Just got back from spending a week in Santo Domingo, and glad I packed my Grundig Traveler G8.
This is the first time in about 20 years I've actually been outside the USA, and I'm glad I did. Unlike the stale, boring corporate wasteland the FM dial has become in the states, down there I was treated to virtually EVERY music format (except country/western). I heard: AAA, Urban, of course lots of traditional local Dominican music, Top40, AC, THREE jazz stations, two classical, and one that played STANDARDS- as in the old school easy listening. There was a station on every 200KHz.
What I did NOT hear: talk radio, all news, or spoken word other than news/weather breaks. All of the stations had a stereo pilot, most actually sounded very well engineered, one of the stations even mentioned HD radio (HIJL 102.9), though I did not have an HD radio handy to verify this or see if anyone else was transmitting in HD.
It was a nice treat to hear FM radio alive and well in other parts of the world, and further proved why corporate stale radio in the states just plain SUCKS. Most of the stations I enjoyed down in the DR also stream online.
This is the first time in about 20 years I've actually been outside the USA, and I'm glad I did. Unlike the stale, boring corporate wasteland the FM dial has become in the states, down there I was treated to virtually EVERY music format (except country/western). I heard: AAA, Urban, of course lots of traditional local Dominican music, Top40, AC, THREE jazz stations, two classical, and one that played STANDARDS- as in the old school easy listening. There was a station on every 200KHz.
What I did NOT hear: talk radio, all news, or spoken word other than news/weather breaks. All of the stations had a stereo pilot, most actually sounded very well engineered, one of the stations even mentioned HD radio (HIJL 102.9), though I did not have an HD radio handy to verify this or see if anyone else was transmitting in HD.
It was a nice treat to hear FM radio alive and well in other parts of the world, and further proved why corporate stale radio in the states just plain SUCKS. Most of the stations I enjoyed down in the DR also stream online.