Listening to the radio

[mōdgethanc]

Traditional radio is a dying art here, I'm afraid. Online streaming music and smartphones have made it redundant to the younger generation, and besides, it's become so commercialized that all the stations play the same top 40 bubblegum pop crap. There are exceptions, like CBC and classical or jazz stations, but on the whole they're pretty much interchangeable.

I work at the campus radio station as a producer and it's one of the few stations which has truly alternative content (no hits, lots of talk shows) and I do two shows myself, one an hour long and one half an hour. Both are talk shows and a ton of work.

[md0]

The main reason I enjoy the web audio drama Welcome to Night Vale is that the POV character is a radio producer, and at times, a rogue one at that.
It's a character type I feel drawn to. Alas, I never received coaching in public speaking (something I realised schools in many other countries give to their students one way or another), I wouldn't be able to do much in front of the microphone even if I'd like to.

[Car]

And on a tangent, I should really get someone to go up the roof at turn our TV aerial towards the sea. Apparently it's trivially easy to receive Israel's DVB-T channels if you are in the southern coast of the Cyprus. Actually it would be better if we had a second aerial so that my brothers can keep watching their football matches with Greek commentary.

Can't you motorise these things? We have a motorised antenna for radio reception (not that the motor is used much these days).

[Lada]

Traditional radio is a dying art here, I'm afraid. Online streaming music and smartphones have made it redundant to the younger generation,

Many smartphones have FM-tuner and it helps a lot in case you have slow internet which is a case here especially in rural areas. LTE is not so widespread here yet...

I listen to music radios only - my favorite radiostations:

http://www.chantefrance.com/ - this radio plays only French music and thanks to this radio I discovered many bands and singers I really like.
http://www.nashe.ru/ - this is only Russian music radio, mainly pop-rock, folk-rock, rock, something with guitars.

[md0]

Can't you motorise these things? We have a motorised antenna for radio reception (not that the motor is used much these days).

Yup, you can technically do that.
But I don't think I can justify the cost.
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Many smartphones have FM-tuner and it helps a lot in case you have slow internet which is a case here especially in rural areas. LTE is not so widespread here yet...

One of the reasons I hoped I could use my portable radio at work is because even if my phone's speaker was loud enough, it would drain the battery quickly (we are not allowed neither a charger or headphones at work).
Data wouldn't be a problem, because we use the guests' wifi.

---

Today, finally my first day off from work after almost 20 days, and I tuned for the 10 AM music programme... only to discover that the usual producer is on leave. Her temporary replacement is also good, no complaints, but the usual producer is a bit more experimental in her music choices, playing dialectal music from all over the Grecophonie (that huge language community ).

[md0]

I am having second thoughts over the radio I decided to purchase when it's released.

I was to go for Traveller III, which is a true portable (9*13.5*3cm) and gives you FM-RDS/MW/SW/LW at ~50EUR.
But now I am looking at Field... double the size, and double the price. It gives you FM-RDS/MW/SW but no LW. Which I am really curious about, but as a broadcast band it's walking dead. There's BBC R4, RFI, TRT4... Probably just those 3 stations. But for its lack of LW, it gives you RF gain control, selectable bandwidth and Local/DX switching. Those features improve reception of weaker signal. It still doesn't give you a PLL circuit (to keep a lock on the frequency) and the ability to tune to a single sideband. The first is really nice to have, but the second... I don't know. It's mostly useful when you listen to amateur radio.

I almost feel like I should get both. That's 150EUR plus shipping. I suppose I'll just get Traveller.

[mōdgethanc]

Many smartphones have FM-tuner and it helps a lot in case you have slow internet which is a case here especially in rural areas. LTE is not so widespread here yet...

I've thought that would be a good idea, since it's probably cheap and easy to install, but now that LTE is common in big cities at least, it seems redundant. But it's good to know Internet radio is thriving.

I also forgot one market where radio is still popular: Satellite radio for cars. Since it can be impossible to get 3G or even terrestrial radio while driving through rural areas, sometimes it's the only option.

[md0]

From what I read MW (AM) radio is more popular in the US, compared to Europe. Perhaps the population density is part of the reason, since AM radio propagates through the ground.

Conversely, sat radio is unheard of in Europe, and MW where available is used as a "gap filler" with the FM broadcasts being the norm.

In south Cyprus only 2 state-run stations broadcast in MW (out of the 4 state radios). My grandfather, fed up with the honestly hideous frequency allocation of CyBC on FM, listens to their AM broadcast instead.
FM

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AM

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[TeneReef]

I like listening to 99.1 hits FM (St. John's) , Fun Radio 95.3 (Lund) and Radio Power Pinamar 100.3 FM (Pinamar),
sometimes I listen to other radio stations thru TuneIn app (I'm ''following'' 99 stations).
My favorite talk show is Coast to Coast AM (which is in fact a breakfast time program here in Europe )

[Halfdan]

What's so special about St. John's radio?

