I love this website! Also, if you like this site, be sure to check out radiooooo.com for a similar premise, but with more of a historical aspect. I'll additionally plug everynoise.com solely because it has every genre of music you've ever heard of, and then thousands more!
Both sites (and radio.garden) are great for finding new music.
Why did I listen to a Lowe's commercial on a radio station from Port Mathurin? For reference, an island in the middle of nowhere in the Indian Ocean: https://radio.garden/visit/accacia/Y2DoPxzU
My guess is they are just streaming spotify on some VPN with a stolen account that puts them in Florida.
I've heard a lot of German ads on Nigerian stations. Turns out they were all served by zeno.fm ("The easiest way to create and listen to radio stations and podcasts") which seems to proxy local stations, making money from cramming ads into the streams.
It was a challenge finding something truly foreign. I just kept stumbling across america's best hits of the 80s and 90s, all across the globe. With a steady helping of generic euro-pop.
But some revival preaching in africa really felt like visiting a foreign place, as did some cape town talk radio. Obviously the islamic world has a very different playlist, so that was a gimme. What a neat concept!
Um. Just did a quick stroll down memory lane. Ya. Me Phi Me's album ONE hasn't exactly held up well... So here's another movie soundtrack single that I still enjoy:
Revival was on a soundtrack of a (mediocre) movie Reality Bites. It has wonderful sense of South-style communion for me. I remember that was the only song by Me Phi Me, which I enjoyed at that time.
When I was first time in Paris, me and friends were blown away by the sheer number of stations and good, rave-class, electronic music on the waves. We used to wander around the city with walkman's on. Sounds weird... good times.
Also, when I was a small kid, used to go to the furthest room in the house, close the door and lay down with small, pocket radio, catching foreign stations on LW. The further, the better.
That's cool... I would have a hard time finding a radio-set around, though. Few months ago I spent half of a night watching video streams from tokyo public transit stations, so I guess kid inside is doing fine.
> lay down with small, pocket radio, catching foreign stations on LW.
You were probably listening to shortwave stations, not longwave. Most international broadcasting was done in the shortwave bands, typically in the range of 3 MHz (100 meter wavelength) to 30 MHz (10 meter wavelength).
Your first paragraph is similar to when I first started traveling and was surprised to hear so much American music everywhere. That's when I truly realized the scale of American cultural hegemony and what "soft power" really means.
I assume you're referring to Cape Talk 567 [1], which broadcasts on 567 kHz AM/MW in the Cape Town region. I also enjoy it, although the late night political debates can become tiring. It has a sister talk radio station in Gauteng, Radio 702 [2]. Both are owned by Primedia.
I once had a little radio show (10 episodes or so) exploring radio garden. I picked some, contacted them for permission, talked a bit and was happy. South American classic music (Strawinsky!) vs Korean classic music (way too much Austrian influence, boring), KTRU Houston vs WFMU Jersey, Rwanda free radio as classic example of inciting genocide, lots of interesting history bits.
Ah! It is its time to be submitted again. I remember submitting it when I found it a few years back. This pops up once a while (seeing a pattern here) and people loving it.
Came here to say that! It's a nice app and very innovative, but if I have fire up a f*** VPN every time I want to listen to stations outside the UK, forget it!
I don't think the developers care either: I've emailed numerous times without an answer, and even less-than-favourable reviews on the App Store failed to elicit a response. At least tell us the reason for the UK- hatred if you're not going to fix it?!
“unfortunately the restriction must be extended for an indefinite period due to copyright and neighbouring rights related matters that require clarification. ”
“Our original configuration was fully HTTPS-enabled; however, we had to adjust this when browser manufacturers started blocking HTTPS websites from loading HTTP streams.
Approximately 20% of the stations featured on Radio Garden are accessible via HTTP streams, which would become inaccessible if we switched entirely to HTTPS. Given the recent changes in Chrome's behavior towards forcing an HTTPS connection, we are considering moving back to an all-HTTPS setup in the near future.”
Music rights are a bit of a mess across the Atlantic. PRS/PPL licences don't reciprocate with the American equivalents and vice versa. Either it's two sets of licences (and possibly legal entities) or you end up geo blocking. Though on the up side you can stream to parts of Europe and even Australia from the UK IIRC.
Licencing bodies are also fairly actively monitoring these things. I've had them try to chase me for royalties for services that have been shut down because they're still listed in public directories.
Being able to pick radio stations by geolocation is a really nice feature. I can go explore the world! But then it's a bit disappointing how similar many stations sound, no matter where they are.
When this first came out I retrieved the list of stations (around 20k, I think it was just a JSON file), converted it to .m3u8, and I have since used it as a playlist for WinAmp. It's playing one of those streams right now, using 4MB of memory and practically no CPU.
Over the years, several streams (or the station themselves unfortunately) have gone offline. To refresh my list I'd have to scrape the "globe", and it doesn't feel like the right thing to do.
Has anyone encountered a similar website, but with a simple list of public streams?
> Everyone is free to use the collected data (station names, tags, links to stream, links to homepages, language, country, state) in their works. I give all the rights I have at the accumulated data to the public domain.
