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Clock radios in motel rooms?

I'm a radio nerd, and I always pack a little Sony portable (these days, a DAB+/FM model) for hotel or motel rooms. Here in Europe, that combination brings in the vast majority of stations in any given area and lets me have a flick around to see what's on the air locally. Hell, when I return to the US, I'll pack the same DAB+/FM radio, because even this radio nerd doesn't care for the conservative talkers, sports blah-blah and megaphone preachers that make up the majority of the AM dial these days.

I know I could get out my smartphone and a list of stations in the city, and stream the same stations, but it's fun to scan around a real radio dial and see what's on the air - I've discovered multiple enjoyable new-to-me stations that way while visiting other cities, and continued to listen to them via streaming once I've returned home.

As for hotel room phones, even the most extortionate of foreign cellphone roaming charges is still going to be cheaper than your average landline call from a hotel landline phone. I can only assume, as other posters have mentioned, that they exist largely for emergency and internal communication purposes.
 
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Miss Tuned said:
As for hotel room phones, even the most extortionate of foreign cellphone roaming charges is still going to be cheaper than your average landline call from a hotel landline phone. I can only assume, as other posters have mentioned, that they exist largely for emergency and internal communication purposes.
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Oh, yeah---it's been 30 years since I made an outside call on a hotel room phone.
 
michael hagerty said:
Oh, yeah---it's been 30 years since I made an outside call on a hotel room phone.
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The last time I did was ten years ago. I had to wake up in the middle of the night in Japan to call back to the office to get shipping arrangements unscrambled.

The *only* way to get that sorted out was then wait a few hours until I could speak to someone 'local' (Tokyo)

Our department actually had about six phones that were used only for travel purposes. Back then, I was a newbie and didn't rate one of the international travel phones.
 
michael hagerty said:
If they have literally no device on their person by which to tell time, I'm gonna guess that time is just not that important to them.

And relying on someone who is that much of a technophobe/Luddite to say "I know! I'll turn on the TV, tune to the program guide and look at the clock that's embedded in it"....well, c'mon.
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Sure, but Chimp admittedly is missing a hand on his watch, so.....
 
Clock radios are slowly becoming a thing of the past in hotel rooms. The last two I went to had them, but I didn't listen to them...
I always carry my Sangean ATS-909X for DXing out of town. It's going with me to Montana next week. Keep the snow in the mountains, hopefully, not down in the lowlands ;-)
 
"" ... Clock radios are slowly becoming a thing of the past in hotel rooms. ... ""

I do leave a radio on at night to help mask tinnitus.

Do cell phones play radio shows using my unlimited voice minutes instead of my limited data megabytes?

"" ... I have a watch that the second hand fell off of. It just jumps around inside. I guess that's why it was so cheap. ... ""

I would have expected that the loose piece of metal would have jammed up the (other) hands in short order.
 
ajaynejr said:
Do cell phones play radio shows using my unlimited voice minutes instead of my limited data megabytes?
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You can download podcasts and other audio files while connected to your home Wifi, then listen to them without being Internet connected. I do it all the time by subscribing to half a dozen (free) podcasts, and listen to them on the way to and from work.
ajaynejr said:
I would have expected that the loose piece of metal would have jammed up the (other) hands in short order.
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That's just our Chimp. If anyone would have a watch with the second hand rattling around in the face, he'd be the one.
 
Mark Roberts said:
Increasingly this is done with texting.

A couple of weeks ago, I was staying at one of the legacy hotels in downtown Portland. All communications with the front desk were via text! It wasn't the first hotel where I've experienced this and I actually prefer it.
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Not me! I get enough irritating texting with my kids.
If I'm staying at let's say Bellagio, Las Vegas, and I want to find out what time the airport shuttle starts in the morning, I call and speak with the concierge. If the shuttle doesn't meet my timing, or I'm flying from a corporate jet FBO, I'll ask them to make arrangements for a car to pick me up.
Maybe texting is for La Quinta customers, but not this kid.
 
Kelly A said:
Sure, but Chimp admittedly is missing a hand on his watch, so.....
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A second hand. It's not missing. It travels around. Today it did it so fast I could see it happen.

I don't make calls on phones in rooms because I already paid and would have to pay again, and would probably pay a lot.

It was a problem for me to call "home" (not someone who lives with me) to let them know I arrived if no one was there. You can't leave a message if it's a collect call. But when I thought I'd have to cancel my Internet and landline, I got a Jitterbug in case the VOIP went out. When the phone company suddenly found a way to make faster Internet cheap, that became a phone I could carry on trips.
 
michael hagerty said:
Oh, yeah---it's been 30 years since I made an outside call on a hotel room phone.
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Right. I consider hotel phones basically to be an in-house intercom, never to be used to connect to the outside world.
 
ajaynejr said:
"" ... Clock radios are slowly becoming a thing of the past in hotel rooms. ... ""

I do leave a radio on at night to help mask tinnitus.

Do cell phones play radio shows using my unlimited voice minutes instead of my limited data megabytes?

"" ... I have a watch that the second hand fell off of. It just jumps around inside. I guess that's why it was so cheap. ... ""

I would have expected that the loose piece of metal would have jammed up the (other) hands in short order.
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Are "limited data megabytes" still a thing? I have 30GB per month (for about $9) on my phone, and stream radio all the time when driving, like I literally never listen to over-the-air radio, it's all streaming. I never come close to my 30GB - I could stream 128kbps MP3 for days non-stop and not come near, and that's even less of a problem when streaming a more efficient codec like AAC+ at 48kbps. It's just a non-issue these days.
 
Miss Tuned said:
Are "limited data megabytes" still a thing? I have 30GB per month (for about $9) on my phone, and stream radio all the time when driving, like I literally never listen to over-the-air radio, it's all streaming. I never come close to my 30GB - I could stream 128kbps MP3 for days non-stop and not come near, and that's even less of a problem when streaming a more efficient codec like AAC+ at 48kbps. It's just a non-issue these days.
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Most cell carriers have "unlimited data plans". Problem is; once you hit a certain ceiling or load across the network, the carrier can throttle your bitrate to something close to dial-up speeds. Technically you're still using data, it may not be the performance as you would be accustomed to.
 
Kelly A said:
Most cell carriers have "unlimited data plans". Problem is; once you hit a certain ceiling or load across the network, the carrier can throttle your bitrate to something close to dial-up speeds. Technically you're still using data, it may not be the performance as you would be accustomed to.
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Even so, it should not be "throttled" to the point where it would materially impact audio streaming (unless you're streaming lossless audio, which radio streaming services are not).
 
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