Why have we allowed the mains cabling to be used to send signals and crap on?

It would actually be interesting to find out the percentages of people who predominantly listen to radio on:

FM DAB Internet Freesat Freeview LW, MW and SW.

I suspect the latter will be in single figures.....

My in-laws live in a stone farmhouse where (a) WiFi does not travel well and (b) has thick stone walls and wood beams so it is challenging to wire the house up with ethernet..... and (c) it is actually cheaper to use the mains networking than wiring up.

So mains networking allows their smart TV in the lounge to connect to the fibre router in the office upstairs. The distance between the two is less than 10m but just one stone wall blocks the WiFi completely. This is despite living in the countryside and there are no other WiFi networks from neighbours as there aren't any neighbours!

In the car

Never

On PCs and customon built Raspberry PI hifi radio/ripped CD player

Not currently

On the TVs

Never.

I have found power networking to be unreliable and susceptible to mains trash like CH boiler firing.

Cable it up with ethernet if you want reliability. Surely there are underfloor spaces? Are the stone walls not dry lined with potential cavities behind?

only during DAB faults

in the car

at home this has now become my primary method.

almost never

Rarely, unless the car radio go to it from DAB

In the car and on my bedside radio, Also in our sitting room

Main listening at home

No satellite receiver

In the kitchen

I could almost say 'never'.

We just have hard bricks - not good for wifi or mobile phones. I have 5 mains network outlets for wifi. Alows SWMBO to use her iPad where ever she wants.

There hand-waves a man who hasn't done much in the way of cable installation.

Bill

Only for World Service or R6 and couple of other oddball channels.

Never, too much faffing about, although the R3 Flac experiment was interesting.

Don't have it

Ditto World Service and R6

World Service is now on DAB and Freeview, so never.

You're forgetting he has single-handedly designed everything electronic, installed broadband everywhere, and built his own house from mud and twigs, ...

At least, not in old properties!

Mostly, witbh a decent signal it sounds better than DAB

Sometimes, but only when there's no alternative

Quite often when I'm sitting in front of my desktop machine

Never

Rarely

Probably more than DAB because I listen to R4 LW in France, a car radio in our boat works rather well.

FM - only during a power cut, on the battery portable. DAB - daily, this feeds the whole house PA system. Internet - never Freesat - hardly ever Freeview - never LW, MW and SW - never. Freesat has R4 LW and FM variants if I ever wanted it.

Owain

In one car.

In the other.

Never

Never

All radio at home.

Nothing on that I can't get on the others. So perhaps in the car in an odd location.

And how many English radio stations are there now left on LW,MW, and SW?

Most if not all are available on other platforms in better audio quality if not in stereo.....

S.

To Brian,

In all fairness, I would not like my Freeview or Freesat to be affected in the same way as on LW, MW or SW.

As a born profoundly deaf person, I rely on the subtitles and pictures working just like you rely on radio working as it's our link to the outside world.

So I don't use power line networking at my house and just have the minimum of WiFi so that's just tablets or smartphones.

Everything else is all ethernet wired, even the music systems, all smart TVs, all printers and scanners, all network storage etc.

The loft looks like a data centre server room as a result, with over 64 co-ax cables and over 64 ethernet cables coming in

At home, driving I listen to random tracks from my entire music collection from my phone via bluetooth

If what I want to listen too is on FM, I'd choose FM.

Not available.

Occasionally.

Never.

Only when checking if the local relay has an issue that needs reporting to Arqiva.

Occasionally.

Depends on what you want to listen too. Some networks are effectively MW only if you want to listen on the move.

Nothing a 1 m long 20 mm dia SDS bit and drill won't handle. BTDTGTTS. Big enough for four CAT5 cables to go through.

I think you mean "less challenging".

Not as many as you, but more than a dozen

yep. I pretty much have actually..

Not in stone, no, but if you have a raised floor and drylined walls well its not impossible... If the walls are plastered onto the stone, well you need to chip out channels and re plaster

The ex wanted the TV moved: I lifted the laminate and used an angle grinder to cut a channel in the screed and buried the coax in that.

I will need to run more cat 5 here soon to replace the mains power link: that will mean ripping off a few square feet of plasterboard, a very long drill and replace, skim and paint.

You just have to want to do it properly

FM: Me in the office if I'm upgrading the desktop machine, me in the workshop (Bosch builder's radion, no DAB), me in the car (mostly)

DAB: SWMBO in the kitchen, me in the car unless in Thanet where I have to use FM

Internet: me in the office most of the time, in the workshop occaionally

Freeview: in the living room if we want radio, till I fettle the Quad tuner.

LW, MW, SW: practically never

That will be me them. Talk Sport is on MW when I am in the car or the van.