Safety first. Everything below is an external check any owner can safely do. Do not open a battery pack, work on exposed wiring, or bypass a safety cut-out. If a product is hot, smoking, swollen or physically damaged, stop using it and call us.
Radio faults sort into three buckets that need completely different responses. Identify the bucket first.
Power
No display, no lights, nothing. Test the outlet with something else. If the radio runs on both mains and batteries, try each — working on one but not the other is informative and points at the supply rather than the radio. Check the fuse in the plug where fitted. Remove old batteries and check the compartment contacts for corrosion, which is common in radios that have sat unused.
Setting
It powers up but produces nothing useful. Confirm the source or band is right — a radio on the wrong input, on AUX or Bluetooth instead of tuner, or on AM instead of FM, behaves exactly like a broken one. Check it is not muted, and check headphones are not plugged in, which silences the speakers on most sets.
Signal
It powers up and tunes but reception is poor or absent. Extend the telescopic aerial fully and try repositioning — even a short move can matter. For DAB specifically, run a full rescan: transmitter changes happen periodically and a station list from two years ago may simply be out of date. That alone resolves a good share of "my DAB stopped working" reports.
Internet radios
When an internet radio stops working, the network is more often the cause than the radio. Check the radio is still connected to your Wi-Fi, and remember a router replacement or a password change will silently disconnect it.
Is it worth repairing?
Depends on the set, the fault and what a comparable refurbished unit costs. Sometimes the honest answer is no, and we will say so.
Still stuck?
Call a product specialist and describe what yours is doing.