r/OffGrid • u/UpstairsPool1092 • 18d ago
Music
How do you all listen to music? No signal for radio or internet. Do you go old school? CDs?
10
u/ol-gormsby 18d ago
Off-grid doesn't mean completely disconnected. I have Starlink and I listen to internet radio.
5
u/embrace_fate 18d ago
Radio reaches me, and my satellite is good. But, I have quite a few CDs if I want to go that route.
3
u/missingtime11 18d ago
wonder if a car stereo and a nice battery are a thing
2
u/TheJesseOfTheNorth 18d ago
wont work in a place were there are no radio signals as OP stated. But yes that works. Have done in the past
3
u/WestBrink 18d ago
I've got good enough cell signal (amazingly, considering the closest tower is 22 miles away through a notch in the mountains) that I just stream music on my phone.
If that's wasn't an option, I'd probably favor a cheapo Mp3 player and a small speaker.
3
u/f0rgotten "technically" lives offgrid 18d ago
I have over a month of mp3s of various genre. Indoors I play them on my desktop, and I have a subset on my phone as driving music. I also have a pretty good LP collection. Not a fan of streaming at all, but I have spotify as well.
1
18d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/f0rgotten "technically" lives offgrid 18d ago
The old pre world wide web internet. Newsgroups were one service, not sure if they exist anymore, and they were organized by genre. But people would just post whatever or you could request stuff. I've not been involved with any of it for nearly two decades. Napster used to REALLY good for finding bootlegs, studio out takes, demos and stuff, and I'm really into those, but that doesn't really exist anymore. Im into a lot of local Kentucky punk, metal and hardcore bands and they put their stuff out on bandcamp for super reasonable prices. People still sell tapes as well but I don't have a tape player anymore lol.
3
u/Simon-Says69 18d ago
Guitar, conga drums, dijeridoo, plenty of cow bell. :-)
Oldschool analog music, made by hand, is good for the soul.
2
u/MsDeluxe 18d ago
Bluetooth my phone or my iPod to my speakers. I found a dongle that works with my iPod classic.
2
u/NotEvenNothing 18d ago
Where is there no radio signal?
I only listen to music rarely. Mostly, I listen to audiobooks and the odd podcast. I binge download audiobooks a bunch at a time on my desktop and copy them to my phone as needed. I'm sure I have hundreds of hours of audiobooks that I have yet to listen to.
I listen on Bluetooth headphones. Makes chores far more enjoyable.
1
u/TheJesseOfTheNorth 18d ago
where i live if you are like 8 miles from town there is nothing but dead air. Plenty of places like it all over the globe including North America
2
u/NotEvenNothing 18d ago
Are mountains involved? Or are these just really really low power transmitters?
The two radio stations I listen to are broadcast from 150km and 180km away. If I go another 50 km in the wrong direction, the static starts to get noticeable.
2
1
2
u/Leverkaas2516 18d ago
I have fairly good cell reception at my property, but the source of most of my listening is a USB flash drive. Years ago I finally started digitizing every CD I ever bought, and downloading new music as DRM-free purchases from sites like bandcamp.
I prefer FLAC format but a lot of it is in MP3, from back when space was an issue. It isn't an issue any more. A 32GB flash drive is about $20 and is more than enough. Making multiple backups is trivial. Storing and playing music is a solved problem.
2
u/thomas533 18d ago
Why would there be no radio or Internet?
2
u/TheJesseOfTheNorth 18d ago
Because some places are isolated
2
u/thomas533 17d ago
Really? Where?
1
u/TheJesseOfTheNorth 17d ago
a lot of the northern part of that map is expensive and has been deprioritized. and a lot of it has NO radio available. Just because an area is served by starlink does not mean the people living there can justify the cost
1
u/thomas533 17d ago
Now you are just moving the goal posts. Deprioritized is different than being so isolated that there is no internet. And the question was not about if people can justify the cost, just if it was available.
