I bought this as a birthday present to myself recently and I must admit it’s bloody brilliant. I’ve had a digital radio in the past and, like terrestrial digital TV, it can be difficult to get the full range of services unless you’ve got a big aerial or you’re close to the transmitter.
This is the Logik IR100 Internet Radio and goes for either 89.99 or 40 on eBay ;) Sign in to reciva.com and add your radio in, then either use the web panel to choose a radio station or select from the radio itself. The good bit about using the web panel is that it’s easy to use and you can add favourites which can then be selected from the radio. There’s literally thousands and thousands to choose from – I listen to quite a few “Internet only” stations without adverts and I sometimes listen to stations that transmit outside our local area, so this is great. I’ve now got everything – chill out music, dance music and even the odd stream from websites that weren’t listed in the Reciva database.
You can also stream music that’s in shared folders on PC’s in your network. Brilliant.
The only thing I’d advise is to ensure you’ve got a good router – the radio connects to your WiFi to get onto the web, so a wireless router is obviously a must, but definitely set the QoS (quality of service) too because if you’re doing some heavy downloading on your PC or laptop you’ll find that the streaming stations you’re listening to will start to drop out. The radio uses a Linux OS which is upgradeable and there’s stations from around the planet – in the video below I’m just quickly showing you some Caribbean stations that brought a smile to my face :)