Home > Consumer Reviews > D-Link DSB-R100 USB FM Radio with MP3 Software

For those of us who grew up with FM receivers the size of a PC, this is a revelation. The radio looks more like an antenna than an FM Stereo tuner. A good deal of the compact size comes from the fact that all of the amplification is located in your PC or your powered speakers. The cables need to be hooked up to a USB port, as well as either a Line-In or Mic-In connector on your sound card. I can't find fault with the hardware, but the software has been a nightmare.

I've installed the radio on two Windows 98 machines and a Windows 2000 Professional machine with miserable results. I was never able to get on-screen volume controls to work under Windows 98, and after several weeks all of the software quit working entirely. Under windows 2000 Pro, everything worked O.K. for a couple of months, then I started getting an error message on start up that said that a number must be between 1 and (about 2 billion). All of the station names disappeared, and the volume controls in the D-Link software stopped working. Upgrading to new drivers resulted in the software being unable to locate the radio, even though Windows said that it was there and working correctly. Uninstalling the software still resulted in Windows trying to start it on boot up. Reinstalling the software was unsuccessful, as I kept receiving the 'unable to locate radio' message.

So, now I'm left with a [dollar amount] paperweight. Perhaps this is the reason that you don't see a lot of USB radios on the market. While it is a great concept, the software is definitely "not ready for prime time". If you really need to integrate a radio into your PC, you should probably look elsewhere.

I wanted an FM tuner that I could use to schedule and record shows on my local Jazz stations and NPR. Car Talk, This American Life, etc. You know, time shift the radio like a VCR does for the TV. This product _should_ have done the trick. But no, the software is minimal and has no capabilities to record more than one timed show. This product can be replaced with a simple FM receiver from Radio Shack.

I sent email to D-Link offering to code this up for them. How hard can it be? If I had the protocol spec I could certainly do it in no time. No response. This thing is sitting on the shelf along with all the other failed products that _should_ have worked.

Okay, so I only listen to KCRW in santa monica, and I can usually just turn off the software interface once the radio is on -- but does the interface have to be so hideous?
Hardware wise, the radio can pick up signals semi-competently. I've found plugging in my own antenna array helps. Your mileage may vary.

I can't say I understand the negative reviews. At thirty bucks this prouduct has exceeded my expectations and performed as advertised. The reception is as good as any other small fm radio in my house (clean stereo reception, decent ability to pull in stations). The software installed flawlessly on a Win 98 machine and is very intuitive to use. The timer feature works great. The only weakness is the mp3 software. I prefer more options but this is easily solved by using another program to convert to mp3. In my case I use the free version of MusicMatch. Bottom line is that this product has been an inexpensive, high quality solution for recording fm broadcasts.

I initially thought this was a great product. The software looked like it had been developed for Windows 3.1, but looks aside, things were ok.

After about 1 week of use, the presets went away... then the volume control and recording functionality. I uninstalled the software and drivers and re-installed from scratch only to get the same results. I downloaded the latest software from d-link and installed... only to get the same results.

Contacting tech support didn't help either. Their suggestion: reinstall the software and drivers. Gee, thanks. If someone else were to write functional software for this product, it might be useful.