
Radio Garden – Listen to world radio by navigating an interactive globe - gamma_raj
http://radio.garden/
======
studiopuckey
Developer here. We weren't exactly expecting this to become as popular as it
did.. Just survived being #1 on Reddit – sheesh.

It seems our non-profit Bing maps key was revoked.. Switched to Arcgis imagery
instead for now. Too bad, the Bing imagery was really great.

~~~
SiVal
I love this thing you've made. I've been exploring the world with radio since
long before the WWW was invented. I used to carry a shortwave radio with me
wherever I traveled back in the 1970s and 80s. I would lie there in the dark
in Japan listening to the broadcasts out of North Korean screeching about the
"Great Leader" (Kim Il-sung) or in Thailand listening to the Khmer Rouge (whom
I couldn't understand, but I knew who controlled Cambodian broadcasts) or in
the UK listening to Africans (not putting on a show for Americans but putting
on a show for their own people) or on the East Coast of the US listening to
callers to talk shows in the UK arguing about local issues. What do people
there talk about amongst themselves? What do they like to listen to? What does
such-and-such language sound like? I loved exploring the world this way.

My kids don't understand how magical the world is today--how they can do what
cost me so much money and time and effort by doing nothing more than poking a
few icons on their phones. These things don't mean much to them; they were
born into a world where magic was just daily life.

But, things like this are still magical to me, even though I've been a
developer for decades. Somehow, even knowing how the "tricks" are done, I
still think it's magic. Just tonight, I fed YouTube into my HD TV and watched
as someone walked around my old neighborhood in Tokyo with a 4K camera. Then
again where I used to live in Seoul. And a couple of days ago, I found
something for my father out in the desert a thousand miles from here by using
Google Street View to "drive" down a remote highway, looking around until I
found it. And now I can just spin the globe and point at a dot to hear a
broadcast coming from that location. I've been listening to online broadcasts
for 20 years using lists of online radio stations, but this is so much nicer.

I sometimes wonder if I'm the only one who sees all of this as real-world
magic.

~~~
danyork
You are not alone. I've been online for over 30 years now, since the
mid-1980s, and deeply involved in Internet technology. And yet I still find
applications of that technology that are wonderfully magical. (This
radio.garden is one of them!)

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disillusioned
Oh man, this is so much fun. I'm listening to radio in Islamabad, Pakistan,
and the male and female host are bickering about how winter is, in fact, NOT
coming this year. And now they're playing John Mayer.

So much more perspective than just whatever the news media wants the narrative
to be about some of these places. (And I've traveled plenty, but this is just
a lovely taste of day-to-day for people on the other side of the planet, but
fortunately in English!)

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malikNF
Amazing example of how good UI can make something so interesting and useful.

I have seen plenty of websites which lists the radio stations from all over
the globe, but this interface makes it so much more interesting and fun.

Really well done to the devs.

------
prawn
Love the concept and simple design. Very cool. Resist those wanting land
boundaries added; it will lose some mystery then.

Reminds me of that not-uncommon movie intro implying that aliens are listening
to Earth, where the camera zooms in on the planet as random stations and
static play.

~~~
anc84
Seconding leaving the boundaries out. What would be awesome though is
day/night simulation!

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dilliwal
Amazing product!

I was curious to know their source of stations; the history ones are coming
from:
[http://www.transnationalradio.org/database#Search](http://www.transnationalradio.org/database#Search)
\- which they have mentioned on their page as well.

LIVE ones are streaming directly from the streaming websites, further
searching in their code and looking the URLs it seems its shoutcast.com API
its the same thing I used a decade back with winamp! but as they didn't
mention it anywhere I am not sure.

The way they presented it with map, history is simply great.

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tga
Worth mentioning, a somewhat similar project with more entropy:
[http://radioiss.com](http://radioiss.com).

I love it in the background when working, for the dose of
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect).

------
dpitkin
Two additional global radio places to explore:

global time machine with [http://radiooooo.com/](http://radiooooo.com/) and
streaming with
[http://tunein.com/radio/regions/](http://tunein.com/radio/regions/)

~~~
voltagex_
TuneIn's app (at least on Android) has got worse and worse over the years. I
think there's even ads in the "pro" version now that I paid for a while back.
Also, why does a radio streamer need access to my contact list?

------
JoeDaDude
Fantastic app! (But I'm keeping my short wave radio anyway). Can't help but
notice vast areas of radio deserts. I presume there are at least radio
broadcasts there, but they don't stream?

