News

We’re proud to announce the availability of over 5000 radio stations that can now be pumping on your ReplayRadio! The list includes radio stations from all over the world, from Australia to the UK, and quite a few in between. Not only that, but the list covers a huge variety of genres, so whether it is Classic Rock, Disco, Jazz, Metal or you just want to hear something different, there’s bound to be one that catches your eye (and ears!).

We have revamped our radio station page so you can use search terms to find the station, genre or country of your choice. And if you are registered with us, you can just press the PLAY button to check it out there and then!

But even better, if you have registered your ReplayRadio then you can select all the ones you like and download them at the touch of a button.

Putting the list together was a fantastic excuse to listen to some great music. Apart from our obvious favourites, like Absolute Radio and Gold from the UK, we found some real gems like Choice Classic Radio (Canada), 1.FM Rock Classics (Switzerland) and many others. Listening to non-stop music, without having to worry about what to play next, and without hearing the same playlist over and over again is quite a liberating feeling!

But we’re not done yet. We’ll be adding more countries all the time, and if you have any particular favourites that are not yet in our database then we’d love to hear from you. Once it is in the list you’re only 1 step away from recording all your favourite songs to tape! I’ve now added ‘Supergrass’ to the Song Catcher, so soon they’ll be pumping on my ReplayRadio!

Happy new year and let’s hope it’s a good one. But despite the difficult conditions, you better you bet that we are still making good progress. Our focus has been to improve the user interface, and really matching the nostalgia of cassette tapes – did you know that sales of cassette tapes have increased again, doubling in the last year?!

In this new virtual world it is definitely enticing to handle physical media, and get away from all those endless advertisement interruptions that seem to know what you’re thinking, even before you’ve said it out loud in front of Alexa. How does it do that?

So with our new graphics we’ve kept the radio interface very simple and clean, and playing your taped recordings now looks like the real thing! With the classic style of reel-to-reel tapes miniaturised for cassettes (remember those made by TEAC?) you can listen to hours of music whilst being mesmerised by the almost infinite length of tape rotating by. All without annoying interruptions. It gives new meaning to those C90 tapes, as you’ll now get about 90 hours of music on it!

The radio screen menus hopefully need no introduction, but the clue is in the title!

We hope you like the new look, but let us know what you think.

Stay safe as ever.

I admit it is unlikely that the Spencer Davis Group was referring to our new battery management design, but after a lot of development effort we have now received our new circuit boards from PCBGOGO. They have done a very professional job of manufacture and assembly. Luckily for us it also works as intended, so well in fact that we’re wondering if people might like to purchase this board separately for their own projects! Despite the plethora of battery power supplies around, none seemed to be designed with all of the basic requirements that you would expect, deliver high power and be at a reasonable price. Even my favourite DVD player has an ON/OFF button that doesn’t work when its software has crashed!

Designed to screw in underneath a Raspberry Pi without soldering, it supports up to 2 18650 Lithium cells with over-charge, over-discharge and over-current protection. But it also provides accurate battery voltage and current monitoring for software (showing charging / discharging), a button interface with software shutdown control as well as a hard reset feature. Designed to maximise battery life, it can also deliver enough current for high power applications with separate terminals for ancillary devices.

We’ll be making more details available, but you’re welcome to let us know if you might be interested in purchasing a board, and what projects would be ‘Alive and Kicking’ with a battery power supply!

As we look forward to the new year with more hope than perhaps ever before, we’re also hoping our product launch is not too far away now. As ever, stay safe!

OK, so I’m not a huge Pink fan, but we’re super excited to announce our new Song Catcher feature! Once you start using it, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. Honest.

Ever heard a song on the radio and thought “Wow, I love that song!” – Well, now you can record it directly to your ReplayRadio!

After you’ve run across the room to your ReplayRadio, all you have to do is press the CATCH button, and it will be added to your list of songs to catch while you’re sleeping! You can run searches on up to 3 different radio stations for as many songs as you like, whilst they quietly monitor the broadcasts and the next time that song is played it is automatically recorded.

You can manage which station searches are active, and you can also use the keyboard to type in your own search terms. So anytime Pink Floyd (or just Pink, if you prefer!) is playing on your favourite radio station, the greatest band ever (or Pink) is recorded for you. Then, head over to the stream editor and a few minutes later it is ready to play on your virtual tape!

A handy list of titles that have been found and which are still pending means you can easily manage the whole process.

So, let us know what you want to search for! We’d love to know what songs you’ve always wanted to get but didn’t, or you just heard it and now you have to have it!

Remember, press CATCH (like I just did with ROCKING IN THE FREE WORLD by Neil Young, on 1.FM Rock Classics), and get on with listening to the music!

And don’t forget to stay safe in these challenging times.

You might be wondering what we’re up to these days. There is no doubt that putting everything together is taking a while, and nothing is ever as easy as it sounds!

But, ‘Stay with me’ (according to Rod Stewart and the Faces on Absolute Classic Rock!)

On the website, we’ve added a few links to help you manage your ReplayRadio. You will need to register your device so that you can easily manage which radio stations you’d like to see on your ReplayRadio. The list will grow to thousands, but this way you don’t have to scroll through them all – just the ones you’re interested in. You can change what’s in the list any time, then just use the “Update RadioList” in your ReplayRadio menu.

When you’re listening to the radio, handy song titles remind you what that song is called so you don’t have to ask Alexa. Then, recording them is just 1 button press away. Or maybe you set a timer to record whilst you were out. Either way, head over to the streams menu and you can scroll through them all. As a song title pops up, or yesterday’s traffic report, you can quickly skip over the stuff you don’t like. Or go back to hear it again!

From any recorded stream, pop into the editor to find the bits you want to keep. Like ‘Surrender’ by Cheap Trick that’s playing now. It’s been ages since I last heard that one. To mark it out, you can move back and forth by a fraction of a second, quickly removing the end of that advert you’ve heard a thousand times. Automatic fade-in and out does the rest when saving the song to your virtual tape. The hard bit is deciding which side of the tape to save it to, because like real tapes, songs are laid down in the order you save them!

When you’re done, the tape player menu lets you quickly find the song names, then just press play to hear the rest! Well, you do have to change sides at the end of the tape.

We’ve also started to integrate the power supply and battery, which should give you many hours of playback, recording and editing without being tied to the wall.

We’re still working on the enclosure, hopefully we can update you with some pictures soon! In the meantime, please don’t forget to tell us which radio stations you’re listening to, and stay healthy in this current climate of Covid.

Hi, and welcome to ReplayRadio.co.uk and our first blog post! Thank you for taking an interest in this project, as we’re making good progress and the buzz of getting it ready is amazing. We really hope that the focus on a simple user interface, together with the thought of building up a great set of recordings will be something to look forward to. In fact, as we’re testing the design the number of great songs being played on the radio continues to make us smile – right now it’s playing ‘Hot Love’ by T-Rex on Gold FM, a perfect tune for the 32c scorcher outside – though now I realise I’m stuck indoors!

It is surprising how much there is to do for the whole system, from web design and cloud servers, to battery management and getting quality sound. And this is where you can really help us – we’re building up an initial list of radio stations, from which you can choose what to list on your ReplayRadio. Saves you scrolling through thousands of stations you’ve never heard of. Hence, if you have a favourite radio station just let us know, and we’ll add it to the list! In fact, this service will be part of the product, so you can request to add more stations anytime in the future. You’re in control!

So, please fill in the contact us form and tell us which radio stations you love!

And before I sign off, Bill Withers is singing what a lovely day it is. Quite right. Enjoy the weather and the music!