The Friendliest Computer Club in Ventura County Since 1986
WI-FI INTERNET RADIO
This is a reprint from the July 2007 issue of TOE (The Outer Edge)
By Jim Thornton
Imagine sitting in your living room or den and listening to a streaming audio radio program over the Internet but your computer is located in another room or even way upstairs. This desktop Internet radio is small about the size of a loaf of bread and all you had to do was to plug it into an electrical outlet, turn it on, and you began hearing radio stations clear across the country and even overseas without the need for a large outdoors antenna. Your radio's Internet connection is coming to you through a standard 802.11b or 802.11g Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) access, the same that is used by all portable laptop computers, cell phones with Internet accessibility, etc. Verizon provides to its FiOS (Fiber Optics) customers an 802.11g wireless router, which works perfectly with the radio.
The silver and black radio has a blue LCD display; two LEDs; a combination ON-OFF switch, volume control, and tuning knob; and ten small pushbuttons. The display shows the Internet address of the radio station, the Menu, Router Signal Strength, and Wireless Ready status and there is a display backlight intensity control. The menu choices are Configure, Media Player, and Stations. The buttons are labeled Shift, Back, Select, Reply, ON-OFF, 1-6, 2-7, 3-8, 4-9, and 5-10. The numbered buttons, also, perform additional functions of Stop, Fast Forward, Reverse, Forward, and Pause. The LEDs indicate whether the knob is controlling the menu or the volume. The physical size of the radio is approximately seven inches high and five inches both wide and deep. The radio, also, has a clock with the usual radio alarm clock features. At the time that the alarm is set to go off, the radio will turn itself on to last station that you were listening to. If by chance that station is not broadcasting at that time, then the radio will sound its buzzer. Another interesting feature is that you don't need to have your computer turned on to listen to the radio.
Using the radio is very easy. With your wireless network up and working, turn on the radio and the radio will display "Wireless Network OK" if your network doesn't need a password. If it does, then enter the password and after the network has accepted the password then the radio will display "Wireless Network OK". Next depress the Select button and the display will show Location or if you turn the knob then the display will change to Genre. The difference between the two settings is that Location will provide you the choice of the stations from the 120 countries sorted by continent (Africa, Americans, Asia, Caribbean, Europe, Middle East, Oceania, or All Countries) or if you selected Genre, then the stations are sorted by News and Talk or Music (Blues, Country, Dance Easy, Folk, Gospel, Greek, Indie, Jazz, Kids, Pop, Public, Reggae, Rock, Top 40, Varied, World, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 31 others). You can save a favorite radio station and assign it to one of the ten present buttons just like your car radio has and skip the manual selection of the station. Some authorities have estimated that there are over 2,000 stations in the United States broadcasting over the Internet and between five-to-ten times that amount worldwide. There are no subscription fees associated with the radio.
You can, also, listen to audio files (MP3, WMA, Real Media, etc.) that are stored on your computer using the standard Window Media Player features of playlists, etc. The radio plays in stereo through its two internal speakers. It, also, has a stereo headset jack for stereo headphones or for connection to a hi-fi or home entertainment system.
The British designed radio is called the Acoustic Energy (AE) Wi-Fi Internet Radio and is available from C. Crane (www.ccrane.com) and its price is $299. Its Owner's Manual is written in English, Chinese, French, German, Russian, and Spanish.
As a longtime shortwave radio listener with 108 QSLs (written verifications from the foreign country stations confirming my listening reports) who listened to numerous distant shortwave radio stations that were always very noisy due to static, fading, and/or interference from adjacent stations, with the Internet Radio the reception is very clear and free of these distractions. The quality is expressed as better than CD quality and a huge step up from a satellite radio.
