UK stations won’t be available unless you can pick up a UK signal on the coast.

    Problem with DAB it’s a rubbish “standard” that differs in each country with frequencies, standards and channels, and poor quality even compared with a good FM signal. It’s limited in take up around the world with UK being one of the biggest adopters while most others have ignored it. North America went for satellite radio which provides a decent quality and very good reception in remote areas, although does depend on subscriptions to pay for it.

    drnosh
    Free Member

    I was in the car travelling on Thursday pm, from East Midlands area to East Anglia area.

    For the whole afternoon there was no DAB reception at all.

    FM reception no problem.

    Never known FM to be off air for such a long period.

    slackalice
    Free Member

    Screwfix are selling the rather neat Dewalt DAB radio for a penny under £100 at the mo. One of the decorators at work has one and whilst the sound isn’t quite as good as the Makita site radio, it’s a good robust unit.

    https://www.screwfix.com/p/dewalt-dcr020-gb-dab-fm-compact-site-radio-240v/97681

    FunkyDunc
    Free Member

    Why would you buy DAB these days when we have internet?

    nickdavies
    Full Member

    As above.. if you have WiFi or a phone you can tether just grab an echo dot. £20 or £25 for the new version. Just done exactly the same for my garage, just working in there now – “Alexa play talk sport” and it just grabs it from tunein. Also puts the heating on, orders things from amazon, that’s all I’ve done with it so far!

    bsims
    Free Member

    We have a Sony dab in the kitchen, sits on the widow ledge and has survived the changes in climate and being splashed with dishwater etc. It’s an S10 from the mid noughties, but it successor may be worth a look.

    CountZero
    Full Member

    Why would you buy DAB these days when we have internet?

    You may find this hard to believe, but there are plenty of places in the U.K. with zero phone connection, or it it’s there, it has no data; there are stretches of south Wiltshire going into south Dorset where I needed to contact someone about a car I was due to pick up, and I might get a minute or so of connectors across ten miles of driving. DAB reception in the team car was never a problem anywhere we went across the south of England. I have a Kenwood DAB in my car that’s around seven years old, with a small mag-mount antenna, and reception dropouts are very rare; FM, on the other hand, has been absolute shite for years. I’ve picked up FM-only cars in Cornwall, and driven in silence for three hours, because of the crap FM reception, that was in cars only two or three years old. I really can’t imagine using FM in a car, it’s useless.

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    “Why would you buy DAB these days when we have internet?”

    If I stream radio over the house WiFi no one else can use the internet. The joy of over copper wire miles from exchange internet.

    Wouldn’t swap it for a cardboard cut out in a town with good internet though.

    I Just use DAB as it’s highly effective and doesn’t drain my phone battery

    FM how ever still trumps dab in terms of shear signal. My little dab in the camper frequently gets switched to FM when in the Highlands as dab is not available .

    Dickyboy
    Full Member

    Cheers deadkenny, just asking as my brother* wanted to take my dad’s Roberts back to his place in France – have to check if it is dab+ or not

    *he is french so not expecting to receive UK stations

Viewing 21 posts - 1 through 21 (of 21 total)

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