[HN Gopher] Show HN: Campus FM, live stream college and independ...
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       Show HN: Campus FM, live stream college and independent radio
       stations for free
        
       Author : erichlee
       Score  : 135 points
       Date   : 2022-11-15 13:29 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.campus-fm.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.campus-fm.com)
        
       | duderific wrote:
       | Really great work! It might also be cool to have a config that
       | allows for non-cached streams; that way it would allow for
       | "browsing" any of the available streams, rather than limiting to
       | 10 pre-selected ones. I found that restriction to be a bit non-
       | intuitive.
        
         | erichlee wrote:
         | Yep, getting a bunch of comments about the station selection UI
         | (also I can tell from the engagement stats that not a ton of
         | people are successfully swapping out stations). I'm gonna think
         | about how to make this more intuitive in the coming days.
         | Thanks for the feedback!
        
       | notRobot wrote:
       | Also see: https://radio.garden
        
       | jjice wrote:
       | Love the idea! I was in my Uni's radio station and it was such a
       | blast. I made some great friends, had some great times, and
       | learned a ton. Our "chief engineers" were fantastic engineers.
       | The amount I learned from them is incredible.
       | 
       | Radio is interesting because there is a required structure
       | (mandated by the FCC) that is fairly strict, but leaves plenty of
       | room for creativity and freedom. Great way to learn how to work
       | within constraints and get the most out of something.
       | 
       | If any college students are reading this, consider joining your
       | school's radio station. It was a great way to meet people and
       | learn.
        
         | erichlee wrote:
         | Totally! I made this because I used to spend a ton of time at
         | my college radio station, and whenever I would visit other
         | colleges, I made sure to check out their student radio if they
         | had one. The programming is always so unique and offbeat,
         | probably because it's mostly just students DJing for fun.
         | 
         | It's been a blast building this--I've been able to spend a ton
         | of time listening to college radio, and also sharpen my front
         | end skills. Looking for jobs/contracts now if anyone is hiring
         | :)
        
       | alexandargyurov wrote:
       | Nice :) Long live radio! Check out https://latenight.fm/
        
       | pg5 wrote:
       | This is neat. I'm curious where you got the list of stations. I
       | try to keep a list of them, as most of them accept indie music
       | submissions.
        
         | erichlee wrote:
         | I started with like 10 stations and then added them as people
         | requested them. Got a ton of requests when I posted this on
         | Reddit a while ago. Lmk if there are any stations you'd like to
         | see on here!
        
       | creeble wrote:
       | Not sure WFMU really counts as college radio any more (used to be
       | associated with Upsala college) but it's free-form, listener-
       | supported radio that is very influential in the NYC area.
       | 
       | Anyway, add it or don't, but give it a listen!
        
       | gee_totes wrote:
       | Love it, and love college radio!
       | 
       | Could you add KAOS?
        
         | erichlee wrote:
         | Yep, I got you! Just added to the site :)
        
       | sertsa wrote:
       | Works great. Another to add: KDUR https://www.kdur.org/
        
       | grumpwagon wrote:
       | Very cool! I listen to WMSE (Wisconsin - Milwaukee School of
       | Engineering - https://www.wmse.org/) and WSUW (UWisconsin
       | Whitewater - https://917theedge.weebly.com/) pretty regularly.
       | It'd be great to see those added, and enjoying finding some new
       | ones with this!
        
       | benbristow wrote:
       | A UK (Scottish) one - http://uwsradio.co.uk/ - University of the
       | West of Scotland
       | 
       | Broadcasts online and in FM/DAB in the Ayrshire region of
       | Scotland
        
         | iso1631 wrote:
         | My UK university was broadcasting it's Radio station online in
         | 2000, and presumably before, it was a desktop (tower) linux PC
         | taking the studio output and running (IIRC) Icecast off a
         | massive 10M internet connection from the University IT
         | department.
         | 
         | More impressive to me was the FM license, which allowed people
         | to pick up the station within about a mile of the campus.
         | 
         | I think there's still something to be said for the effort which
         | goes into proper radio station - the scheduling, actually
         | turning up to broadcast the (live) programs at a specific time,
         | phone ins, news segments, etc, and the organisational skills to
         | get 50 or so people working together on a single project.
        
