Continuing the theme of Freeview radio, you don't need to have your tv switched on to listen to any of the many radio stations on Freeview if your reception is via a Freeview STB or Personal Video Recorder (PVR). So long as your STB or PVR has "audio-out sockets" (and most, if not all, do), you can connect those sockets to the Auxiliary-IN or Line-IN sockets of your audio equipment. Your Freeview box does need a number display, at least. Radio 2, for example, is on Freeview number 702, so it's easy to punch the number in using the box's remote control.
Of course, if the Freeview box and the audio equipment are a long way apart, you'll need long cables and it may not be acceptable to you to have those trailing around the room. However, I'm going to ignore that and explain just how to set this up as it's the most useful way to listen to digital radio (the sound is better than Digital Audio Broadcasting [DAB]).
The audio-out sockets and the Aux-IN sockets are what are called "Phono" sockets. Here's what they look like:
The white one (sometimes it's black instead) is for the left stereo channel and the red one is for the right stereo channel. You will need to buy a stereo phono cable to connect the equipment together. Here's what the ends of such a cable look like, showing the black and red phono plugs.
The black plugs go into the white (or black) sockets of your STB and your audio equipment and the red plugs go into the red sockets - it couldn't be easier! Just make sure you've measured how long the cable needs to be and buy a cable of at least that length - goes without saying!
