Jan 03, 2006 03:33 AM
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(Updated Jan 03, 2006 03:33 AM)
In the last couple couple of years I have ran out of gift ideas for my dad specially, every year - year by year - I will go home once or at max twice a year, starting from suit lengths to denims to CD's cassettes, perfumes, mobile phones etc etc.
This year while I was in Hyderabad and was just roaming around in the only multiplex of the city I came across this ''World Space Satellite Radio'',what the heck is this?? I thought and went inside to explore.
The moment I entered inside it gave me a feeling like I have entered some kind of pub - nerve wracking earth shattering music coming from all sides of the showroom, all kinds of electric instruments and what not, and the moment they see me with a confused look a kool shoulder length haired sales ''Guy'' walks towards me and shows me the ''thing called radio'' they are selling, I was shocked to see the kind of clarity their ''Radio'' was throwing out of that awesome home theatre speakers they had fit it in. It was simply A W E S O M E. Than and there I decided that this year in Diwali - My dad is going to have this Radio set installed in his bedroom, as he is a Hardcore Music Lover, he loves all kinds of Rock POP and Jazz, whatever songs I have these days in my ever increasing MP3 collection - half of them belong to him.
Some more research and discussion with that Long Haired fellow told me that as of date they have 40 odd channels - and they play something like a couple of million songs a month in all those channels without any commercial breaks, I checked out one of the channels myself for close to 15-20 minutes and was surprised to see err hear no commercial breaks, simply digital clear music and the cost is also damn dirt cheap, they are giving away BPL Radio Sets worth 2000/- with a subscription of 3 months free to start with. It comes with a dashing antenna which you have to fix up on your roof top facing towards south east, wherein it catches the signal and plays all the channels, it comes with a scratch card kindda coupon which contains your installer code and once installed it will work all across the world without any issues. Further to my discussion with him this Radio's running cost is as low as 5/- a day that makes it 150/- a month and to total it all not more than 1800/- a year, but believe me - to have that kind of clear music and the instrument they are offering - I shud say its cheap.
But the experience is awesome, Installation is a kids work, call up their toll free number and tell that scratch code and you will further be given a code which you have to enter in your radio set, this you could do with the help of the manual and within the next 10 minutes of fixing up of your antenna you are ready to go, fix up your computer speakers with the set or better fix up the radio with your music system and you are ready to Rock - the set comes with a full function remote, wherein channel changing, volume, bass boost all can be controlled.
The best part of this radio is that you don’t have to set the channels, they come as preset, all you have to do is save your favorite channels in the list of 1 to 10 and you can keep shuffling between the programs you want to listen to.
The 40 channels right now they are airing are following :
International :Virgin Radio UK, Radio Caroline, Upop, Bob (alternative), The Hop, Maestro (its where beethoven is), Ngoma (Sound of Africa), Orbit Rock (Classic rock and more), Potion (Worlds R&B), RIFF (world of Jazz), The System (Electronic Civilization), Up Country (Best of country) World zone (Best channel), Radio Voyager (International journey of music), Spin (Hits 24 hrs - my favorite), Top 40 Hits, Radio Amore (Love songs).
Regional :Radio Tara (Bengali), Sparsha (Kannada) Farishta (Old Hindi Songs), Jhankar (Contemporary Hindi music), RM Radio (Malayalam music and culture), Shruti (Carnatic Classic), Spandana (Telugu), Gandharv (Hindustani Classic), KL Radio (Tamil)
News Channels :NDTV in Hindi and English, CNN, BBC.
It surely has something for everybody.
For hitech guys like Anuj and mishraji, you can fix up this radio with your computer and can copy the digital songs into your machine and make MP3's out of them - my bro does that within no time.
This one is highly recommended from my side as a gift atleast and I am sure the other party is going to like it very much as my dad liked it.
The best part is there are a couple of programs wherein you can send an email requesting for a song with your personal message and they read the full email before playing the song (I think Spin is one of those channels).
So long - Ratings and Comments are more than welcome as always.
