Where to Find Live Radio on the Internet

When radio stations started streaming audio, I stayed old school. Computers aren't radios, I told everyone. And I need my bandwidth. Love that buffering, too, and the stadium echo effect you get when the bitrate drops. Real Audio, Winamp, Windows Player, not to mention Quicktime . . . it’s like having a different radio for every station you want to hear. Streaming audio? If ah can’t hear it on a radio, ah ain’t a-listenin.

It became a kick, though, to give it a try at ten at night my time and find 4KQ in Brisbane, Australia, where tomorrow’s lunchtime show is under way, where sets of American songs are back-announced with delightful Aussie accents. A Shetland pony loose on the motorway? You don’t hear traffic reports like that just anywhere.

The west coast CBC Radio One feeds available on the Net have also come to the rescue more than once, when I missed something I heard off-the-air, that I wanted to save.

Streaming audio and I have negotiated a truce. Okay - but if I start turning geek, and get stuck in front of the computer, out comes the portable device with the knobs, the dial that goes from 54 to 160, and the little red pointer, the original IPOD.

But I didn’t know turning geek could be so much fun.

In the process, I’ve found these directories of over the air stations that stream their audio to be the most helpful.

Mike’s Radio World

Mike’s is the easier to use of the two most complete North American directories. The pages are uncluttered, and the fonts are easy to read. Stations are sorted by format, and also by location; alphabetically by call letters within states or provinces, or station names within foreign countries. Mike’s is the best site for finding stations from a particular city. All the Montreal stations, for example, are on the Quebec list, in smaller, but still easy-to-read text, with their formats, bitrates, and the required media players.

This site works better for listeners who are more familiar with call letters than logos. No logos, however, means cleaner, easier-to-read, pages.

Tuner Virtuel (Com-FM)