Internet radio - old git needs advice

Serendipitous Sid

Serendipitous Sid

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When I'm on the PC, I have no end of stations to choose from, and no problems with either reception or sound quality. But I wanted to listen when the PC's shut down, and seeing as how we needed a decent portable radio anyhow, we were advised that if we bought a Roberts iStream, we would have the very best of all worlds. So we did. But we haven't. What we do have is a good-sounding DAB/FM radio which also connects to a very limited range of internet radio stations when it feels like it, which it doesn't very often.

All I want to do is listen to an unrestricted choice of internet radio stations, usually in the room in which our PC lives, without firing up the puter. Having made one expensive mistake (the Roberts), I can't afford to make another, so what are my options - if any?
 
Firing up the 'puter springs to mind!!!
 
Ditto.
Cheapest option. What's the big deal? :)
 
Or your phone, I used to listen to a number of internet radio stations on my iPhone 5 and stream it to either my airport express or my apple tv.
 
No big deal as such, it just seems like overkill to listen to music. When we bought the present piece of crap Roberts, one idea was that we'd be able to use it all round the house, and we can - but alas not if we want to listen to internet radio :(

Am I really snookered for options then?

jakeblu said:
Or your phone, I used to listen to a number of internet radio stations on my iPhone 5 and stream it to either my airport express or my apple tv.
Click to expand...

I have neither smart phone nor any Apple product apart from my iPod :)
 
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Serendipitous Sid said:
No big deal as such, it just seems like overkill to listen to music. When we bought the present piece of crap Roberts, one idea was that we'd be able to use it all round the house, and we can - but alas not if we want to listen to internet radio :(

Am I really snookered for options then?



I have neither smart phone nor any Apple product apart from my iPod :)
Click to expand...
Which Ipod is it, does it have bluetooth, wifi? if so that and a bluetooth speaker is all you need :)
 
Serendipitous Sid said:
No big deal as such, it just seems like overkill to listen to music. When we bought the present piece of crap Roberts, one idea was that we'd be able to use it all round the house, and we can - but alas not if we want to listen to internet radio :(

Am I really snookered for options then?



I have neither smart phone nor any Apple product apart from my iPod :)
Click to expand...
It is a bit annoying, I know what you mean.
But, it's no big deal to turn on the PC once a day
I have to turn on my tuner when I want to listen to the radio...
:)
 
Daft question, Roberts make fine radios, why isn't your one working the way you want? is it a wifi problem? is the radio simply not able to get the stations you want?
 
Have you got a good wifi signal all over the house?
 
You said you wanted to use the radio in the same room as the computer: is the router in the same room?
 
Router is in the same room as the radio, but radio is ridiculously sensitive to position relative to router. Moving it from being 50cm away to 150cm away can be the difference between it loading a station and not loading it, whereas our laptop picks up a good wireless signal all over the house and in the garden.

What happens is I do a factory reset, then go through the internet radio setup procedure, and it works perfectly OK. Then it realises it's fooled me, so once I've gone through the laborious process of finding a few of the stations I like and saved them as presets, it starts acting up. If I go to a preset station, sometimes it'll connect, but more often than not it won't. I then try switching to another preset, whereupon the thing just crashes i.e. display stays on the preset which wasn't working but none of the controls work so I have to switch off at mains. The problem's still there when I switch back on later.

Firmware is current version, it's not a station problem, I don't see any evidence of the router being to blame - and naturally it's out of guarantee :rolleyes:
 
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Are you handy? if it's o.o.g and you're planning to replace it anyway why not have a look inside at the aerial and it's connections, it might be something quite simple like being loose.
 
It would be OOG!
Typical.
It might still be worth getting in touch with them, 'goodwill' and all that.
 
Serendipitous Sid said:
Router is in the same room as the radio, but radio is ridiculously sensitive to position relative to router. Moving it from being 50cm away to 150cm away can be the difference between it loading a station and not loading it, whereas our laptop picks up a good wireless signal all over the house and in the garden.

What happens is I do a factory reset, then go through the internet radio setup procedure, and it works perfectly OK. Then it realises it's fooled me, so once I've gone through the laborious process of finding a few of the stations I like and saved them as presets, it starts acting up. If I go to a preset station, sometimes it'll connect, but more often than not it won't. I then try switching to another preset, whereupon the thing just crashes i.e. display stays on the preset which wasn't working but none of the controls work so I have to switch off at mains. The problem's still there when I switch back on later.

Firmware is current version, it's not a station problem, I don't see any evidence of the router being to blame - and naturally it's out of guarantee :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

How long have you had the radio ?

If it's under warranty, I'd return it and see if a new one behaves as you'd expect ?

It doesn't sound right to me moving the radio in the same room by a metre would mean it looses the wifi signal / the wifi signal drops that much that it can't pick up all the stations - surely it would loose every station as they're coming down the Internet, so it's the wifi signal that is sending them to your radio and you've no obstacles in the way (walls etc) that could interfere with the wifi signal ???

Hope it makes sense and is of some help...
 
About 50 years ago, people used to talk about "listening to the wireless", strange how the term is being revived again.
 
Well, thanks for all the suggestions guys, but I've just spent another hour on this and got nowhere. The thing works fine on FM and DAB, and it doesn't seem to need the external aerial to pick up the signal from the router so it's not that. Aside from the dropout/crashing issue, the search facility (enter station name) is a dead loss - as is Roberts customer service - so an executive decision has now been taken.

It's going on Ebay, listed as having an internet radio issue but otherwise 100% :cool:
 
I see some Roberts Internet radios have "wired or wireless connection", presumably an Ethernet socket. That would be a way to check if the fault was due to wifi or otherwise.
 
assuming you decide to write off the roberts what about getting a cheap tablet - Hudl/Lynx etc to use when you don't want to boot the PC up - if the speaker quality isnt good enough you could also get some usb or blue tooth speakers
 
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