I'd like to just give some thanks to the author; I use this sometimes when I'm feeling homesick to hear my old local radio stations in the UK. It really quells the feeling of disconnect I sometimes feel to my homeland and gives me comfort when I feel wayward in my spirit.
This is an interesting comment in that the stations in my home town are no longer the same. Clear Channel has come in bought up all (only a slight exaggeration) of the stations. The stations I listened to as a kid are no longer around, and some of the stations that are still on the air are different formats. If child me were to listen to radio today, nothing would be recognizable
WMPH.net 91.7Mhz FM They play everything from Big Band to Taylor Swift (sometimes even back to back). Give a listen, if nothing else they will go "Wow people from around the world listen to us!"
It went straight to my local radio station and I listened for 2 minutes straight of ads! It was actually kind of weird to hear ads for local businesses, like the pub just down the road.
This is really cool. My wife and I spent a few months in Merida, MX. Great to listen to music broadcast from there. A great city with a few disadvantages. ;)
68 comments
[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 247 ms ] threadBoth sites (and radio.garden) are great for finding new music.
My guess is they are just streaming spotify on some VPN with a stolen account that puts them in Florida.
It seems they embed ads from out local areas to make money.
You will see the timer stop when the ad is playing.
But some revival preaching in africa really felt like visiting a foreign place, as did some cape town talk radio. Obviously the islamic world has a very different playlist, so that was a gimme. What a neat concept!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-Vtg2Oc4IU
Have you heard of Lyrics Born? Hearing this track again makes me wonder about their respective influences.
Lyrics Born - Calling Out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-kV6TRs8PU
Um. Just did a quick stroll down memory lane. Ya. Me Phi Me's album ONE hasn't exactly held up well... So here's another movie soundtrack single that I still enjoy:
Me Phi Me ft Jeriko One - Here We Come https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQsmJif3RTA
Thx for links, good stuff. Let us keep it up.
Also, when I was a small kid, used to go to the furthest room in the house, close the door and lay down with small, pocket radio, catching foreign stations on LW. The further, the better.
Radio rocks. Great mash-up.
I’m long past being a kid and I still do this
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37829061 https://minitokyo3d.com/
You were probably listening to shortwave stations, not longwave. Most international broadcasting was done in the shortwave bands, typically in the range of 3 MHz (100 meter wavelength) to 30 MHz (10 meter wavelength).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortwave_radio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longwave
[1] https://www.primediaplus.com/station/capetalk [2] https://www.primediaplus.com/station/702
Wonderful random sounds from all over the place
2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13164058
2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18427701
2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23477771
2022: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30441847
I don't think the developers care either: I've emailed numerous times without an answer, and even less-than-favourable reviews on the App Store failed to elicit a response. At least tell us the reason for the UK- hatred if you're not going to fix it?!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Garden
“unfortunately the restriction must be extended for an indefinite period due to copyright and neighbouring rights related matters that require clarification. ”
Just like TuneIn, they are behaving like a broadcaster and aren't paying license fees, so I guess they are afraid of similar legal action
Approximately 20% of the stations featured on Radio Garden are accessible via HTTP streams, which would become inaccessible if we switched entirely to HTTPS. Given the recent changes in Chrome's behavior towards forcing an HTTPS connection, we are considering moving back to an all-HTTPS setup in the near future.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/RadioGarden/s/0FByul10C0
Licencing bodies are also fairly actively monitoring these things. I've had them try to chase me for royalties for services that have been shut down because they're still listed in public directories.
Like this site but in real life.
So many links to web sites happen where one has no clue why it is posted or what it does.
Then I question what this does that a simple Google search can't (find local radio stations that play online).
It feels like it would be ridiculously tedious if there were a thousand different ways stations might set up their stream.
The stream may be submitted in MP3, AAC, M3U or PLS format, and must be online 24/7. Please enter a secure HTTPS url if you have one.
Couple of mine: Hip hop lounge in DC, zootopia Stanford, alpha boys Kingston, Kauai community, soggy dollar BVI, smooth jazz NY
2. KFFP Freeform Portland - https://radio.garden/listen/kffp-freeform-portland/wgDi5KFv
3. Radio Gugelhopf from Zürich - internet radio - https://radio.garden/listen/radio-gugelhopf/q4oFNLjR
Over the years, several streams (or the station themselves unfortunately) have gone offline. To refresh my list I'd have to scrape the "globe", and it doesn't feel like the right thing to do.
Has anyone encountered a similar website, but with a simple list of public streams?
[1] - https://de1.api.radio-browser.info/#General
http://de1.api.radio-browser.info/json/stations
> Everyone is free to use the collected data (station names, tags, links to stream, links to homepages, language, country, state) in their works. I give all the rights I have at the accumulated data to the public domain.
https://www.radio-browser.info/
However the UK has strong regional accents (especially in ads) and local radio tends to reflect that, which makes me feel like home.
https://radio.garden/visit/wilmington-de/IgIAlhdo
WMPH.net 91.7Mhz FM They play everything from Big Band to Taylor Swift (sometimes even back to back). Give a listen, if nothing else they will go "Wow people from around the world listen to us!"
http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/
There are many of these radios though
http://websdr.org/
http://kiwisdr.com/public/