“Let’s face it, who wants radio anymore?” is the rallying cry from podshows.com, a new website which has embraced MP3 culture and added a thrilling dimension by hiring the likes of Tony Blackburn to record downloadable radio shows, or ‘podcasts’. As it’s already possible to cram a living room’s worth of your coolest CDs onto something not much bigger than a matchbox, it’s difficult to see what extra spice Paul Gambaccini might bring; but it’s certainly true that concerned murmurs are spreading that analogue radio might be spurned by future generations, with the BBC announcing last week that another 20 of its shows will be made available as podcasts. So, while Londoners don their Apple branded ‘earbuds’ and shuffle their 100 favourite musical moments for perpetual listening pleasure, what might they actually be missing? We drove to a rather grim South London car park, extended the car aerial, and got twiddling.

The familiar sounds of Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4 butt up messily against a plethora of local pirate stations, giving tuning-in sessions that unique blend of frantic drum & bass mixed with in-depth political analysis. There are over 80 pirates operating in London, mostly featuring R&B, Hip Hop and Garage, along with motormouthed DJs giving big ‘shout outs’ to whichever ‘massive’ is prepared to text the studio mobile. Longer established pirates such as Ruud Awakening and Kool FM have big listenerships and an important role in championing innovative dance music, but for every Kool, there’s another station featuring a depressed MC wailing “Where’s my crew, man? What’s going on, London? Anyone listenin’?” Some stations, tired of the threat of legal action, have moved to broadcasting live across the internet – but, of course, old-skool beats are not at their best while tapping weedily inside a knackered Pentium.

Backed by the advertiser’s shilling, London’s commercial stations are a million miles away from the cutting-edge pirates. The cloying sweetness of Magic FM and Heart 106.2 will be familiar to anyone who has ever got in a minicab or wandered into a convenience store; you, too, will have laughed at Heart’s hilarious claim of “more music variety”. Capital, still the most popular commercial station in London, keeps its position by supplying relentless chart fodder, while their kid brother and sister – Choice FM and XFM –suffer from similar blandness during daylight hours. Originally a home for breaking acts getting their first mentions in the NME, XFM’s nadir probably came at Christmas, when their listenership was presented with the curious spectacle of the BandAid single on the playlist. However, the credibility of both stations soars after 9pm with the likes of Ian Canfield & John Kennedy on XFM and Daddy Ernie on Choice, but if your diehard music fans are going to be anywhere of an evening, surely it’s out and about watching live music?

BBC London has doubled its listenership to around 450,000 by moving towards an 80% speech format, and previous music obsessives such as Gideon Coe and Phil Jupitus have upped sticks and moved to 6Music, which isn’t available on analogue. Of course, radio isn’t just about music – it’s about being informed, and about connection in real time; this is where podcasting fails to deliver, and where the likes of BBC London and the loopy debating chamber of London’s phone-in station LBC score highly. But until technology catches up, how can carpark-bound musical explorers get their kicks? If you can locate Resonance on 104.4 FM, their ‘anything goes’ policy will either provide the most profoundly brilliant or depressingly mundane radio you’ve ever heard, and is surely one of the greatest musical projects ever realised in the capital. Having recently applied – along with 34 other small London stations – for one of OFCOM’s new ‘Community Radio’ licenses, we should keep our fingers crossed that the likes of Resonance will end up providing a permanent and genuine “alternative”. But sadly in this car park, the station is inaudible. Maybe it’s time to go home and turn on the computer.