Presets

Presets

Your Reciva radio will have a number of buttons assigned for use as presets. Preset buttons allow rapid access to a specific station. On most Reciva radios the presets will be hardware buttons but on some radios the presets are software buttons accessible from a radio menu. Many radios also have a remote control which will contain corresponding buttons to the presets on your radio. Models with FM and/or DAB tuners will also offer presets for FM and/or DAB stations; the discussion below applies only to presets for internet radio.

Why do I only have 5 presets on a radio that has over 16,000 available stations ?

Your radio is designed to integrate seamlessly with both the Reciva servers and your user account on the Reciva website. Once your radio has been registered with Reciva you will have a new menu on your radio called “My Stuff”. Registering your radio is described here. Within My Stuff is a submenu called “My Stations” which essentially is an apparently unlimited, user created list of favourite (bookmarked) stations added from the database. Your radio therefore does not need large numbers of preset buttons built into the radio as the My Stations function will allow as many stations as you wish to be stored. As an example, at the time of writing the author has 147 stations saved to "My Stations" where they play on a variety of radios, some having as few as 5 preset buttons. Further information concerning My Stuff can be found here.

The number of presets a radio offers is limited by the number of preset buttons provided. On the radio itself this is limited not only by the available space and the designer's artistic concepts, but also by the architecture of the Reciva module, which is why few radios have more than 12 buttons plus spinner. Given that buttons are needed for on/off, select, back, reply etc., not many are left for presets, and on many radios, the preset buttons have to double-up as media buttons (play/pause, stop, rewind etc.). On some radios, a 'shift' button doubles the number of presets. One radio (offered by two brands) has no preset buttons at all on the radio itself, only a spinner - to allow access to the presets without using the remote, this radio presents a list of presets (with station names) in the menu.

Many radios with remote controls offer access to more presets via the remote than on the radio itself, as the remote can have alot more buttons. The best example of this is probably the DNT IPdio Mini Pro, with only two preset buttons on the box, but access to 99 presets on the remote. Access to presets on remotes may be by single-digit entry, by 'shift' key followed by single-digit entry, or by double-digit entry preceded by 'Recall' and '-/—'.

On many radios, it is possible, using Sharpfin, to edit the relevant files to change the number of accessible presets, and/or to change the method of accessing them.

In that case do I need any presets at all ?

You can certainly enjoy your radio without them whilst still having access to all of your favourite stations. The author hasn't used a preset since around December 2008 and has 5 radios which are used every day. Clearly the stations that you listen to more than any others are handy if you have them stored on a preset but the My Stuff options do make the preset buttons largely redundant. However there is one instance where the preset is invaluable. See the answer below for an explanation of the pros and cons of having stations stored on the preset buttons.

The station on one of my presets no longer works but it plays fine from the Reciva website… What’s going on ?

It is important to know how the presets work on a Reciva radio.

The station database and the contents of My Stuff are all held on the Reciva servers. In order for your radio to fully work you need to be able to connect to the Reciva servers. The only exception to this rule are the stations that you have saved to your presets. The preset stations are held statically on the radio, not by Reciva. This makes them faster to select (just press the button) than My Station stations (which require menu navigation), and also means that if the Reciva servers are unavailable (a rare event but it has happened on two occasions) then the ONLY stations that you will be able to stream are those that are stored on the preset buttons. For this reason it is a good idea to have your most cherished stations stored as a preset just in case.

The problem with presets is that the button statically stores the address of the stream. Should a broadcaster change their stream address (happens far more regularly than any of us would like) then any preset you have saved to the previous address will no longer connect. Should Reciva update their database to reflect the change of address, your preset will still fail to connect, even though the station plays fine on the Reciva website. In this instance you would need to access the working stream via another source (My Stations ??) and then recreate the preset to reflect the new streaming address.

In a similar fashion, lets assume a broadcaster offers several streams at different bitrates eg 32k and 64k. If Reciva lists the 32k stream address in its database which you then store as a preset, should the database entry be later updated to the higher quality 64k stream, then you will not benefit from the increased bitrate on the database as your preset will still connect to the original 32k stream.

So, to summarise the last couple of paragraphs, a preset is a useful insurance policy to enable your radio to work should Reciva ever experience a temporary total loss of service. However as a fixed stream address the preset is dependent on the broadcaster not changing their streaming URL. If they do (and they will) your preset will fail to play a station until it is recreated. Additionally, if Reciva update their database to a better quality or more reliable address, the preset user will not see the benefit of that change as long as the broadcaster continues to offer the original address as stored by the preset. There is a technical solution which allows you to edit presets, see ../Sharpfin_enhancement

It is also possible to store a station in My Streams to a preset. Remember, however, that the addresses in My Streams are not automatically updated if the station changes its address, you have to do this yourself, and then re-create the preset.

In view of all this, having your favourite stations listed in My Stations is a more reliable option to a preset, as that database entry will dynamically update as the Reciva database is updated to a working address. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that it is easier and quicker to switch to a station by pressing a preset button than by navigating to and through My Stations and My Streams. Therefore if you decide to use the preset buttons on your radio, it would be a good idea to have all presets created from stations that you also have in My Stations as that way if your preset fails, you will be able to monitor the station via My Stations and once the database has been updated with the new address, you can recreate the preset.

How do I set my preset ?

You should consult your user manual for your specific model but as a general rule you would locate and play your chosen station on the radio. With the radio station playing, you would press and hold the desired preset button until the radio confirms the setting.

Can I overwrite an existing, unwanted preset ?

Yes. Follow the above method and your new selection will permanently overwrite the previously stored station.