Workshops/Radios

[Wayne Hendrix]

I had a friend with the same problem, working in a metal building. What he did was to get an old "car" radio (since it's designed for an external antenna) and run the antenna outside. A used 12V power supply and he was set.

Your mileage may vary...

I have been considering doing the exact same thing.

[Lupe Duncan]

I bought a jobsite radio but had poor reception also. Now I use a smaller Ipod shuffle like this older gen. Its small enough to clip on my shirt and with short headphones that came with my cell phone I got no strings hanging.

I would like to get AM but I can down load podcasts of the shows I listen to even Audio books.

[Jim Neeley]

I recently decided to upgrade my old 9.6V Makita power drivers (NiCad, circa 1990) and went with the Bosch 18V Li-Ions and along the way went with Bosch's Power Box 360D for shop sound. http://www.boschtools.com/Products/T...spx?pid=PB360D

In addition to the "aluminum frame" typical jobsite radio that runs on 120V, it runs on and charges 14.4V & 18V Li-Ion batteries.

When on AC, it gives you 4 GFCI outlets built in, a 12V port and a powered USB port for charging electronics..

In addition to AM/FM and CD, it has a dustproof panel for mounting your IPod, Sirius radio and slots for its built-in MP3 player (SD & USB thumb drive) plus a place to plug in your own.

It comes with a keychain-type remote and supports line in and aux out, so it can link to other stereos, as either the master or the slave. FWIW, AM and FM reception are far superior to the portable radio I had in my garage before.

Yea it's overkill but I "justified" it as a good emergency radio, in case of earthquake. The 4 18V LiIon batteries will power it for a long, long time.

[Greg Portland]

You can build your own AM or FM antenna for the price of a 2x4 and some coat hangers. Cut & bend them correctly and you'll get great reception (Google for directions). Connect that to whatever cheap radio that you can find.

[Larry Edgerton]

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.

Have had the same cartridge CD system in my shop for 13 years. I do keep it in the bathroom, and I never take the CD's out of the cartridges. If it ever goes bad I will switch to an I Pod sort of arrangement.

My big thing is that I find radio annoying, and have never found a station that does not play music that I do not like. With my arrangement I have cartridges seperated by mood. I may feel like old rock one day and blues the next, so I pop in what I want. My brother uses a computor downloaded service in his shop, but I am too cheap to pay for that, and with over 300 cd's I never really get bored with what I have.

[Roy Turbett]

I got a pair of Peltor headphones like those for Chrismas and love em. I get good FM reception on all the local stations I listen to. I also like the active noise cancelling feature and the ability to adjust the headphones so you can still listen to conversations. Great product.

[glenn bradley]

Livio Radio and Pandora. I plug the headphone output of this into some self-switching amplified PC speakers. Turn the radio on and the speakers/amp comes on. All controls are on the simple remote. The whole rig and has endured the shop environments without issue.

[Bruce Wrenn]

In my shop, I have an OLD eight track player / tuner / amp. Remember them? It is connected to a digital FM / AM tuner. This is connected to an outside antenna. Four speakers located around the shop. The reason for the digital tuner is 8 track would drift after warming up. Lucky for me, I have four stations (AM & FM) in my listening area that play mainly 50's and 60's music. Otherwise, I would get FM transmitter and connect it to output of Dish unit in the house. I can't remember which service they now have, Sirrus, or XM.

[Luc Vincent]

I live in a small rural community and get only religious programs, a small bit of country and the pork belly/Ag reports. I just this last week broke down and took my useless windows mobile phone that has a 16gb memory card on it and loaded it up with about 6gb's of music and setup an old 5.1 Altec-Lansing computer speaker set out in the shop. I've been in absolute heaven ever since!! Even my productivity and concentration has vastly improved in the shop!!

[John Christian]

does it really have a mount for the brain box of an xm ( sirius) radio? I dont see it mentioned on the link