Accessibility on air and on the web

Our community Discord is where most show ideas start and where most bad puns go to live forever. When a listener sends a track we have never heard, it goes straight into the next hour. The station started as a side project in a spare room and a borrowed microphone.

How to tune in

We keep the stream running around the clock, which means someone is always awake, caffeinated and slightly too excited about a B-side. Good radio sounds effortless, but every minute on air has at least ten minutes of prep behind it. Listeners tell us they tune in while they code, study, drive, cook and occasionally while they should be sleeping. We believe the music should never stop just because you clicked a link. The studio is small, the monitors are loud and the coffee machine has its own on-call rotation.

Morning shows are for energy, weather, traffic and the one story everyone at work will talk about. If you have ever wondered why a song sounds warmer on air, the answer is a ridiculous amount of compression. Local artists make up almost a third of what we play, and that number keeps going up. Behind the scenes, the playout system is a small pile of open source tools glued together with very careful shell scripts. We test new segments live, keep what works and quietly retire what does not.

• Live sessions from Studio [0] every Saturday
• Listen on the web, in the app or on a smart speaker
• New shows every weekday at 06:00
• Low-data mode for mobile

Local artists make up almost a third of what we play, and that number keeps going up. If you have ever wondered why a song sounds warmer on air, the answer is a ridiculous amount of compression. We keep a strict no-autoplay policy on the site: you press play, and then we never interrupt you.

A short history

We still print the weekly playlist and pin it on the studio wall, mostly out of habit. We keep the stream running around the clock, which means someone is always awake, caffeinated and slightly too excited about a B-side. The chat is moderated by humans, which keeps it friendly, weird and welcoming. A good transition is invisible: you only notice it when it goes wrong, like a page that flashes white between clicks. If you have ever wondered why a song sounds warmer on air, the answer is a ridiculous amount of compression.

We record every show, trim the talk, and publish it as a podcast by the next morning. We keep a strict no-autoplay policy on the site: you press play, and then we never interrupt you. We still print the weekly playlist and pin it on the studio wall, mostly out of habit. Good radio sounds effortless, but every minute on air has at least ten minutes of prep behind it.

A station is only as good as its worst transition.

We run on a tiny budget, a lot of goodwill and a very generous hosting sponsor. The mixing desk is older than some of our interns, and it still sounds better than anything new. We learned early that a stable stream matters more than a fancy one.

Questions we keep getting

If you have ever wondered why a song sounds warmer on air, the answer is a ridiculous amount of compression. The studio is small, the monitors are loud and the coffee machine has its own on-call rotation. The request line gets more messages than ever, and our DJs read every single one on air.

Behind the scenes, the playout system is a small pile of open source tools glued together with very careful shell scripts. Our favourite metric is the number of listeners who stay through the ad break. Our engineers obsess over latency because a stream that stutters is a stream people switch off. The request line gets more messages than ever, and our DJs read every single one on air. Listeners tell us they tune in while they code, study, drive, cook and occasionally while they should be sleeping.

# stream health check
while true; do
  curl -sI $STREAM | head -1
  sleep 30
done

The best feedback we ever got was a single line: “you made my deploy go faster”. Local artists make up almost a third of what we play, and that number keeps going up. If you have ever wondered why a song sounds warmer on air, the answer is a ridiculous amount of compression. We still print the weekly playlist and pin it on the studio wall, mostly out of habit. A radio station is really a promise: that there will be something good playing whenever you tune in.

What comes next

Every Friday we look at the numbers, and every Friday the numbers say people want more synthwave. Our community Discord is where most show ideas start and where most bad puns go to live forever. Our engineers obsess over latency because a stream that stutters is a stream people switch off. Some weeks the playlist is meticulously planned; other weeks it is a group chat argument that somehow turns into a show. We keep the site lightweight on purpose, so it loads fast on a train, a tired laptop or a phone at 5% battery.

The studio is small, the monitors are loud and the coffee machine has its own on-call rotation. Nothing beats the feeling of a track dropping at exactly the right moment and the chat exploding with fire emojis. Every Friday we look at the numbers, and every Friday the numbers say people want more synthwave.

We test new segments live, keep what works and quietly retire what does not. Behind the scenes, the playout system is a small pile of open source tools glued together with very careful shell scripts. The station started as a side project in a spare room and a borrowed microphone. Some of our most-loved segments started as a joke in the green room. We record every show, trim the talk, and publish it as a podcast by the next morning.

Lessons from the studio

Some weeks the playlist is meticulously planned; other weeks it is a group chat argument that somehow turns into a show. Some of our most-loved segments started as a joke in the green room. The chat is moderated by humans, which keeps it friendly, weird and welcoming. We record every show, trim the talk, and publish it as a podcast by the next morning. Behind the scenes, the playout system is a small pile of open source tools glued together with very careful shell scripts.

Morning shows are for energy, weather, traffic and the one story everyone at work will talk about. We believe the music should never stop just because you clicked a link. The best feedback we ever got was a single line: “you made my deploy go faster”. If you have ever wondered why a song sounds warmer on air, the answer is a ridiculous amount of compression.

• New shows every weekday at 06:00
• Late-night mixes with no talking
• Low-data mode for mobile
• Request a song from any page

When a listener sends a track we have never heard, it goes straight into the next hour. Our community Discord is where most show ideas start and where most bad puns go to live forever. We still print the weekly playlist and pin it on the studio wall, mostly out of habit.

Why we did it

Some of our most-loved segments started as a joke in the green room. Most of our DJs have day jobs in software, design or support, which explains the jokes. Guests are always surprised by how relaxed the studio is, until the ON AIR light turns red. A good transition is invisible: you only notice it when it goes wrong, like a page that flashes white between clicks.

We run on a tiny budget, a lot of goodwill and a very generous hosting sponsor. If you have ever wondered why a song sounds warmer on air, the answer is a ridiculous amount of compression. Nothing beats the feeling of a track dropping at exactly the right moment and the chat exploding with fire emojis.

Play the track you would send to a friend at 2am. That is the whole format.

We record every show, trim the talk, and publish it as a podcast by the next morning. Our schedule is built in blocks, with softer sounds in the morning and heavier beats after dark. The station started as a side project in a spare room and a borrowed microphone. Our favourite metric is the number of listeners who stay through the ad break. The chat is moderated by humans, which keeps it friendly, weird and welcoming.

What we learned

Morning shows are for energy, weather, traffic and the one story everyone at work will talk about. We keep the site lightweight on purpose, so it loads fast on a train, a tired laptop or a phone at 5% battery. Good radio sounds effortless, but every minute on air has at least ten minutes of prep behind it. Radio has always been about company, and that has not changed just because the transmitter is now a rack of servers. We still print the weekly playlist and pin it on the studio wall, mostly out of habit.

Every Friday we look at the numbers, and every Friday the numbers say people want more synthwave. Our engineers obsess over latency because a stream that stutters is a stream people switch off. When a listener sends a track we have never heard, it goes straight into the next hour.

# stream health check
while true; do
  curl -sI $STREAM | head -1
  sleep 30
done

Some of our most-loved segments started as a joke in the green room. The best feedback we ever got was a single line: “you made my deploy go faster”. We keep a strict no-autoplay policy on the site: you press play, and then we never interrupt you.