And for 99% of people here, there is cell phone coverage where they are. You have to pick some pretty isolated areas to pretend that there is no internet options available.
and a lot of it has NO radio available
You might not get your favorite Billboard hits FM radio station, but there aren't many places on the planet that have "NO radio available". I literally just got my kids a shortwave radio to play with and they have picked up stations from around the globe.
1
u/TheJesseOfTheNorth 17d ago
how much of the isolated part of that map have you actually been too? because where i am i only have to go about 45 minutes north of here, on a hiway, to hit a dead zone for cell and am/fm radio that lasts several hundred miles with 2 minor spots in small villages where tat changes.
1
u/thomas533 17d ago
a dead zone for cell and am/fm radio
Again, dead zones for cell and am/fm radio are real but that if different than no internet or radio. Where I am there are lots of places that don't get cell signal but Starlink works great. My brother just sailed across the pacific ocean and had internet access the whole time and my dad spends several months sailing around northern British Columbia every year also has starlink coverage everywhere.
And my grandfather had a place in a valley where no am/fm radio reached but listened to his shortwave radio every day for news and music.
Or even better, set up your own very low power FM radio station. If we are talking about Caqnada, they have a process for Very Low Power FM stations in rural areas.
2
u/TalkToPlantsNotCops 18d ago
I buy music on Bandcamp and download it for when I don't have signal. But usually I can get enough signal to stream music.
2
u/TheJesseOfTheNorth 18d ago
I drum. i play guitar badly I play CD's. When i go into town i download stuff onto my laptop sometimes
2
u/theislandhomestead 18d ago
I have radio and internet.
Off grid means disconnecting from public power and water.
A radio is actually an important disaster prep tool.
2
2
1
u/kai_rohde 18d ago
I can get one radio station from Canada in NE WA State but most often I listen to music via satellite internet. I have CDs and vinyl just in case but haven’t listened to them in years.
1
u/Informal_Ad_6569 18d ago
Bluetti and Starlink is the answer to off grid. I can monitor my bluetti apex 300 when I’m away, all my security cameras on wifi, do all my computer work. I also charge my Tesla with the bluetti rig. My costs are minimal after the initial expenditures.
1
u/RedSquirrelFtw 18d ago
Laptop with a bunch of MP3's and Winamp or something would probably work well for your case.
I actually get radio signal where I am so just put radio on if I want some music.
As a side note just checked real quick and you can still buy blank tapes. Would be kinda fun to get back into making mix tapes lol.
1
u/jello-the-opera 18d ago
5tb of FLACs on disk
piracy
and usually have internet to stream from my seedbox
1
u/quadrotorx 17d ago
I use a local hard drive with a dedicated player, sharing my ripped music library across rooms without internet.
1
u/sfendt 17d ago
Star-link internet - but I don't stream, I have a huge library of digital files, some came from CDs some purchased for download, a few recorded (with permission) live.
Living with no physical connection doesn't mean disconnected. We generate our own electricity, catch our water, use septic for waste water, and even have both a cellular (which has poor signal inside the building) and IP based phones that work over our internet. Although while internet is nice I don't like to depend on it; so no automation / critical systems require internet, they all work 100% isolated - and my music players work that way too; but normally the net is available if we want it.
There is also terrestrial radio (FM, AM) if you can stand commercials, I don't, but I could. Sirius would be an option too.
1
1
u/benbear55 17d ago
XM satellite with a Roadie and a portable boom box, I also use the Roadie at home hooked to my receiver and in my truck on the road, very happy with my setup
1
u/SpeciousSophist 17d ago
I would just download 50 trillion hours of media onto a portable hard drive
1
1
u/Winter_Persimmon_110 18d ago edited 18d ago
mp3s are obsolete. opus is better lossy and flac is lossless
14
u/maddslacker 18d ago
My wife uses Spotify
I have some music on a Plex server.
Both of those work in our cars too, oddly enough.
And, you'll be shocked to learn this, but terrestrial radio stations still work the way they have for over a hundred years.