For me, there is something magical when typing in an unknown URL into my browser. I recently had this again, when I was learning about the small web . One link and a whole world can be behind it. There is just something special to connect across the world, enter someone else’s realm, another corner of the Internet. Will it be cool? Filthy? Interesting? It can lead to anything! It can be a weird personal website, a passion project of someone or a state-run disinformation website. You never know! If you want to feel the rush, try these:
I recently found a new thing, that gives me the same kind feeling. And it is … radio! Well, digital radio. Maybe that sounds underwhelming, but hear me out! Did you know that you can listen to thousands of radio stations on the world for free via the internet? Just like this! With one click, you can hop into a community somewhere on this world. I certainly did not know how easy and accessible it is! Let me explain.
Radio started out using FM, so sending the audio stream by playing with the length and strength of the radio waves. This is the analog method and it is the type of radio that most people would know. It is the one that slowly fades out when you drive away too far from the station and you would just hear noise. Or the one that you know from movies where people talk with walkie-talkies. Still many radio stations in the world use this way of sending their signals.
At the end of the 20. century, the radio also started to digitise. This meant two things: For one, some countries started to switch from analog radio to digital radio (more on this below). But the other development is, that slowly stations started to also stream their audio via the internet and make it accessible to everyone who has an internet connection.
A bit more on digital radio
In Europe at the end of the 20th century, they began experimenting to send radio digitally. This means that the audio signal is compressed and sent in bits encoded in the radio waves. So instead of changing the length and strength of the radio waves, they send 1s and 0s and encode the data in bits and bytes. Somewhat similar like the Internet. Most modern radios you can buy, especially the ones in the cars, have switched to this new digital radio standard called DAB+. Compared to the old method, it uses less energy and less frequency bands to send better quality audio. That is quite nice! But they are still radio waves being sent via towers somewhere around you, so with your digital radio in your car, you can still only pick up radio from stations physically near you.
The nice part is, by now a lot stations have adopted streaming their programme via the internet. radio-browser.info is a nice community driven project that seeks to map all radio stations that steam online and they are currently counting a total of 59330! There is everything you can think of: classic, rock, afro, lofi, local talk, news, etc. That is amazing. Some are small single-person audio streams, others are full-fledged public broadcast stations.
If you search around on this website, you can find the URL of the stations stream. Listening to a radio is as simple as taking such an URL, pasting it in your browser and taking a listen! Again, here are three examples, if you are feeling lucky:
Just clicking on them and listening gives me this magic feeling again. Another place, another culture, another realm that I am a guest of. Discovering radio stations from anywhere on the planet is really cool!
If you are also curious and wanting to discover, the best way I know is to head over to radio.garden . Here you can fly across the earth and see all the radio stations as dots on the map and check them out and give them a listen. So interesting! I love the internet for projects like this.
A screenshot of radio garden, where each dot is one radio station on the planet
If you are less into exploration and more into listening to your favourite stations, then there are other great options too. On my phone for example, I downloaded Deutsia Radio via F-Droid, a simple app to listen to all digital radio stations. Or on my laptop, I do this in the terminal-based radio player called AetherTune .
This is the kind of Internet I like. Open, diverse, free to join and discover. I can only recommend going on the exploration and finding the right station for you. Maybe it is something locally near you, or some specific genre. Go out and find it!
If you want one good station to start with, I can recommend the legendary french channel called FIP . it has no ads during play, very limited and pleasant commentary and an excellent curation of music.
Happy exploring!