Does it Get Better?

I like to wake up to radio as opposed to an alarm clock. The transition from sleep to awareness is more gentle and gets my day off to a better start. The question then becomes, what do I wake to? Music is the best, however, it tends to lull me back to sleep or encourages me to stay in bed until the song is over, by which time I am too sleepy and unmotivated to vacate the warmth of the covers. What seems to work best for me is a newscast at the top of the hour, such as CKNW news talk radio's major news to 7 am. I become alert immediately because I do not want to miss the lead story. This forces my mind out of its groggy state and I am then ready to get 'up and at it'.

There is one problem and it is getting worse with time. Local radio reception is deteriorating. I do not know the cause for this, but I do know that often my choice of stations makes for something worse than a harsh alarm at 7 am, and that is static. I then wake up grouchy.

The easy solution came to me one day as I as perusing the latest MasterCard Awards Points merchandise catalogue. They were offering an Internet radio for only around 30,000 points. I had that and some to spare so I ordered it and it arrived yesterday.

It works on WiFi, which we already have because we have 3 computers in our house all working off one router. This Radio picks up that same signal and gives me access to literally thousands of streaming stations from around the world.

There is a bit of a learning curve but I think I have it now and the big challenge is to find 8 favourite stations to put into the 8 preset buttons. Now I can wake or fall asleep to Afghan 103.1 or Clear Jazz from Paris. It would take me a month to scroll through every station and they are adding new ones everyday. In fact, I can go to the website and request one that I like, that is not on the scroll list.

Static is a thing of the past as of today. Funny, but I already do not miss it.