OT Simple basic DAB radio with a decent battery life wanted

[Murmansk]

I need to find a basic DAB radio for an elderly lady I know who's stuck in a rehab home.

It needs to be run on disposable batteries but my experience of DAB radios is that that they eat batteries like crazy - maybe some of the newer ones are better in this respect?

Can anyone recommend a suitable model?

[Nick Odell]

I'm still using an old ATMT MP170 personal DAB radio with mp3 player. It lasts about 5hrs on a single AA battery when using DAB and seems to last forever when playing mp3s. Unfortunately it is no longer made so your only chance of picking one up would be secondhand on eBay or Gumtree or somesuch. Also, unfortunately it has no internal speaker and is headphones/earphones only - though I suppose that could be an advantage in a rehab home.

While searching for a second-hand ATMT MP170 just now I stumbled upon this:

It claims "up to" 8hrs life on a pair of AAA cells but again requires headphones/earphones.

Is this any help?

Nick

[newshound]

Which? recommend the John Lewis Spectrum "own brand", I have the smaller mono one which takes 4 AAs, the slightly larger stereo one takes C's, IIRC.

I'm very pleased with mine.

[Chris French]

In message , Murmansk writes

I think they are all pretty poor re battery life compared to an FM radio

- it's the nature of the beast.

I've got a little Phillips which does ok on 4 AA NiMH cells - not sure how long, but probably a couple of 'working days' going on how long it lasts when diying.

Only thing I don't like is no preset buttons - you have to choose from the menu

[Michael Chare]

I think you face a fundamental problem, which is that it takes a lot of power to run the decoder chip. Can she really not have a mains powered radio? The Roberts DAB radio that I have does have a remote control if that would help.

[Bob Martin]

I use an old Android phone and the BBC iPlayer Radio app, but you need WiFi

[alan_m]

I think you may not be able to find something that doesn't eat batteries. Second/Third generation only appear to improved battery life by x2/x4 so it's still less than a day on a set of AA type batteries.

Roberts do a radio that take rechargeable batteries with a charger inbuilt into the radio. Battery life around

[Robert]

Agree ! There will be a very limited choice of chip sets for DAB radio manufacturers so unlikely to be any difference in battery life between models. It would seem that the market for DAB isnt big enough to encourage a great deal of development in chip sets yet. Rechargeables are the only cost effective option.