Planet Rock retune, not impressed;

[great central]

My son bought me a new DAB car radio for my birthday, very nice listening to Planet Rock in the car. Anyhow on my way over to Norfolk for the week not long after passing Kings Lynn heading east the signal starts to break up. Apparently this area won't be served by PR. Looking on the getdigitalradio site all there seems to be is BBC which I find, at best, annoying or these 'middle of the road' commercial stations. I'm seriously annoyed, wife tut tuts about PR at home so when I'm here on my own I can have it on all day.

It's not been the same since Bauer Media bought it up, I presume this decision is down to them as well, probably cheaper, my experience of them is that they are cheapskates so not totally surprised, still annoyed though.

[Siberian Snooper]

We can't get it down here either, which means I will only be able to listen to it when I'm on the computer or when the tablet is within WiFi range.

[Suzie]

I gave up listening when they decided that a 64Kb mono audio stream was acceptable. Planet Rock is a bit of a joke now.

[Siberian Snooper]

Well that's that then, back to listning to run of the mill dross, unless someone knows of another rock radio station that is available in Plimuff.

[ozthedog]

Try Jango Radio via internet.  You can choose music genre to suit.

[great central]

Try Jango Radio via internet. You can choose music genre to suit.

But I got no internet in my caravan

[Suzie]

These radio stations pay for all sorts of transmission - web, DVB-T, Satellite, etc. and forget that we want to listen on a car or portable radio!

 

All they need to pay for is a 256Kb joint stereo transmission on a (the) national multiplex and they might get a few listeners.

 

Planet Rock might get a bit more advertising revenue if they make some effort to convince advertisers that people actually listen, but it is probably too late for that now that what was once a big and loyal audience has now deserted. As someone who is not exposed to broadcast advertising very often it was a golden opportunity for advertisers to target me - an opportunity missed.

 

Last time I listened the play list had reduced to a handful of bland tracks, being a bit more imaginative and playing more than would fit in a CD changer might help too.

 

I am sure that if we get a few national L-band multiplexes broadcast from a satellite the transmission cost will go down, but I don't think that anyone in the radio industry cares.

 

I spent over £500 for my car radio, that is how much I wanted to be able to listen to Planet Rock in the car, but I think I have been let down, and it is getting worse.

 

The radio industry wonders why most digital radio listeners only listen to the BBC (which is available elsewhere than just digital). I think they need to effectively ask the listeners! The answers are out there.

[Oakydoke]

Planet Rock went bland a few years ago and I found myself listening less and less, until I stopped listening altogether, except for occasional listening in the car.

It's a shame, as in most parts of the country, especially the regions, there is no alternative to bland cr*p local commercial stations.

[great central]

Agreed that PR went bland, reckon after the sale to Bauer, but still a reasonable alternative to the rest of the available dross.

I've settled on Absolute this morning, not bad, Genesis on at the moment, at least most of what I've heard so far I recognise!

Can't help but wonder if they're trying to kill off PR, after all they already have Absolute Classic Rock on line. Usually have that on on Saturday evening when it's broadcast on the normal Absolute channel. Better than Mojo Rocks, mostly obscure stuff with some self absorbed twit nattering about nothing.

[Trainshed Terry]

I agree with all the sentiments of what has be said on here. I have a DAB radio in my car IT will not retune to any of the new channels as it only receives 2 radio stations.

 

BBC Radio 1, which plays the biggest load of vomit in the world.

 

BBC Radio 2, The old radio 1. 

 

BBC Essex. TO much chat.

 

Terry.  

[Suzie]

Bring back The Storm! A vibrant station axed a decade ago because GCAP thought it was the same as bland XFM. Bland always wins through in the UK.

[The Lurker]

I agree with all the sentiments of what has be said on here. I have a DAB radio in my car IT will not retune to any of the new channels as it only receives 2 radio stations.

 

BBC Radio 1, which plays the biggest load of vomit in the world.

 

BBC Radio 2, The old radio 1. 

 

BBC Essex. TO much chat.

 

Terry.  

have you heard 1xtra. That makes 1 sound OK. Mind you so does Capital which plays only hits and a limited playlist.

 

Part of Radio 6 is OK (Chris Hawkins, Gideon Coe, but Keaveney is a pain in the astrakhan coat)

 

Some of Radio X is OK but far blander than it used to be and whoever thinks Chris Moyles is a great dj needs their head examining.... is sadly mistaken

[avonside1563]

Best station I know of is, unfortunately, over 11,000 miles away in New Zealand. The Sound plays 60s-90s music, predominantly rock, 24 hours a day. It's available on the internet in the UK and I can also get it on my phone. What's even better is that in the day here it's night there and they play long tracks and full albums!

