Радио Каприз (Radio Caprice)

Stream URLs on website: http://www.radcap.ru/

Радио Каприз (Radio Caprice) is a phenomenon of nature. Its website offers 258 net radio streams, each one delivering a distinct musical genre. A smattering includes:

o Acid Jazz
o Flute
o Funeral Doom Metal
o Mass/Chorus/Cantata
o Modern Electric Blues
o Psybient
o Psychobilly
o Ska Punk/Core
o Traditional Music Of The Far East
o Underground Rap
o Эстрадная Музыка СССР (songs from old Soviet variety shows)

Don't see anything you like? You've got 247 other choices.

All of these "radio stations" are autoplay only; there's no mic presence, not even station ID. They're also programmed to play every song ever recorded in the indicated genre, regardless of other considerations. For example, on Caprice's Hammond Organ stream we recently logged serious jazz; skating rink pop covers; Christmas music (in August); hot funk; Latin and Arabic styles… in fact, anything at all that has a Hammond organ lead. If there's another source on the planet offering that kind of coverage, we'd be greatly surprised..

Radio Caprice is also about the best-possible scenario for both format selection and stream URL access; the website offers 6 format choices for each station, accessible via an executable playlist file that can be downloaded by clicking one of the buttons displayed beside the embedded Flash player.

One way or the other, one thing is certain: no-one comes away from this Net radio bonanza empty-handed.

WARNING: Radio Caprice is part of the Runet; DO NOT click on any pop-ups or advertisements. We're fairly Net (and Russian) literate, and even we got suckered into clicking on a system update spoof that saw us rooting malware out of our OS for an evening. Stick to page-native HTML and ignore all banners and other bling.


The Gouge:

Genre: Russian radio
Location: Москва/Moscow
Time zone: NA
Stream URL access: Excellent
Bouncer: No
Type of radio: Net-only
Mic presence: None
Stream reliability: Excellent
Format selection: 6 stream format choices, available as executable files (48 kbps AAC); embedded Flash player
Song ID: Yes
Found it on: Shoutcast

Beatles Radio

Stream URL: http://www.beatlesradio.com:8000/stream/1/
Website: http://www.beatlesradio.com/

At first glance, Beatles Radio seems to have an implausible business model: they only play Beatles music. When you figure Beatlemania only lasted 10 years, you'd think they'd've run out of product long ago.

But when you add up all the various versions of the Beatles' own catalogue… in-house BR remixes … covers by other artists… other Apple acts… the solo acts... things their kids recorded… tracks on which a Beatle performed back-up… stuff recorded by other people that they wrote, arranged, or produced… you do indeed have an immense, eclectic -- and growing -- body of work. Throw in news and listener interest content, personality patter, infrequent plugs for the Beatles Fab 4 Store, and those near-universal canned adverts, and what's left sounds remarkably like old-school small town radio… if your local station had played nothing but Beatles-related music. (Which, as those who were there will remember, wasn't actually that far from the truth…)

The BR listener page offers a range of connection choices, including a "B" channel that runs on staggered time, several mobile apps, and an executable M3U playlist file.

So if you dig the Beatles, pop music history, or the ongoing development of this new medium, swing by Beatles Radio. Sound of the past, wave of the future.


The Gouge:

Genre: Canadian radio
Location: Vancouver
Time zone: NA
Stream URL access: Excellent
Bouncer: No
Type of radio: Net-only
Mic presence: Pre-recorded (?)
Stream reliability: Excellent
Format selection: MP3 128 kbps, pop-up Flash player
Song ID: Yes
Found it on: iTunes Internet Radio catalogue

The Mighty KBC

Stream URLs:
http://stream02.audisi.nl/kbc-high (128 kbps MP3)
http://stream02.audisi.nl/kbc-low (48 kbps AAC)
Website: http://www.kbcradio.eu/

The Mighty KBC, a European station targeting truck drivers, is an anorak's dream. Just the business plan is intriguing; to our knowledge, no-one has attempted to reach this market from a single transmitter before. And it gets better: as well as its main AM service, KBC simulcasts on shortwave. (Genius, given its widely-scattered audience, but contrary to current wisdom.)

