Combined CD player and French Radio Stations

I'm looking for a piece of equipment which will deliver the capability to play CD's, either via hard CD's or iPod, but which will also have radio capability in Ireland to play French radio stations. Talking to people in the like of Curry's etc. is a no-no - they just don't seem to understand the requirement. Is it an impossible ask?

You mean an internet radio?

Hi Time, no - not Internet radio - we only have basic wifi (in our location in Wexford it's really poor). So, I'm looking for an actual device like a combined CD/radio but which will give good delivery on French radio stations. No Internet involved! Back to basic hardware!

The problem is that you simply won't pick up ordinary FM stations from that far away without a seriously good aerial. Do you have a satellite TV service like Sky? Because you could use that dish to pick up a couple of French-language stations like TV5 Monde. Otherwise an internet radio is really the only option.

I have a Sky satellite dish and box, but I don't subscribe to Sky - I use Freesat. Can I pick up French radio on that medium?

I'm not 100% sure. I've a similar set-up (you mean [broken link removed], though, not Freesat which is only available in the UK) and in addition to all the BBC regional variations, ITV, Ch4 etc. we get 50 or so satellite radio stations at the end of the list, in the 900s. Most of them are independent UK stations but there are a few in Arabic/Urdu/Pakistani etc., so there might be something in French?

[Edit: sorry, no. Here's the full list...]

Otherwise, you could point your dish instead at the Lyngsat or Astra 1M satellite 19.2° East instead of 28.2° East and pick up a clatter of French and other European stations — but you'd lose your standard UK stations then. You could however install a second satellite dish and get both, but you'd need a bit of technical assistance there.

Is your internet connection really that bad? Streaming internet radio doesn't require a superfast connection, AFAIK...

I was in holidays in Wexford last year and out location had no 3G, no 2D signal at all. Strange to be without a signal.

Thank you, Dr. Moriarty. Yes, the Internet wifi here is dire - never got more than 2 bars on the icon, sometimes is down for weeks at a time. The nearest satellite dish (or whatever technology they use at the various locations) is sited in Courtown, it's regularly down and they don't seem to like servicing it. I'm with Vodafone by the way. I've enquired about other service providers but apparently they all deliver bad service so the suspicion is that they all share the same satellite dish. Just trying to watch a video clip is painful, you might get a run of a few seconds, then it stops, and continues on this vein until the end, if you're lucky. By that time, it's so frustrating that you stop the video. I'll have a look at that list of stations, ty very much for that.

De rien.

Eithneangela said:

Just trying to watch a video clip is painful, you might get a run of a few seconds, then it stops, and continues on this vein until the end, if you're lucky. By that time, it's so frustrating that you stop the video.

Click to expand...

You might still find that streaming audio from an online radio station fares better — the bitrate needed (i.e. speed at which the data is streamed) is much lower than for video, usually.

Try listening on your computer to a few of the channels listed on www.radio.fr. If they're écoutable on your computer they should work equally well on a standalone [broken link removed] (these aren't cheap, though... especially if you want a built-in CD player).

Failing that, you could download podcasts (from the link above) and listen to them on any portable .

Wonderful advice! I'm now going online to Amazon to search for a DAB Radio with built-in CD player. If they have something like that, then I'll check the price, and search Irish equivalents (Powercity, Curry's etc. to see if I can get an equivalent price etc.) I just never thought of approaching it like that. We have a radio in every room at home, great at delivering the traditional RTE stations (which I must admit to having on in the background all the time!). Hopefully, problem solved with yet another gadget!!!