[Ron Ron Ron]

At home, for music my listening is now almost completely from internet radio stations (e.g. one favourite is Radio Paradise), or by streaming from Spotify and Tidal.

 

In the car it's a different matter. I can listen to my own music as my car has...

a built-in 6 CD auto-changer

a built-in HDD

full iPod/Phone integration

SD card slot

USB (e.g. music on a USB memory stick).

 

I keep an old iPod touch semi-permanently plugged in (socket inside the centre arm rest storage), with dozens of albums stored on it.

 

Radio wise, I often listen to talk radio stations in the car. BBC 5Live, Radio 4, even Talk Sport on occasion.

Music wise Planet Rock is one I'll often go to if there's nothing else on. Fortunately the re-tune has worked around these parts.

 

As I have Spotify and Tidal, I really must work out how to take advantage of the offline/mobile  service, so I can use those services in the car too.

 

 

.

[Siberian Snooper]

Try Jango Radio via internet.  You can choose music genre to suit.

No internet in the car, I will have to go back to pluging my mp3 player into the radio.

[PaulCheffus]

No internet in the car, I will have to go back to pluging my mp3 player into the radio.

Hi

 

I have internet built in to my car but I don't tend to use it much.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[MJI]

I have it bad, my car was built with the wrong radio which means I only get the odd FM channels.

 

Since it is integrated sat nav and controls, not easy to replace, and SH EU ones hold their value.

 

I only listen to talking now on the radio as other peoples music tastes can be annoying. Also half a channel out sounds nasty.

 

So full CD changer

[gismorail]

Planet Rock for me is a brilliant radio station and I was worried when I heard about the Big Digi retune due to living up a mountain in North Wales. Before the retune I could get Planet Rock at home no problem on my DAB home system, but in the car once I was about quarter of a mile from home the signal was lost until I got nearer to the Wrexham area. Now the retune has happened I can pick up Planet Rock  right into the Dee Valley in the more open areas but as the A5 cuts into the mountain areas the signal is lost. 

I have found that DAB in the car can be very frustrating as on the whole in this area coverage around Shrewsbury Wrexham Chester Liverpool and Manchester is good but that there are 'black holes' where the signal is lost for a couple of miles then it connects up again and its always when a vital bit of information is being listened too. 

 

I think that the whole digital change over on both radio and TV has been launched before all of the niggles have been sorted the TV being the most annoying when the picture seems to break up which seems to happen more so during a heavy rain storm. So it would appear that the general public are the quality control department as seem to be normal nowerdays. 

[Suzie]

Television has been sorted now that switchover is complete, you should have no problem getting a good picture if you got a good picture before (the digital transmitters are effectively 10x to 40x as powerful as the old analogue ones). If you are having trouble with BBC1, BBC2, ITV1 or Channel 4 (including HD) then you need to look at your aerial, downlead, or distribution system. Very few aerials installed in analogue times are any good - you will need to have installed a new one to prevent interference from causing pixelation and sound breakup. Many of the new transmitters are on different frequencies outside the analogue groups too which makes things worse for old aerials.

 

Radio on the other hand is a different matter. I find DAB coverage is quite good if you have a top-of-the-range aerial on the roof of the car, but otherwise it is not so good. The DAB transmitters are much weaker than the equivalent BBC FM ones, but they are installing more transmitters to fill in blackspots.

[russ p]

I'm not surprised you can't get DAB round Norfolk.

I believe that along the coast the signal comes from Belmont in Lincolnshire, there are a few places if you haven't got a long aerial you won't get much on FM

[Siberian Snooper]

I was in the London area at the weekend and although doing a number of scans I was unable too find Planet Rock and the only BBC station was radio 1 and BBC radio Wilts despite being on the Berks Hants border, with a brief foray into Surry and fm was not much better.

[great central]

I'm not surprised you can't get DAB round Norfolk.

I believe that along the coast the signal comes from Belmont in Lincolnshire, there are a few places if you haven't got a long aerial you won't get much on FM

Signal's fine, just that planet rock aren't on the transmitter for the area. Absolute is OK until they start wittering about football!!

[martin_wynne]

No advertising, no chat, you can cache (download) up to 12 hours of broadcasting onto a mobile device for when no internet, multiple stream formats up to 320K, send them a fiver occasionally:

 

 http://radioparadise.com

 

With 47,000 eclectic images in an accompanying picture slideshow if you want it. Including some of mine -- and yours?

 

Of course, I don't know if the music matches your taste, how could it?

 

Martin.