I want to listen to the radio – FM/AM and shortwave – using my Eee PC. Is there software to do this? I don't want to plug in anything more than an aerial.
Richard Scrase
Lots of people listen to the radio on their PCs, but this is almost always "internet radio". In other words, the sound is streamed digitally, via your broadband connection. Several formats are in common use including MP3, WMA (Windows Media Audio), RealAudio and HE-AAC. They can all be played using a free media player. You can find many thousands of radio stations at Shoutcast, or use iPlayer for the BBC's national and 40 local stations.
You can't use a PC for listening to broadcast (over the air) radio stations without plugging in a tuner, which can be a USB stick. There are not many radio-specific tuners, with the Radio Shark USB Radio Tuner (£43 at Amazon.co.uk) being an obvious example; this could be useful if you want to record programmes to your hard drive. There are many more dual TV/radio tuners. However, you may run into aerial and interference problems, and you may be able to get easier operation and better sound quality by buying a separate radio. Go for something like the Roberts R9962 World Radio (£30) and you'll get shortwave, too. There are more short wave sets around than you may think.
