Let's use this to share our favourite stations.
Shonan Beach FM, based in Japan. 'Lofi Japanese jazz', I guess? When I lived in a house with a HomePod I had a shortcut hey Siri, Shonan Beach! that was activated most mornings. This was on all day as a low-volume background track. Love it.
https://radio.garden/listen/shonan-beach-fm-78-9/qg9qo6VR
(I was in Australia, timezone-adjacent. YMMV if you're connecting at 03:00 Tokyo time. Also they do a lot of talking on the weekends.)
Or https://shonanbeachfm.out.airtime.pro:8000/shonanbeachfm_a if you want to use a web radio app like https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.y20k.transistor/ etc.
One unfortunate property of radio.garden is it doesn’t give you the actual stream links (IIRC it proxies the M3Us through its own server), because lock-in I guess? I’d be happy to be proven wrong here, because the site is otherwise excellent.
I came upon a French-language radio station catalogue a while ago, and that did have the original links, but I’ve lost the tab since then :( ETA: It was https://www.programmes-radio.com/en/streaming/, and I was misremembering: they don’t show the original playlist link either, but they do use it in their streaming widget, so it’s a only short trip to the Network tab of the browser’s devtools away.
Hello I'm the developer of programmes-radio.com (but non-French people should probably use https://www.radio-addict.com instead) (also the website is open source, https://github.com/conradfr/ProgRadio/)
I don't show the streaming links but it's not for lock-in but because I've never got that request :) You can just look them up using developer tools though (same for radio-garden). Not ideal on mobile I guess.
I haven't look at what radio.garden does but I proxy some http only streams that don't work well when requested from an https audio element, maybe that's what you're referring to.
A lot of Icecast/Shoutcast streams either lack HTTPS support, or they don't have CORS headers, or not the right CORS headers.
Like a very common issue is - if you don't have an access control allow headers header for icy-metaint - you can't pull out the embedded Shoutcast metadata client-side. You now have to pull now-playing type data via some other method, like polling the Icecast API - which may not be available. A lot of servers don't send any CORS headers, some only send the allow-origin header.
In theory stream producers can use Ogg to encapsulate the stream and use bitstream chaining to have in-band metadata. That limits the codecs to Vorbis/Opus/FLAC, which are all great codecs - bigger issue tends to be how the browser handles chained bitstreams in audio elements. My understanding is - they just don't handle it at all.
So - if the goal is to play the streams in the browser and ensure you have a consistent experience, it makes sense to proxy them all into some common format like HLS and serve it over HTTPS. You can have timed ID3 metadata, and eliminate CORS and mixed-media issues. This does mess with the stream's ability to accurately measure things like, how many people are listening.
AFAIK the https://www.skytune.net/ portal gives you the original .mp3/aac/m3u ... adresses
Thanks! I typically access through Apple Music, which itself goes via TuneIn. Not a delightful experience, but the only one that works on a HomePod.
I've been enjoying Punnagai radio for a few months: https://radio.garden/listen/punnagai-radio/WU8eJqek
I don't know much about Indian/Tamil music, but it's catchy.
I was fully expecting a radio station in Tamil Nadu, but this one's in Sri Lanka. I know there's a lot of Tamil people in Sri Lanka, but that's still pretty interesting!
https://radio.garden/listen/shirley-spinoza-radio/BgoQjOjJ
I wanted to listen to radio from Iran for obvious political reasons but there doesn't seem to be any on Radio Garden.
So I listened to some radio from Iraq since it was next door, and it was a music station, and the music was really good. I couldn't understand the lyrics but it was very enjoyable.
Interesting, I haven't heard of this station before, but most of the Shonan area has the vibe of a surf village so the music pretty much matches that vibe. Sounds like a station I'll visit more often.
- the road home FM/"Bob and the dogs" it's a mixture of poetry and song from a guy that lives in the Canadian wilderness, talks in a very soothing manner
- the wave from Vancouver CA (also Soma FM underground 80s). It's a new wave station that plays some very deep cuts from artists that also had radio play in the 80s. I thought I basically heard all 80s alt rock and new wave songs but this station at least doubled it for me.
- CKIA from Quebec City. It's a very diverse program, sat and sun mornings they have chamber music that is very relaxing.