HD FM for my mother

SA-708

Appalachian-American
My mother is in her 70s and spends a good part of the day listening to music. She is also a musician; she was back playing the organ for her church a couple months after knee replacement surgery.

The local NPR station (WETS-FM) used to broadcast classical music in the mornings and Americana in the afternoons, but switched over to talk and news only on weekdays. Then they added HD broadcasting, and put classical music on the HD-3 channel and Americana on the HD-2 channel. They are the only HD radio station in the market, and also make the extra HD channels available to stream online (http://www.etsu.edu/wets/programming/listen.aspx)

Mom still has a component stereo system in the living room, with Onkyo receiver and CD changer (same generation so they share a remote), Dual turntable and JBL speakers. She also has two WiFi routers running right now (1.5 Mbps DSL service) but no smart phone. On top of that, she is looking to move out of the four bedroom split level house (where she has lived since 1977) into a smaller space on one level.

She wants to be able to listen to WETS HD-3 on her stereo system. The options I've looked at are an HD radio tuner (slim pickings and limited utility with only one local HD station) or some sort of audio streaming box (probably more complicated and perhaps throttled by the DSL speed). Any suggestions?
 
Get her an old Android or iphone connected thru Wi-Fi, run into aux. You can set a widget on screen to automatically stream the stations she listens to if she's not inclined technically (sounds like she is).

Or time to get her a smartphone? Might be simplest, get a bt receiver dongle and no wires needed.
 
I do not know if she uses any of the Direct Tv or Verizion music feeds but I think that is better than any HD FM. Verizon has a better mix of quality classical 24 / 7 with no chatter.
 
I do not know if she uses any of the Direct Tv or Verizion music feeds but I think that is better than any HD FM. Verizon has a better mix of quality classical 24 / 7 with no chatter.

Nono, the OP said she wants the LOCAL station's feed -

I'd probably try and pick up one of those outboard HD tuners -
or maybe this HD radio boom box - $54 and looks like it has an headphone jack you could run into her stereo system?

https://smile.amazon.com/Radiosophy...1492689713&sr=8-3&keywords=hd+radios+for+home
 
The Sangean HDT 20 might be the most practical solution. Personally, I wish WETS-FM would get an AM for the yakking and news, and put Classical back on the main channel, and HD2 and HD3 for talk and news.
 
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Any suggestions?

Rambling thoughts:

My mother (now passed) had a good audio system for a long time. However as she aged she was less & less interested in complexity and I devolved it to a Bose radio w/ CD player. It was simple & easy to use and the rest of the original system disappeared. She was very happy with it. Consider not over-teching yours for the HD solution.

One option to a dedicated tuner is call the station and see if they stream their HD channel and what it's ID is. Then you have many options to get it from smart phone, laptop, or new Roku. The Roku comes w/ free bundled channels such as Tune-In and they have many of the local market HD Radio ones available.

Lastly, the best HD FM is attained with an antenna. The nature of the signal being digital is that it breaks up and drops out easier than an analog one. It is far more affected by line-of-sight obstacles than regular FM. Even in an area saturated with HD Radio options, I can only tune ~6 from my home and that's from the drvieway, my car. The HD tuner in my house gets exactly one. At some point I am putting up a mast.
 
Lastly, the best HD FM is attained with an antenna. The nature of the signal being digital is that it breaks up and drops out easier than an analog one. It is far more affected by line-of-sight obstacles than regular FM. Even in an area saturated with HD Radio options, I can only tune ~6 from my home and that's from the driveway, my car. The HD tuner in my house gets exactly one. At some point I am putting up a mast.

Good point. Mom lives less than a mile from the WETS-FM studios, but her house is down in a holler and she does not have line-of-sight with their transmitter on Holston Mountain. That could change if she moves, but it would be nice to have something that would work both now and wherever she may move in the area. To be honest, the mountains 'round here may be the reason there are not more HD radio options in the market.

I can get the WETS-HD3 Windows Media Player stream to work on a Windows box, and their tunein.com stream to work in their iOS app on my iPad. I wonder what happened to that old iPhone my daughter had. With the right dock it might work, but it may be limited to an older iOS version that won't work with the tunein app.
 
Good point. Mom lives less than a mile from the WETS-FM studios, but her house is down in a holler and she does not have line-of-sight with their transmitter on Holston Mountain. That could change if she moves, but it would be nice to have something that would work both now and wherever she may move in the area. To be honest, the mountains 'round here may be the reason there are not more HD radio options in the market.

I can get the WETS-HD3 Windows Media Player stream to work on a Windows box, and their tunein.com stream to work in their iOS app on my iPad. I wonder what happened to that old iPhone my daughter had. With the right dock it might work, but it may be limited to an older iOS version that won't work with the tunein app.

When I was out hitting yard sales this weekend I passed on an iPhone 4 for $5. That was stupid as I have a use for it in exactly this way.

I use many streaming apps; each has their strengths -

Tune-In: Any station not covered by iHeart (many) and music. I use this primarily when I am on the Roku, the GUI is easy, favorites & no account set-up needed.

iHeart: Mostly for news, nearly every news station is on it, as well as local HD stations like Bloomberg. Fussy GUI, no favorites w/o account set-up, ads at beginning.