       | selimthegrim wrote:
       | WTUL's antenna is still down, so this could be useful for the
       | NOLA area too.
        
       | exitb wrote:
       | It caches the streams in background so the station changes are
       | instantaneous, no need to wait for buffering. I've been toying
       | with this idea for some time, but never really followed through.
       | It's lovely to see it implemented by someone.
        
       | kensai wrote:
       | Where are the European university stations?
        
         | jhoechtl wrote:
         | There are hardly any
        
       | Zigurd wrote:
       | I use Audials for internet radio. Audials has many, if not all,
       | of these stations listed, it has mobile apps, and can cast to
       | Chromecast devices.
        
         | nicolaslem wrote:
         | Similarly, there is Shortwave for Gnome users. It pulls its
         | list of stations from www.radio-browser.info.
        
       | floren wrote:
       | How about WITR? https://witr.rit.edu/
        
         | VoidWhisperer wrote:
         | Seconding this :)
        
           | erichlee wrote:
           | WITR is live!
        
       | alksjdalkj wrote:
       | This is awesome! I love all the logos. A few more if you want to
       | add -
       | 
       | WUSB https://www.wusb.fm/
       | 
       | WSOU https://www.wsou.net/
       | 
       | WNYU https://wnyu.org/
       | 
       | WKCR https://www.cc-seas.columbia.edu/wkcr/
        
         | rch wrote:
         | I was happy to see KTRU (Rice) is available.
         | 
         | I used to listen to that all the time growing up in Houston.
         | The blues show was excellent.
        
       | rmvt wrote:
       | nit: should've clarified it's US stations only
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | erichlee wrote:
         | It has University of Cologne and a bunch of Canadian stations!
         | Are there any other international college stations you'd like
         | to see on it? I've mostly been adding stations from user
         | requests, and most of them have been in the US.
        
           | rmvt wrote:
           | i was thinking european stations (can think of a few from my
           | home country, portugal)
        
             | erichlee wrote:
             | If you send me some callsigns for Portuguese college
             | stations, I would be happy to add them :)
        
               | rmvt wrote:
               | hmm not really familiar with callsigns to be honest. i do
               | have a list of streams:
               | 
               | - RUA - Radio Universitaria do Algarve:
               | https://centova.radio.com.pt/proxy/536?mp=/stream
               | (https://rua.pt/)
               | 
               | - Universidade FM (Vila Real):
               | https://centova.radio.com.pt/proxy/405?mp=/stream
               | (https://www.universidade.fm/)
               | 
               | - UAL - Universidade Autonoma de Lisboa:
               | https://spaudio.servers.pt/8006/stream
               | (https://ualmedia.pt/radio-autonoma/)
               | 
               | - FEUP - Engenharia Radio:
               | http://193.136.38.145:8080/live?type=.mp3
               | (www.engenhariaradio.pt)
               | 
               | - RUM - Radio Universitaria do Minho:
               | https://centova.radio.com.pt/proxy/558?mp=/stream
               | (https://www.rum.pt/)
               | 
               | - RUC - Radio Universidade de Coimbra:
               | https://stream.ruc.pt/high (https://www.ruc.pt/)
        
       | TurkishPoptart wrote:
       | Great work! Super fast and smooth interface. Curious how you
       | built it!
       | 
       | I also suggest adding WGBH Boston - 89.7 MHz
       | https://www.wgbh.org/Radio
        
       | nluken wrote:
       | Love this.
       | 
       | Curious how you chose the default 8 stations? This is obviously
       | super nitpicky but WERS deserves the Boston spot over WHRB IMO.
       | Yeah, Emerson isn't exactly a powerhouse school, but their radio
       | station is a legitimate player in a major radio market in a way
       | that most college radio stations (Harvard's included) aren't.
       | Definitely more important in Boston than WHRB is.
       | 
       | That aside, I'll two stations to your list: my former home
       | station, WRBB, in lovely Boston, Massachusetts, and WMBR across
       | the river in Cambridge.
        
         | erichlee wrote:
         | First four-ish were my favorites when I was building this, and
         | the rest were pretty arbitrary (though I favored streams that
         | were more reliable on more platforms). I actually like WERS
         | better than WHRB; will switch them on the next push :)
        
           | floren wrote:
           | I was pleasantly surprised to see KUNM on the list!
        
