Jack Thurston

I love listening to the radio. I love podcasts because it means I can listen to my favourite radio programmes from around the world whenever I like. And I’ve recently made a fantastic discovery.

Podcasts are great but I what I like about the radio is that I can listen wherever I am – in the kitchen, in the garden, in the bath, upstairs or downstairs. When my trusty Roberts portable died I bought one of those swanky portable Tivoli PAL radios with a lovely sound and an 8-hour rechargable battery.

Unlike radio, which is carried on the airwaves, podcasts come down the broadband pipe and this means that to listen to one I have to be within earshot of my laptop. Even with wifi, that’s a bit irritating. And the sound isn’t so good from my laptop speakers. Of course I could plug my laptop into my radio (it has a line-in socket) but that still ties me down because I’m not going to carry the laptop and the radio set around with me – not to mention the problem of the ageing battery in my laptop which now lasts well less than an hour. I suppose I could download all the podcasts I want to listen to into my iPod but that would fill it up and is another chore. I prefer to play directly from a podcast client like Google Reader or Netvibes and listen to whatever takes my fancy at the time. I don’t want to spend my life synching my iPod and filling it up with stuff that I might never listen to. Equally, I could invest hundreds or thousands of pounds in equiping my house with some kind of elaborate home audio network with speakers in every room.

The simple and cheap alternative solution I’ve discovered is to use one of those tiny FM transmitters that are meant to be used to play iPods over car stereos. The one I’ve got cost less than £5 and though it can be powered by two AAA batteries, it’s also got a USB power cable which means I can power it from my computer, or from the mains. The headphone jack of the transmitter connects to my laptop’s headphone socket and the USB cable to one of my laptop’s USB ports. Once it’s all connected what happens is that I’m broadcasting from my laptop on an FM transmission with a range of about 20 metres, more than enough for both floors of my house and the garden. I can tune in using my portable radio and get whatever is playing out of my computer. Of course, I can also plug the transmitter into my hifi amplifier and transmit records or CDs over the airwaves in the same way. I can also play radio from the BBC iPlayer – not all material on the iPlayer is available as a podcast, so this widens the choice even further.

I’m using the Veho FM Transmitter, though I think any would do. The bonus of the Veho is that it can be powered by USB. They’re £5 at Amazon.co.uk.

Besides the portability, the best thing about this set up is that the podcasts really sound like radio, with that FM warmth and ever so slight crackle. Now, does anyone know where I can find a Medium Wave transmitter so I can listen to all my 60s 7-inches in the blistering AM mono that they were always meant to be heard?