Workshops/Radios

[Donny Lawson]

My shop is pretty much complete and my cabinets are made. Most of the tools have been put in place. My only problem is my radio. I cannot get any station to hardly pick up at all. I have moved it all over the shop. I figured a wood built shop with a shingle roof would be great for my radio but right now CD's are my only option. The lights plays a part in this problem but it didn't effect anything in my old shop. Would a intenna outside help any? I hate to work without a radio. I need some suggestions on this please.
Donny

[Steven DeMars]

I'm not that big on a radio in the shop, but I have considered it.

One idea I came up with was a nice marine radio with a CD player installed in a cabinet with a 12 volt power supply.

It's water proof it's dust proof . . .

Steve

[Lou Ortiz]

I use the Bose ipod sound dock. I get the music I want without interruption. it isn't sealed or anything, but even in my (up to now) very dusty shop, solid state, so there hasn't been a hitch in five years. I wouldn't recommend a cd player at all as the dust will go to the core of that thing and it will stop working properly. You can also get podcasts for just about anything and everything, including college courses.

[Neil Brooks]

I stuck my iPod into a Ziploc bag. The cords connect to .... the USB port on my shop laptop (a few bucks buys you a GREAT keyboard cover that protects it from the elements), and a pair of powered speakers that came with a PC I bought years ago.

Sounds ... awesome !

[james glenn]

I have the Bosch job site radio and connect my 1st gen ipod to it.
It has a big rubber cover for it and can survive the farm, so it does great in the shop.
800 songs and no commercials.

[Joe Angrisani]

Donny.... I would suggest you try a Terk AM/FM antenna before giving up.

[Donny Lawson]

I first bought the Dewalt job site radio and I thought it would do the job but I could not pick up a single station. I took it back since it didn't preform the way I wanted. I would like a radio so I can add speakers in each corner of the shop for good sound. I'm not one for loud music but I do like my country.,plus I like to keep up with the news. I cannot stand a quiet shop while working so I need to figure out something.

[James White]

I use an FM transmitter. Like this http://cgi.ebay.com/100mW-500mW-adju...item25616ddf50 Connected to my PC in the house. Then in the shop I use a small radio and these. http://www.amazon.com/Peltor-M2RX7A-.../dp/B0007KQUJS Tuned to the station I am transmitting on.
So now I have the music I like Via WWW.Slacker.com And I can also listen to it out in the yard when I cut the grass or saw wood on my sawmill. The stereo microphones on the head set keeps you alert to danger around you. As an added benefit. You will not miss the UPS driver bringing you stuff from Lee Valley.

James

[David Giles]

My Christmas present was XM radio with Bose speakers for the shop. After listening to a Sony CD player for years, I wasn't sure that I would like it. But the sound is clean and clear, the speakers have a 5yr warranty even in a dusty environment and there is a lot of good music out there that I have never heard. Rush Limbaugh's intro ditty is an actual song, BTW. And I always thought the Grateful Dead played heavy metal rock, but every tenth song is a cowboy song.

[Lee Schierer]

I have a radio in my shop and Ilike playing music on it. I used to listen to a local broadcast station, but all the local stations within reception range have quit playing music I like. My radio has a cassette player and I put in an adapter casette to play my Ipod muisic through. I use the earphone jack on my Ipod and plug in the cassette adapter to it. The music plays through the radio speakers. I have over 12 hours of music I like recorded, I play in shuffle mode so I rarely hear the same song twice in any shop session and best of all I don't have commercials. Since I don't open the cassette deck I haven't had any issues with dust.

[Kent A Bathurst]

PC/laptop. Not much $ gets a "good enough for shop" set of speakers. Roam the world, listening to jillions of radio stations. Then, for work at a specific station - get these below, plus an extra cord [like, when you are facing time with the ROS].

I didn't buy them for the shop - I bought them for my weekly coast-to-coast plane rides in the back-when - pretty much only used them for noise-cancelling features - as in "nap assist". But, they're great in the shop.

[Bob Riefer]

They make signal boosters that you can connect to your radio to pickup signals better. I got mine at Circuit City for less than $25 and hooked it up to my stereo which is kept in a clean room in my barn (our hangout room where no woodworking is allowed). I can play radio, CD's, TV broadcasts, or ipod throughout the entire building.

[Paul McGaha]

I have the Dewalt jobsite radio. It does ok. Cant usually hear it anyway if one of the tools or the air filter is running.

PHM

[Joshua Byrd]

I have central audio in my house and one of the feeds goes to the garage. It's fine for CDs or iPod usage, but when I want to listen to news on the radio it gets problematic. I can't get good reception on the receiver without spending more money (which could be used on TOOLS instead,) not to mention the fact that I can't change the station from the garage, so I toted out an old AM/FM alarm clock one day and started using it. If you have a corded or metal tube antenna, you could always try wrapping aluminum foil or spare extension cords around them to increase the reception. I mounted a length of old bed frame angle iron onto the front of one of my counters (to pound metal against ) and noticed one day that when I leaned against it and had the radio nearby, I could almost pull in stations from China! Sucks that I couldn't stay in that one spot for the rest of the night.

[David G Baker]

In my shop in California I used a TV antenna mounted in the rafters. The antenna mount had a knob that was on the shop ceiling where I could reach it to tune in the radio station I am trying to listen to. With the US going digital TV there should be many TV antennas available at a very cheap price. The antenna works great on FM stations.