And just when you thought it couldn't get any cooler, there's more: KBC has just launched a studio ship! Who does that anymore? Well, no-one, but KBC's owner has in fact deep roots – an anchor? – in old-school offshore pirate radio. With KBC he's gone legit, more or less; broadcasting English-language pop from Lithuania on a Soviet Army surplus transmitter, with some Dutch mic presence, this is basically a border blaster: technically legal under local law, though it may tweak international treaties.

And of course, it's got a mean stream. (Two, in fact; a "high quality" MP3 feed and a bandwidth-maximising "mobile" feed.) All of which has earned KBC a militant following, consisting of truck drivers (some of whom tune in via SMS); hams and SWLs, who love the HF service; anoraks nostalgic for the days of offshore radio; and lots of normal people who simply appreciate the diverse mix of Top 40, adult contemporary, fresh picks, and country music.

What more could an IRL ask? KBC is like a spirit warrior for the Radio Nation: one hand holding fast to heritage, the other reaching boldly into the future. Whether you join on AM, SW, SMS, or WIFI, load 'er up and put 'er down, good buddy.

The Gouge:

Genre: Pirate radio, Dutch radio, Lithuanian radio
Location: Vilnius
Time zone: GMT
Stream URL access: Fair
Bouncer: No
Type of radio: Broadcast
Mic presence: live and recorded personality jock-blocks, local day (especially Sunday); newsbreaks in Dutch; automated music
Stream reliability: Excellent
Format selection: AAC, MP3, embedded Flash player
Song ID: Yes
Found it on: Yourmuze

Radio Burgenland

Stream URL: http://194.232.200.146:8000
Website: http://burgenland.orf.at/radio/

This fun station is the Burgenland regional service of Österreichischer Rundfunk, Austria's national public radio network. Aside from the usual hourly news and smattering of public-interest spoken-word programming, Radio Burgenland broadcasts for the most part a stunningly eclectic selection of music. At any given moment, listeners risk encountering American classic country; German sea chanteys (Austria once had a navy); zydeco (sometimes also in German!); German-language pop from all eras; classic rock in several languages; and J-Pop, to name just a handful.

The daylight format is essentially a multilingual, slightly hipper iteration of MOR; after local 2000 the programme becomes "Schlagernacht", more or less the same thing in German.

It all adds up to a music-lover's dream. IRLs who enjoy discovering new favourite songs and genres, as well as those who speak or are learning German, will find a favourite in Radio Burgenland.

The ORF listen page offers a 192 kbps MP3 stream, and also a WMA feed, though URL access is a bit problematic; listeners have to click on the "Mehr Radioangebote" link next to the Radio Burgenland entry on the affiliate list; links to clickable url files are at the top of the menu that opens.

The Gouge:

Genre: Austrian radio, German-language radio
Location: Burgenland
Time zone: GMT + 1 (Central European Time)
Stream URL access: Fair
Bouncer: No
Type of radio: Broadcast
Mic presence: Hourly news, some talk programmes
Stream reliability: Excellent
Format selection: MP3 192 kbps; WMA; embedded player
Song ID: Only on embedded player
Found it on: TuneIn

Muzaiko Esperanto Radio

Stream URL: http://streaming.radionomy.com/Muzaikoinfo (MP3 128k)
Website: http://muzaiko.info/

The world is only just catching up to the opportunities of net radio; as the early 20th century had trouble conceiving of "broadcasting", so the early 21st has largely yet to grasp "planetary radio": a listenership pieced together from widely-scattered outliers. But audience concentration is no longer a deal breaker in this medium.

