[Junk Box Nick]

Originally Posted by ndg-2000

Haha brilliant, I'm 42 and Radio 4 is what's on in my van every day. Unless The Archers is on! Must be old before my time LOL.

I used to listen to Radio 4 when it was still on MW with my first home made Practical Wireless OC44 receiver. I used to fall asleep listening to Book at Bedtime and mother would come in and gently remove the earphone from my ear. I even listened to The Archers! I was still at school. Don't know what that says about me. (Or perhaps I do...)

Re R4 LW in the car: LW reception in my recent cars has been very poor. My current car (16 years old) has an upgraded radio (CD player!) compared with the one (cassette player!) in my previous car of the same model but older. Test Match Special was tolerable quality in the previous car and I could hear RTE reasonably out of town but LW reception is hopeless in the current one. (Bear in mind that Droitwich is just down the road from me.) MW was ok but it seems they were paying little attention to LW back at the turn of the century. In new cars it's probably all FM/DAB and bluetooth whatever.

The previous generation of AM/FM car radios seem set up for FM and to get acceptable reception on AM but not optimised for LW. The little stubby car aerials that are inevitably a compromise won't help.

In any hire or courtesy car I find that the presets are invariably set to various pop stations and Radio 2. A week ago, as a favour, I picked up a customer of a business where I go and do a bit and he immediately remarked that I was listening to "a decent station" - Radio 3.