[Varislintu]

First the stats for Finland: Radio reaches three quarters of Finns daily, and the average amount people listen to it is 3 hours.

I think people mostly listen to radio in their cars and at workplaces.

Me, I've been an on-and-off radio listener. It was more important to me as a young teen, and it's been dwindling ever since. I listen to radio mostly for music.

Currently I mostly listen to Radio Vega, which is a Finland-Swedish station aimed mostly at the middle aged or older population. I'm not entirely sure why I listen to it -- some of the content is really cheesy. I think it's my curiosity mostly. They send a pretty wide variety of stuff, from old Swedish schlagers to pop to discussions to Jesus talk (there are strong Jesus strongholds in Swedish speaking Finland). I like that I can turn it on and not really know what I'll be getting. And it's nice to hear my minority mother tongue as well.

For better music, I tune into Groove FM, or Radio Helsinki.

Oh, in December I mostly listen to the Christmas song frequency. This year, after the people who run the Christmas station used up their time slot on that frequency, next in line was an Estonian station, Finest FM I think they called it, aimed at Estonians who live in Finland. I found it so interesting I listened to it throughout their slot, a month or two. They played Estonian pop music and a lot of dance, which you don't get that much of in Finnish radio stations. It was a lot more energetic than what I'm used to. Also nice to listen to them talk in Estonian.

[TeneReef]

Currently I mostly listen to Radio Vega, which is a Finland-Swedish station aimed mostly at the middle aged or older population.

Similar to Guldkanalen 80-tal
http://www.guldkanalen.se/lyssna-pa-gul ... /webbradio

[Varislintu]

Currently I mostly listen to Radio Vega, which is a Finland-Swedish station aimed mostly at the middle aged or older population.

Similar to Guldkanalen 80-tal
http://www.guldkanalen.se/lyssna-pa-gul ... /webbradio

Maybe, but based on the short listen I did right now, Guldkanalen seems to be quite a bit groovyer.

[mōdgethanc]

groovyer

groovier

Oh, in December I mostly listen to the Christmas song frequency. This year, after the people who run the Christmas station used up their time slot on that frequency, next in line was an Estonian station, Finest FM I think they called it, aimed at Estonians who live in Finland. I found it so interesting I listened to it throughout their slot, a month or two. They played Estonian pop music and a lot of dance, which you don't get that much of in Finnish radio stations. It was a lot more energetic than what I'm used to. Also nice to listen to them talk in Estonian.

This is probably a dumb question, but: What does Estonian sound like to Finns? Can you understand it at all? Is it like Scots, or more like Dutch?

[Hoogstwaarschijnlijk]

I never listen to the radio, apart from the period between Christmas and New year's eve, when there is the famous 'Top 2000' - you can vote on the songs you like most and the 2000 most popular are being played then, day and night.

I couldn't find any (recent) numbers on how many people in the Netherlands listen to the radio.

[Varislintu]

This is probably a dumb question, but: What does Estonian sound like to Finns? Can you understand it at all? Is it like Scots, or more like Dutch?

Why would it be dumb? Estonian usually sounds funny to Finns, because in many ways it sounds like (contracted) spoken Finnish taken too far (Estonian words are generally shorter than Finnish ones). Also they have a very different l-sound and the rhythm of their speech is a lot more sing-songy than Finnish. Sometimes it sounds like Finnish with the wrong vowel sounds. For example, "question", is kysymys in Finnish and küsimus in Estonian. Since Finns often mangle Finnish by changing the vowels as a way of joking, it sounds a bit like Estonians are joking, too.

I would say it's more like Dutch than Scots in terms of understanding it, though. You get better at navigating the false friends, etc, if you listen to it a lot, but right off the bat its hard to understand it. You recognise cognate words and sometimes entire phrases, but sooner or later you lose track of what's being said.

[md0]

I always feel a bit bad that Greek is the only Hellenic language surviving. And from within Greek, my native dialect is the only non-standard dialect with decent media output.
I can't experience what you guys experience with Dutch if you are speaking English, or Estonian if you are speaking Finnish etc.

Maybe if the Republic of Pontus and/or the Caucasian Greeks in the USSR were able to maintain statehood, we'd had something exciting to listen to on radio/TV.

[vijayjohn]

I always feel a bit bad that Greek is the only Hellenic language surviving.

I never knew there were any other Hellenic languages.

[md0]

Perhaps I should have used "other Ionic-Attic" languages.
There are two other hypothetised Hellenic languages, *Ancient Macedonian, and *Phrygian but that's not what I meant to say.

[md0]

I made this!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... _in_Cyprus

It's 5/6 complete (I need to research N.Cyprus private stations, and that will be rather difficult).

But we have ~45 FM stations in the south (depends on whether you include the British Forces Radios).

I need to check out the two university radios UCY and CUT (from their webstreams, since they are Low Power Local stations). Curious as to how much "university radio" they sound like.