What is the meaning of the size of the dots? I was guessing it's related to
transmit power?

~~~
andresgottlieb
I think it represents the number of radio stations available for that city
(each dot is a city, and you can switch individual radio stations using the
list at the lower right corner of the screen)

------
LesZedCB
If you are into amateur radio, this [1] does something similar, allowing you
to tune into amateur bands across the world in real time.

[1] [http://websdr.org/](http://websdr.org/)

~~~
jff
And it lets you listen to real radio, not streams, which will improve coverage
outside of the US and Europe (found two streaming stations in Japan, neither
of which work, and about a dozen in all of India)

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dziungles
One suggestion: maybe change the background to something black. Then it will
feel more like the Earth is a part of cosmos - a context will be shown and
will create a nicer feeling.

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Sideloader
Cool! I even like the fake static and squelch... it reminds me of tuning the
80s era shortwave radio I found when I was a kid.

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fernly
Brilliant concept and execution! I figured, it must be every station that has
a live stream, but no, my nearest station, KZSU Stanford, has multiple streams
and isn't there. And the list of presences in the one green dot in SF is much
too short. So... what's the source?

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jejones3141
As it appears to me (running Chrome on Linux) it's really hard to go looking
for a particular location, since it's just dots on a solid blue browser tab.
Is that by design? (Also, it shows stations in Madrid, Spain at a spot that I
think is a bit west of Ames, Iowa.)

~~~
studiopuckey
Thanks for the heads up on this – should be working again now.

~~~
handedness
From the you-can't-please-everyone dep't: in a weird way, the non-functioning
map made the discovery process a little more fun. The map just started working
for me–I didn't know that it was supposed to–and I was slightly disappointed.

Tho I support using satellite imagery and nothing more.

Brilliant site, and very well done. Thanks for putting it together and sharing
it.

~~~
studiopuckey
We are actually working on a game mode, which takes away the map and has you
track down countries by listening to different radio stations.

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niij
I love this! I love the static when tuning as well as how quickly it starts
playing from each station. The only suggestion I have it to put political
boundaries so it is easier to see where you're at.

~~~
handedness
On the contrary, I think adding political boundaries would remove some of the
power of the concept.

~~~
briandear
Make it toggle. Then you can be magical or practical.

~~~
mdrzn
I'd like to have an overlay with borders and city names.

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pavel_lishin
I just turned into an Australian DJ bitching about the fact that they get
charged extra for online listeners, vs. over-the-air listeners.

------
noobermin
Simply awesome. Ironically, I haven't had a radio in years and I don't own a
car, but I found a local radio station I've never listened to before.

The designer's website is a trip too[0].

[0] [http://puckey.studio/](http://puckey.studio/)

~~~
Hondor
That real time typing reminds me of chatting via direct modem connection to
your friends. It gives a slightly better awareness of the person's feelings.
Instant messengers now don't seem to do that, I guess the latency on the
global internet is too high.

~~~
mdrzn
That webpage is painful to see 'till the end. Too slow.

------
futne
Why are you using WebGL for this with no other option? I am using Chrome
because it is infinitely faster than Firefox. I get the following message from
your site:

    
    
        Error constructing CesiumWidget. Visit http://get.webgl.org to verify that your web browser and hardware support WebGL. Consider trying a different web browser or updating your video drivers. Detailed error information is below:
    
        RuntimeError: The browser supports WebGL, but initialization failed. Error at new t (http://rg-60c3.kxcdn.com/bundle-792cb1b42393ce14840f.js:13:1700) at new B (http://rg-60c3.kxcdn.com/bundle-792cb1b42393ce14840f.js:37:3393) at new ce (http://rg-60c3.kxcdn.com/bundle-792cb1b42393ce14840f.js:36:6010) at new e (http://rg-60c3.kxcdn.com/bundle-792cb1b42393ce14840f.js:32:898) at t.e.value (http://rg-60c3.kxcdn.com/bundle-792cb1b42393ce14840f.js:10:9355) at t.e.value (http://rg-60c3.kxcdn.com/bundle-792cb1b42393ce14840f.js:9:21370) at e.notifyAll (http://rg-60c3.kxcdn.com/bundle-792cb1b42393ce14840f.js:5:4913) at r.h.close (http://rg-60c3.kxcdn.com/bundle-792cb1b42393ce14840f.js:7:12663) at r.o.closeAll (http://rg-60c3.kxcdn.com/bundle-792cb1b42393ce14840f.js:5:8329) at r.o.perform (http://rg-60c3.kxcdn.com/bundle-792cb1b42393ce14840f.js:5:7818)

From `[http://get.webgl.org`](http://get.webgl.org`) I get

    
    
        While your browser seems to support WebGL, it is disabled or unavailable.
    