         | foolproofplan wrote:
         | had a show on WRBB back in the day too! what a great experience
         | :)
        
         | tapoxi wrote:
         | WERS is easily my favorite station in the area; and over the
         | past year it's given me The Beths, Lake Street Dive, and Wet
         | Leg. Absolutely worth a listen.
        
           | nluken wrote:
           | Boston really is a city of riches in terms of college radio,
           | and each one has its own appeal.
           | 
           | WERS has professional-level radio production, solid music
           | that has broad appeal without being "mainstream". Emerson is
           | one of the few schools I know of where some people will go to
           | the school specifically for the radio station. It's why they
           | have such a large, consistent listnership.
           | 
           | WMBR's DJs are fantastic. The station itself definitely has a
           | more college feel but it's still very well-produced and the
           | station itself seems to be really good at playing obscure
           | tunes, especially in the psych/garage/punk/shoegaze realm.
           | There's a distinct sort of sound I expect with them that
           | almost reminds me of WFMU where I grew up, which is high
           | praise.
           | 
           | WHRB tends to favor classical and jazz more than the other
           | schools' stations because they dedicate large blocs of time
           | to those genres
           | 
           | And then there's my WRBB. We sometimes had some gaps in
           | production (depending on who was DJing) but it's still a
           | great listen since there tends to be a wider range of tunes
           | that come through the station. It also helped that many of
           | our DJs were stalwarts of the local DIY music scene, so we
           | gave airtime to a lot of small local artists that might not
           | have a ton of promotion otherwise.
           | 
           | Personally, I'll always have a soft spot for WRBB owing to my
           | time there but really you can't go wrong with any of these.
        
       | rglover wrote:
       | This is awesome. Brings back a lot of memories. Love how fast the
       | streams switch.
       | 
       | Can you add WBGU-FM out of Bowling Green, Ohio?
        
         | erichlee wrote:
         | Just added! Their stream is insecure, so it might not load on
         | Chrome desktop. But should be functional on other browsers + on
         | mobile :)
        
           | rglover wrote:
           | Awesome, thank you for the quickly reply/add!
        
       | bluesquare9 wrote:
       | Really snappy! Well done.
        
       | creeble wrote:
       | A little lost on the interface on iPad.
       | 
       | There is no search button. When I select Add (+), I can search,
       | but when I select from the search results, nothing plays - it
       | seems to add it to some list, but any controls to actually make
       | it play are either off screen or... something.
       | 
       | I'd like to be able to just search & play. The background loading
       | of multiple streams is only useful if switching a lot, but on
       | mobile it is a bandwidth-buster.
        
         | erichlee wrote:
         | Sounds like I need to work on the UI for switching stations!
         | 
         | The search results let you add new stations to a queue, but
         | they're not playable until you press "Reload Stations" on the
         | modal--which isn't obvious or intuitive. At the very least I
         | can add some instructions for loading new stations.
         | 
         | I've also explored adding a drag and drop interface, but that's
         | a little trickier than search (technically and design-wise).
         | Will need to think more about it. Thanks for the feedback!
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | xd1936 wrote:
       | Very cool! Another addition request. Could you add WTHS, the
       | voice of Hope College?
       | 
       | https://wths.hope.edu/
       | 
       | https://s3.radio.co/scf79220ed/listen
       | 
       | https://tunein.com/radio/WTHS-899-s23126/
        
       | jollyllama wrote:
       | Nice. I like the suggestion form methodology.
        
       | Mizza wrote:
       | This is awesome, feels super snappy. I miss living in a place
       | with good indie radio, this is hitting the spot.
        
       | joenot443 wrote:
       | CMFU is the college station for my alma-mater, McMaster
       | University in Hamilton, ON. I'm sure they'd love to be featured,
       | it's the third oldest community station in Canada.
       | https://cfmu.ca/
       | 
       | I love listening to these stations, you always get such a great
       | variety of music you probably wouldn't hear much of otherwise. It
       | seems no amount of Spotify AI will rival the taste-making
       | discoverability power of a college hipster behind a DJ set :)
        
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       (page generated 2022-11-15 23:01 UTC)