Case in point: Muzaiko Esperanto Radio. This well-run net-only station airs 24 hours of Esperanto-language music, interspersed with talk-blocks in the same language. Certainly there are enough Esperantists in the world to sustain such a project; though hard to count, they're estimated at a few hundred thousand, possibly a million. Size of a large city, what. Only trouble is, they're sprinkled across the globe in two's and three's. But that, of course, is a far smaller problem online.

And Muzaiko is aggressively courting them. First, by zealously digging up every Esperanto act ever recorded. Not just well-known groups like Kaj Tiel Plu, Dolchamar, and Persone (the "Esperanto Beatles"), but also tracks little-known even to Esperantists; some seem to have been recorded in somebody's kitchen. But they're all good, and in their incredible spread of styles – rap, Latin, folk, pop, 50s rock, heavy metal, punk, medieval, operatic, bossa nova, Russian crooning, French chanson, reggae – they demonstrate the vast reach of Esperanto in the world today. And distributed here and there throughout the programme are spoken items, delivered in flawless, fluent Esperanto. (A kind of music in its own right.) These blocks generally range ten or twenty minutes; sometimes a full hour. All are also available as "listen again" podcasts on-site.

Not that some compromises weren't inevitable; after wrestling with copyright issues (even more frustrating in Esperanto music, given the obscurity of some of the acts), management decided to go with Radionomy, a net-radio stream provider that handles most copyright clearances and recoups its costs through adverts inserted into the stream. The spots are brief and infrequent, but they're also raucous, intrusive, and most annoying of all: in English. Still, it's little enough to pay for such a valuable service.

Muzaiko has one stream, at 128k MP3. Two large buttons on the upper right margin of their listen page allow listeners to load an embedded player on Radionomy's site or download a clickable playlist file. They also offer no programme schedule on their site; just an automatically-updated list of programmes to air over the next two hours, reported in the visitor's own local time. So their scheduling time zone is currently irrelevant (and apparently secret).

Anyway, give this unique net-native station twenty minutes. If you haven't experienced the wealth of Esperanto music, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

The Gouge:

Genre: Esperanto language radio, UK radio
Location: England
Time zone: NA
Stream URL access: Excellent
Bouncer: No
Type of radio: Net-only
Mic presence: Pre-recorded
Stream reliability: Excellent
Format selection: MP3 128 kbps, Radionomy Flash player
Song ID: Yes
Found it on: iTunes Internet Radio catalogue

8KinFM 100.5

Stream URL: http://103.18.108.75:9956/
website: http://caama.com.au/radio

Australia enjoys a roaring community radio system. Equal parts public access, college radio, and commercial music formats, licence-holders must limit advertising to local business and meet stringent Australian-content goals. As a result, listeners living outside the country are guaranteed a privileged window into Australian music and culture whenever we tune in.

An outstanding example is 8KinFM 100.5, part of the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association's network of Aboriginal stations. CAAMA broadcasts a variety of popular music, along with local news, politics, and information of interest to Australian Aboriginals and their neighbours. There's a little religious programming as well, and the odd sportscast.

And of course, a fair whack of country music; this is, after all, Australia. Like other community stations, 8kinFM broadcasts not just American classic country and the latest Country Countdown hits, but also a provocative Australia-native subgenre the rest of us would otherwise never get to enjoy. What's unique about 8kinFM is that many of these artists are Aboriginal, some singing in Aboriginal languages. In fact, at any particular time you're likely to hear a DJ introducing and commenting in his or her own Aboriginal language.

This is the power of Internet radio: Australian Aboriginal voices, streamed to the world.

The Gouge:

Genre: Australian radio, Aboriginal radio
Location: Mparntwe (Alice Springs)
Time zone: GMT + 9:30 (Australian Central Time)
Stream URL access: Excellent
Bouncer: No
Type of radio: Broadcast
Mic presence: Live during local day and evening; auto music at night
Stream reliability: Excellent
Format selection: AAC, MP3 (clickable .pls files for WinAmp, iTunes, and VLC); embedded Flash player
Song ID: No
Found it on: Shoutcast

CKOI 96,9

As of 4 December 2015 this stream is definitively broken. Please contact us if you have a valid stream URL for this station. In the meantime, its website player is still operational. 