Servestream: I use this one only in the car and mainly for one website, SOMA-FM. I have an ancient version of Android on my craigslist phone and it runs this app fine.

A2Z California: This is a dedicated CA only radio station streamer. I can't find KSLG anywhere else so I use this to get it. There are many state-only radio streamers too.

(Of all the above though, the easiest to use is Tune-In on my Roku 4. Four clicks, TV on (starts on the Roku home page), Tune-In selected, station selected, then play.)

 
The problem with an HD FM tuner is that when the local radio station stops broadcasting classical music, you own a boat anchor. That's what happened to me several years ago after I bought a Sony HD FM tuner because my only local classical station switched to an HD secondary channel. Then that station switched to country music. (IMO the state of broadcast radio is sad – most stations have been taken over by sports, country music, and talk - because apparently that's what most people like.)

A better solution IMO costs $35: Chromecast Audio. I just pulled up http://tunein.com/radio/WETS-HD3-895-s157428/ in a Chrome browser on my PC. WETS-HD3 plays on my PC speakers until I click on the “cast” icon in the Chrome browser. Then I select which Chromecast device I want to cast to (I have 4 hi-fi systems equipped with Chromecast Audio devices). The music then plays through the hi-fi system that I chose (or I can broadcast to all Chromecast devices).

Here's a wonderful commercial-free 24x7 classical radio station that is free: kusc.org. I have classical stations all over the USA bookmarked.

No smartphone or tablet is needed – just a PC with Chrome browser. OTOH, if she wants to control music from her chair, she might consider a tablet or smartphone. I recently bought a new "open box" Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 tablet. IIRC $220. With Chromecast Audio I can use the free TuneIn Android app to "cast" any radio station to my hi-fi system. Another app is radio.net, which has a free station called Audiophile Classical.

A free Android app called Hi-Fi Cast enables casting of music stored on a PC. From my tablet I can direct Chromecast to play any music stored on my PC, including hi-res (24bit/96kHz) music. (I think that the “folder” view is the easiest to navigate.)

If she’s willing to spend $9.99/month, Spotify Premium supports casting, and has an extensive catalog of classical music.

Bottom line: With Chromecast Audio, an extensive variety of classical music sources are available, including many radio stations (including WETS-HD3), plus streaming services like Spotify where you can select whatever you want to listen to, plus any music stored locally on a PC.

P.S. I’ve been able to find Chromecast Audio devices for $25, either on-sale new, or used on eBay.

P.P.S. You’ll need a "mini-phono to RCA adapter cable" to connect the Chromecast Audio device to the AUX input of a hi-fi amp. They cost less than $10 on-line.
 
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Most older folks, including me and my dad (93yo) say "I don't need a smartphone". "it's too complex, etc.. The truth is that it's WYSISWYG and not difficult to use at all. In fact, it's easier. My dad took to it like a duck to water.
Personally, I use SONOS with the smartphone APP and recommend it because the quality is excellent. Most stations stream on the internet so your mom will get what she's used to, what she wants and even more....whatever's on the internet all over the world. The app makes it easy to set preferences.
She has the infrastructure (WIFI) and what sounds like a great stereo (implying she has "the ears") so I don't think she'll be disappointed.
Get a small SONOS speaker for yourself and check it out, they're cheap. Use it outside. If you like it and think you can teach her, get her a SONOS Connect and run it into her receiver's AUX IN.
But first, you'll have to get her a smartphone (which is inevitable, so why not do it now while she can still learn things) or give her one of your old smartphones loaded with the SONOS APP.
I sat down with my dad, showed him my smartphone and was personally amazed by how fast he picked it up. I added him to my plan ($10/month) and although he doesn't use all of the capabilities, it's no more difficult to use than a flip phone.
 
I'm going to encourage the smartphone idea, tho I'm now likely getting myself a chromecast... Smartphones are excellent for keeping older folks connected and active. Socially they're very beneficial.
 
The only reason i mentioned the Cable/DirecTV/Verizon feeds is Zero Cost, No Equipment purchase, No new technology, or learning curve, Very good quality and wide varied selections. I know that my wife at 70 is not ready for more complicated technology. It runs very well at our house about ten hours a day. Many people have no idea how good their feeds are. It is just a trouble free source for no money.
 
Right now, the only cable box (and television) is downstairs, and the stereo is upstairs.

http://tunein.com/radio/WETS-HD3-895-s157428/ in the Chrome browser on this Windows PC just gets me a "We're sorry. An error occurred. Please try again." error message. On my iPad, it directed me to the tunein iOS app and got me streaming.

Right now I think I'm gonna try the out-of-service iPhone 4 that my daughter might still have. Looks like I can get a dock to keep it charged and with a line out jack for $4 on eBay, and I have several of the correct cable & charger around to go with that. Internet radio streaming on the cheap.
 
http://tunein.com/radio/WETS-HD3-895-s157428/ in the Chrome browser on this Windows PC just gets me a "We're sorry. An error occurred. Please try again." error message.

FWIW, on my Windows 10 PC that url opens with no problem, using 3 different browsers. With Chrome, in the upper right is an icon to "cast" the music to a Chromecast Audio device.

With that said, if you can solve the problem for $4 ... Bravo! :)

P.S. Please relay my recommendation of kusc.org for an excellent free curated classical music radio station.
 
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