[Q] Radio - some newbie questions

[Markstar]

Hi,
please excuse my stupid question - I'm a newbie and English is not my first language:

1. What exactly does the term "radio" refer to? I only know it as in "listening to a radio station". Is that it or does the term actually refer to the cell phone signals?

I guess the answer to the first question also helps with the remaining questions I have:

1. There are tons of threads about flashing of the radio (like: "[Resources] Rhodium GSM Radio Collection"), but what do they actually do?
2. Which radio version should I get (I'm from Germany using O2)? The above mentioned thread says I need to look up the region in the wiki, but the wiki leads back to that exact same thread.

Thanks in advance, Google just gave me a bunch of sites about streaming radio to my phone, but somehow I don't think that is the whole story.


Edit: I did some more research and then I googled for GSM, I got on to the right track. So this is definitely not about listening to my favorite station on better quality.

However, I still wonder why to upgrade and if so, which version...

 

[redpoint73]

The cell phone "radio" refers to both the hardware and the software used to send/receive signals over the cell network. GPS also uses the same radio. When talking about flashing the radio, the software component of this is being referred to. Flashing a different radio can (possibly) improve cell reception, as well as battery life (phone constantly trying to connect will drain the battery, flashing a new radio can help alleviate this).

What radio is "best" if often geographically dependent. Also, the newer radios tend to work better than older ones, but that's not always the case. Perhaps somebody in Germany can provide guidance on this radio works the best in your area.

 

[Markstar]

The cell phone "radio" refers to both the hardware and the software used to send/receive signals over the cell network. GPS also uses the same radio. When talking about flashing the radio, the software component of this is being referred to. Flashing a different radio can (possibly) improve cell reception, as well as battery life (phone constantly trying to connect will drain the battery, flashing a new radio can help alleviate this).

What radio is "best" if often geographically dependent. Also, the newer radios tend to work better than older ones, but that's not always the case. Perhaps somebody in Germany can provide guidance on this radio works the best in your area.

I see, thank you!

So since I do want to make the best use of the GPS (hopefully with TomTom), this seems to be a rather important issue then.