Stream URLs (UPDATED AS OF 7 June 2015):
http://1671.live.streamtheworld.com:80/CKOIFMAAC_128_SC
http://1671.live.streamtheworld.com:3690/CKOIFMAAC_128_SC
http://1671.live.streamtheworld.com:443/CKOIFMAAC_128_SC
Clickable .pls file: http://playerservices.streamtheworld.com/pls/CKOIFMAAC_128.pls
Website: http://www.ckoi.com/

French-language commercial broadcast radio from Montréal, with sister stations across French Canada. CKOI is the big rock station in town, playing Top 40 hits to the youth market in French and English. Raucous "morning gang" programming during local morning commute; station-produced parody tunes and comedy during local evening commute.

The French-language music is virtually all Canadian (best on the planet, in our opinion).

Of particular note:

• Le Décompte Franco (The Francophone Top 40), Sundays, 2300 - 0200 GMT (1800 to 2100 local).

CKOI is one of those stations that inexplicably hides its stream URLs from potential listeners. Worse yet, it has a tendency to kill them without notice, forcing IRLs back to Google for a working address. The .pls file linked above works as of 7 June 2015; to load the station, or replace a dead URL, download a copy of the .pls file here.

Double-clicking on this file loads CKOI automatically in iTunes. If ineffective on your technology, crack the .pls file with a text editor or word processor (File--->Open---> select .pls file). Manually add one of the URLs inside to your net radio application.

And of course, there's always the station's own Web player.

The Gouge:

Genre: French language radio, Canadian radio
Location: Canada
Time zone: GMT – 5 (Eastern Time)
Stream URL access: Poor
Bouncer: No
Type of radio: Broadcast
Mic presence: Yes
Stream reliability: Good (stable, but occasionally goes 404.)
Format selection: AAC only
Song ID: Yes
Found it on: Yourmuze

Radio Caroline

Stream URL: http://sc3.radiocaroline.net:8030/ (AAC; many alternatives available on the listen page.)

Mi Amigo, Radio Caroline's first studio ship

Probably the most famous of the 1960s offshore pirates, Radio Caroline now broadcasts (legally!) from dry land to the whole world, via livestream. As "Europe's First Album Station", Caroline's new Web-based service streams an eclectic mix of oldies, adult contemporary, hard rock, and roots music. She's one of the rare net-only stations to have live mic presence, as well as pre-recorded and automated blocks; some shifts feature original DJs from the pirate era, in the usual welter of accents from around the English-speaking world.

As the most well-planned, well-designed, and ambitious net radio station to date, Radio Caroline boasts one of the most up-front listen pages (with a spectrum of formats and bitrates; several in-browser Flash-based players; and a string of mobile apps); comprehensive website; and plans for an on-air broadcast service when someone can convince the UK government to grant a license.

The live blocks are mostly scheduled sporadically during local day. For old-fashioned interactive mic presence (on net-only radio!), check out 60's and 70's Request Show, Tuesdays at 2100 GMT.

So swing by. The Ship That Rocks is off the sea, and on the stream.

The Gouge:

Genre: Pirate radio, UK radio
Location: UK
Time zone: GMT + 0 (Western European Time)
Stream URL access: Excellent
Bouncer: No
Type of radio: Net-only
Mic presence: Live, pre-recorded, and automated blocks
Stream reliability: High
Format selection: Windows Media Player (.asx); RealPlayer (.ram); M3U (iTunes etc.); MP3, in a full range of bit rates
Song ID: No
Found it on: Virtual Radio (mobile app)

Recipient of the Clear Crystal Award! (Graphic pending.)

Ross Revenge, Caroline's
 final studio ship

(Photo of Ross Revenge courtesy of Mark Hawkins; photo of Mi Amigo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)