I’m very big into radio. I really love radio. I’ve had a radio of one sort of the other in my studio for years. Radio broadcasts keep me current on news and events and fills in some of the silence with talk and music.

I’ve dabbled with shortwave and AM DXing (grabbing distant signals late at night when conditions are right). And, as I already mentioned, listen to a lot of talk radio. I also have XM radio in the car. (The music station on XM are really nice!)

But, when I heard about internet radio a couple of years ago, I had to investigate further.

If you’ve ever played with Shortwave radio and picked up signals from London or other distant shores, you’ll immediately fall in love with internet radio. Put simply, internet radio is shortwave radio on steroids!

Imagine crystal clear sound from London, Paris, Rome, and every city and town from coast to coast across the United States! That’s exactly what you get with Internet radio! Over 15,000 radio stations from around the world! Plus, thousands of podcasts and access to music services like Live365 and Pandora.

In addition, you can stream music from your computer to your radio. Listen to your entire MP3 collection with your computer in one room and the radio in another.

All you need for intent radio is a broadband connection and a wireless router. I recommend a Netgear router. The NETGEAR WNR2000 Wireless-N Router is a good selection.

After hooking up the router to your cable modem and configuring it, the only remaining thing you need to do is register your radio on a database service. Grace and Sangean radios both use the Reciva database service. Create an account, register your radio, and start adding stations via Reciva’s web site.

That’s it! The radios are wireless so you can place them anywhere in your home (within range of your wireless router). Once you have your radio configured, you’ll no longer need your computer. you can turn it off. you will, however, from time to time, visit the Reciva site to add new stations, podcasts or other programming.

The Grace Digital Wireless Internet Radio featuring Pandora and NPR (GDI-IR2000), pictured above, is a good entry level internet radio. It has nice sound, a lot of tuning/programming features, and hooks to the internet via a wireless connection only. It comes with a remote which comes in quite handy if the radio is across the room.

The Sangean WFR-20 WiFi Internet Radio & Media Player, pictured below, has stereo sound, a remote, terrific tuning features, and a much better display than the Grace. The Sangean is wireless but can also be connected to the internet via a wired connection (something the Grace does not offer.  The Grace GDI-IR2000 is wireless only).

The Sangean is a bit more expensive than the Grace. But prices on both are falling. Either one makes a great Christmas gift for the talk radio/news junkie in your family.

And with over 15,000 stations to chose from, you may never watch cable T.V. again.