I tried to enable WebGL and found that it was only experimental for
application development:

    
    
        chrome://flags
        
        WebGL 2.0 Prototype Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS, Android
        Enabling this option allows web applications to access the experimental WebGL 2.0 feature. This option should only be used for application development, and should not be used when browsing arbitrary web sites. #enable-unsafe-es3-apis
    

So I am required to enable something that is warned against just to be able to
use a single site. Not exactly what I would consider _user friendly_ …

------
10dpd
Is an open source list of radio streams available, e.g. with
URL/name/lat/long?

------
dest
Good work

I see you host some broadcast segments (e.g. "jingles"). Do you have the
rights to broadcast them, regarding copyright rules?

This is a project lead by several universities, maybe these audio segments are
part of a public dataset?

------
rollrm191
This is awesome! I'm a mobile developer and I built an app similar in concept
for iPhone a few months ago (except mine is way less robust and has wayyy
fewer stations). Good work guys! Link to the app I built RadioAtlas:
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/radioatlas-explore-world-
thr...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/radioatlas-explore-world-
through/id1141789251?mt=8)

------
Animats
How did they pick the stations? There are only two in Japan, one of which is
playing "I've been Working on the Railroad" in Japanese.

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b_kcaw
Hi there! I work at a small radio station in Southeast Alaska (KCAW), which I
see is on here, however it says station is unreachable. We just updated our
stream url this week. Is that something I could give you to get us back up and
running, or will it eventually find us again? Also, don't know if this is
relevant, but in our update we changed from shoutcast to icecast. Thanks!

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soulpoison
Here seems to be the stations in JSON format in case anyone wanted to extract
them. There are about 12,000 but some of the stations at the end don't have a
source.
[http://rgapi-60c3.kxcdn.com/live.json?b=89eae48362c03fe07fcc](http://rgapi-60c3.kxcdn.com/live.json?b=89eae48362c03fe07fcc)

~~~
webtechgal
The link shows 403 Forbidden!!

Has it been HN'ed or what?

~~~
mukeshm
Try this :
[http://rgapi-60c3.kxcdn.com/live.json?b=1c6525f1332a13762931...](http://rgapi-60c3.kxcdn.com/live.json?b=1c6525f1332a13762931&noOutdatedSC=1)

------
friendwithagoat
I normally stalk YC, hardly comment. I have to say amazing product. Why dont
you put it on product hunt?

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cordeiro77
Hi, This is great!! However there are several radios in Portugal that do not
appear. One of them is Kul: Radio, from Castelo Branco. Can you add?
[http://proxima.shoutca.st:8232/stream](http://proxima.shoutca.st:8232/stream)

Thanks :)

------
Revelveteen
Having a lot of trouble getting it to load. Congratulations on being so
popular!

How do we get our community radio station on this map? I see that question has
been asked here already but I can't find any answers.

Much appreciated, Sybil A., WORT Community Radio musicdirector (at) wortfm.org

------
palerdot
Would love to try this but getting the following error

[http://imgur.com/a/l4iqP](http://imgur.com/a/l4iqP)

I'm running chrome 54.0.2840.100 (64-bit) in ubuntu 14.04 with nvidia
proprietary drivers

~~~
brewdad
Same here. I'm running Chrome 55.0.2883.87 (64-bit) on Mac 10.10.5.

------
niij
London has a radio station for Bird songs [0]. Is this real?

[0]:
[http://radio.garden/live/london/birdsongradio/](http://radio.garden/live/london/birdsongradio/)

~~~
danielmooreicr
Yes, Birdsong is real. It is used by Digital One on the national DAB network
when a station is off air or under maintenance. As of right now, this station
is not on air.

------
skeeterpro
Operations Manager of a cluster of 10 stations in US. How does one get added
to your amazing platform? All stations stream. You have one of our stations
(KSCJ/Sioux City) already on. Love to add our others!

------
niij
Is there a way to submit stations to this? My city doesn't have any stations
listed, but I do know a couple have online streams that could be added to
this. Thanks for the great work studiopuckey!

