How to Listen to GLOSS FM

How to listen to GLOSS FM

There are several ways to listen to GLOSS FM.  In this article we review how to listen using a plain old radio, an internet radio, your PC, our browser toolbar and even by mobile phone!

 

FM Radio

During our FM broadcasts, from Yate to Chepstow, Almondsbury to Berkeley we provide a good signal in most of South Gloucestershire and you should have no problems in receiving us. You can see an indication of our approximate coverage area on the home page.  However, with a poor quality radio, or in more outlying areas or in certain houses with thick walls and small windows our signal may be weaker, so some effort may be required to fiddle with your aerial to get a good signal.

Known weak signal areas are Lower Almondsbury, Tockington, Charfield, Wotton and some areas of Bradley Stoke.

The effect of a good aerial and its orientation should not be underestimated. If you are using a portable radio, ensure the silver rod aerial is fully extended. Also try moving the aerial to multiple angles from horizontal to vertical, and try to move it near a window or the corner of a room.  Bed-side radios often have a bundle of wire at the rear.  This is an aerial, so try unfolding it and placing it in various directions until you get a better signal!  If listening on a mobile phone FM radio, then remember it uses the headphone lead as an aerial, so you will get best reception by stretching the lead out as straight as possible, if possible vertically.

Make sure you have fresh batteries, or ideally plug it into the mains if possible. Try to move your radio away from sources of interference.  Powerful electical devices like some lighting, washing machines, TV’s etc can produce strong interfering signals which swamp radio reception. Car radios are normally more sensitive than domestic radios, although you may need to fiddle in the menu to switch the tuning to manual to find GLOSS FM, as sometimes the auto-tune is set to skip past small stations and only select powerful regional and national stations.  We have had reception reports from as far afield as Ludlow in Shropshire, Membury Services (M4), Bath and Weston-Super-Mare, so don’t give up and persevere! There is good general advice on the BBC website here:

www.bbc.co.uk/reception/analogueradio/fm_reception.shtml

If you are having further reception problems then please get in touch with us  at technical@glossfm.org and we’ll do all we can to help out.

 

WiFi (Internet) Radio

These are very like any normal radio that you might have sitting on your window sill in the kitchen.   You need a broadband internet connection and ideally WiFi to make these radios work (although it is to connect them with a network cable).

They start at around £50, and go right up to £200 or more.  You may see a selection here: http://www.radio-now.co.uk/buy_wifi_internet_radios.htm.

At this price they are about the same cost as a DAB radio – but we reckon they are much better as they allow you to access thousands of radio stations rather than just 20 or 30 that DAB gives (not that you would want to listen to anything but GLOSS FM of course ;-)

Many of these radios use a technology called “Reciva” – which is essentially a directory of all radio stations in the world.  GLOSS FM is listed on Reciva under the UK category.

As with any WiFi device you need to “pair” them with your WiFi router as a once-only task.  Then once it’s up and running it makes it really simple to listen to GLOSS FM without having to turn your computer on.

What’s more, if you purchase a small (legal) FM transmitter and connect it to your internet radio’s headphone it is even possible to listen to GLOSS FM all over your house in between our RSL broadcasts on FM!  Just type “FM transmitter” into Ebay – prices start from £1.50

 

Computer

There are a number of ways to listen to GLOSS FM on your computer.  The easiest way by far is to just visit our website at www.glossfm.org and click on the “Listen Live” button on the right.

If you want to listen to GLOSS FM while you browse other websites, then why not download our browser toolbar?

This creates a narrow toolbar that sits at the top of your browser and makes it easy to listen.  It also provides a host of local information, news and weather at your fingertips, and convenient Facebook and YouTube buttons.  You can download it here:

http://GLOSSFM.Toolbar.fm/

If you have your own preferred media player software that you prefer to use, then you will need to enter the “URL” of our stream into your player.  This is:

http://www.glossfm.twofourdigital.net/GlossFM/01.asx . For the technically inclined, this is a stereo WMP stream at 64kbps (but we do some clever stuff to make it sound surprisingly good for that encoding rate!)

What’s more, if you purchase a small (legal) FM transmitter and connect it to your PC’s headphone or speaker socket it is even possible to listen to GLOSS FM all over your house in between our RSL broadcasts on FM!  Just type “FM transmitter” into Ebay – prices start from £1.50

 

Mobile Phone

It is possible to listen to GLOSS FM on your mobile phone.  It is best if you have “3G” coverage, but it can still work in plain old “2G” or GSM coverage.

IMPORTANT – don’t do this unless you have an unlimited data package on your phone, or you are confident that you will not grossly exceed your monthly data allowance.  Also beware if roaming as data charges can be VERY high around £4000 per GB!

Many network place a cap on usage (say 500MB a month – check your contract) and charge extra above this cap.  As an indication, if you listen at full quality 64kbps stream, the 500MB would give you around 17 hours of GLOSS FM – so if you had 1GB cap that would allow you 34 hours – roughly an hour per day for a month.

There are two main ways to get GLOSS FM on your phone:

  • Smartphones and Ipod Touch – Whether you have an Apple iPhone, an Android, Blackberry or whatever, download an app called “TuneIn Radio”.  Once it’s installed just do a search for GLOSS FM and add it to your presets.  You can find out more here: http://tunein.com/

 

What’s more, if you purchase a small (legal) FM transmitter and connect it to your phone it is even possible to listen to GLOSS FM on your car radio in between our RSL broadcasts on FM! Just type “FM transmitter” into Ebay – prices start from £1.50