Wayne Watson

[gjr – Wayne is an astronomer and a teacher.  I join with those who consider him a treasure of Nevada County.  He lives at 121.01 Deg. W, 39.26 Deg. N.]

Some of you may have heard of a wi-fi or internet radio. Perhaps not. Store clerks in some of the major electronics stores here don't seem to know much about them, and sometimes don't even know they have them. I bought one by Grace a week ago. C. Crane sells one, as do a few others. They offer access to 10,000 radio stations on the internet. They might make an interesting Christmas gift, or a gift for someone who lives outside the country.

The radio looks like a common radio and does not plug into your computer. It relies on any wi-fi access in your immediate area. In my case, it just taps into my household  wi-fi.  I can play it anywhere in the house, and in the garage, probably in my observatory 100' from the house. Currently, I've set it up to play WJR-AM and WUOM-FM in Michigan. For kicks, it brings in a station in Germany. Locally, my presets include KGO-AM and KQED-FM here in California. Both of these stations are in San Francisco and are a challenge to receive here. Many of the stations are music, but there are many news and talk radio stations. See <https://www.reciva.com/> for some insight into the available stations.

The Grace sells for $200. See <http://www.gracedigitalaudio.com/> . It is a complete unit in that it contains the tuner, wi-fi connection, station pre-sets, volume control, built-in speaker, small LCD screen, and an AC plug. When I got it, it would not connect. I called their free tech support in San Diego and after 5 minutes they found my firmware was out of date. Within five more minutes we had it installed over the internet without ever using my PC. It didn't take long to start setting up stations by their call letters. There is no keyboard and the mechanism to enter characters is the LCD and the large Select knob. The LCD displays a menu like structure which one can move through by rotating the Select knob, and sometimes pressing the Back button. For a "keyboard", characters are strung out in a horizontal fashion in the LCD. There must be over a 100, but one can move pretty fast through them by turning the knob. Finding the character and pressing the select knob enters the character. A special <END> is used to terminate the call letter string. A headset can be plugged into the back. The sound is good, but probably not hi-fi quality.

When I talked to their support, I suggested they make a clearer front panel. The letters are grayish-white on a black background. I think they said they plan on it, which led me to ask if it might undergo further changes. Yes. The number of presets will increase to 10 early next year, and the unit will have a ethernet connection. Further, they plan to come out with a portable unit, and a "luxury" model. These changes are likely to occur in Jan-Feb.

My impression of the users guide is that it was helpful but missed items like trouble-shooting, and references to both the web sites I gave above. It did provide the Grace 800 support number. The firmware upgrade "problem" suggested to me the unit had been on the store shelf quite awhile.

As for this unit, it's given me confidence in it, but, in the face of a physical update soon, I will likely take it back within the 30 day period. We really bought it to see if it would work in the event we buy and send one to our son who is working outside the USA for the next several years. It passes the test. It likely can be used on the road, or even in a car. One person tells me he has an inverter in his car and plugs his C. Crane wi-fi radio into it.

You may not get much info from your local electronics store about these radios. Best Buy is beginning to carry them now. They are available from Amazon and the producers of them, C. Crane at any rate.

If you've had experience with these radios, let me know.