------
techload
Sincere congratulations! This is the best thing I've seen in a while.

------
SeanDav
Great idea!

A few points for improvement:

\- only change station if map is clicked on

\- show station details on mouse hover

------
andretti1977
Beautiful! What a great ui for such use case! And it works perfectly on
android huawei honor 7 (because somebody said it doesn't work well on
smartphone!)

------
lucisferre
This is awesome. I tuned into an old Kingston rock stations for a bit of
college nostalgia. Of course they'd be playing The Tragically Hip right then.

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mrrichardwright
Great app. Is there a way to flag favorites. I think this will help fill time
on my driving. But of course I don't want to tune and drive

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mrrwright
Great app. Is there a way to flag favorites. I think this will help fill time
on my driving. But of course I don't want to tune and drive

------
EQmapbox
Hey, hit us at Mapbox, let's get you back live again. Sales@mapbox.com, I'm
Erin and I'll get a discount going for you.

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abhi26
Awesome creation dude well done, i m sharing it to all my frends in karnataka,
Bengaluru Hats off to u and team. Truly Radio Garden

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RubberSoul
The static/tuning sounds never stop playing for me in Safari. It would be nice
to have a button that completely turns it off.

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WestEndBob
Doesn't load on Firefox 50.0 for me on Windows 10. Any suggestions? Works fine
on Windows Edge, BTW . . . .

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MoD411
I rarely comment, but this is awesome! :D

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intrasight
IE can't handle it. And Chrome doesn't play audio for me. Any ideas why Chrome
would not play audio?

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lotusblossom22
Crashed My WiFi hard drive and would Not disconnect to My Mac Laptop . Loved
It till this Happened .

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radio981
Gostaria de adicionar minha emissora.. Www.radiomanchetefm.com.br cidade
planaltina Goiás obrigado

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lotusblossom22
Crashed my WiFi hardware on Mac Computer - would Not disconnect even when
shutting down window

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portugalfm
bom dia eu queria adicionar minha radio se fosse possivel radio portugal fm
regiao de paris (villejuif)
[http://94.23.214.38:9934](http://94.23.214.38:9934) obg boas festas feliz
natal e obrigado por exitir

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noselasd
Now someone should create a world map of Youtube live streams (akin to
facebooks livemap)

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pawanpe
Awesome! Thanks for sharing.. Can I ask what tech have you used to develop
this?

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d1ffuz0r
This is amazing! Very nice to see there Russian radiostation from my hometown

------
the_arun
Truly awesome experience. A mobile app like this would make it even better.

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d--b
Great work, and nice complement of radiooooo.com

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ideonexus
This is magical. Thank you for this experience.

------
lukaa
Why so small number of stations from Africa?

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eksurfus
Love this! Works great and simple design.

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nachtigall
Not a single radio station in Greenland?

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intrasight
That's my mind-blow of the week

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pauloleme
como colocar uma radio web no aplicativo? paulinholeme@yahoo.com.br
www.estacaoleme.com.br

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myinspiration
Support Radio Garden 100 per cent

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redstarpa
Radio.Garden = App of the year!!

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marcfowler
This is awesome! Great idea.

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option_greek
Awesome. Mobile app please!

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djguru
Hello guys How do I add my web radio to Radio Garden Thank you al

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juststeve
radio. on. internet.

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sean_patel
Wow! This site is pretty amazing. I like how it picked up my location and
tuned into a local San Francisco radio station. The I scrolled the globe and
rotated into my Dad's hometown of Bombay (they call it "Mumbai" now) and it
zero-ed in on a Gazhal station. This one =>
[http://radio.garden/live/mumbai/planetradiocity/](http://radio.garden/live/mumbai/planetradiocity/)

Question to the creator / OP: Are the ads (voice ads) that play injected into
the stream? I ask because even though I selected an Indian radio channel, it
played a long AT&T get a go phone this holiday season blah blah blah for like
2 minutes, and the voice was American accent and also the address it said to
go to was att.com/gophone (which I would think is only US customers). What
gives?

~~~
icebraining
Maybe it's the radio station itself doing that? I remember reading about
software for online streaming that targeted ads based on the client's IP.

~~~
sean_patel
> targeted ads based on the client's IP.

Didn't think of that. Wouldn't put it past them.

------
bmpafa
Perfect--now I can bone-up on Russian in time for the inauguration.

