Hotfix Hits

Hotfix Hits is pop / dance radio, hosted by @bytequeen. We still print the weekly playlist and pin it on the studio wall, mostly out of habit. We run on a tiny budget, a lot of goodwill and a very generous hosting sponsor.

How it works

We measure success in hours listened, not clicks, which keeps us honest about what actually matters. Some of our most-loved segments started as a joke in the green room. A good transition is invisible: you only notice it when it goes wrong, like a page that flashes white between clicks. When a listener sends a track we have never heard, it goes straight into the next hour. Some weeks the playlist is meticulously planned; other weeks it is a group chat argument that somehow turns into a show.

Some weeks the playlist is meticulously planned; other weeks it is a group chat argument that somehow turns into a show. 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.

• Shows archived for 90 days
• Weekend throwbacks from 08:00
• New shows every weekday at 06:00
• Chat moderated by real people

Nothing beats the feeling of a track dropping at exactly the right moment and the chat exploding with fire emojis. Listeners tell us they tune in while they code, study, drive, cook and occasionally while they should be sleeping. We run on a tiny budget, a lot of goodwill and a very generous hosting sponsor. The chat is moderated by humans, which keeps it friendly, weird and welcoming.

Where to find us

We keep the site lightweight on purpose, so it loads fast on a train, a tired laptop or a phone at 5% battery. If you have ever wondered why a song sounds warmer on air, the answer is a ridiculous amount of compression. 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.

Accessibility matters to us, so every show gets a transcript and every page works with a keyboard. We believe the music should never stop just because you clicked a link. We run on a tiny budget, a lot of goodwill and a very generous hosting sponsor.

We do not do playlists. We do conversations that happen to have a beat.

We keep a strict no-autoplay policy on the site: you press play, and then we never interrupt you. The best feedback we ever got was a single line: “you made my deploy go faster”. A radio station is really a promise: that there will be something good playing whenever you tune in. Some of our most-loved segments started as a joke in the green room. Local artists make up almost a third of what we play, and that number keeps going up.

What changes for listeners

When a listener sends a track we have never heard, it goes straight into the next hour. The request line gets more messages than ever, and our DJs read every single one on air. The chat is moderated by humans, which keeps it friendly, weird and welcoming.

The best feedback we ever got was a single line: “you made my deploy go faster”. We measure success in hours listened, not clicks, which keeps us honest about what actually matters. We keep a strict no-autoplay policy on the site: you press play, and then we never interrupt you. The request line gets more messages than ever, and our DJs read every single one on air. Late nights are for experiments: long mixes, ambient sets and the occasional field recording.

The short version

The request line gets more messages than ever, and our DJs read every single one on air. 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.

Most of our DJs have day jobs in software, design or support, which explains the jokes. We keep a strict no-autoplay policy on the site: you press play, and then we never interrupt you. A radio station is really a promise: that there will be something good playing whenever you tune in. We still print the weekly playlist and pin it on the studio wall, mostly out of habit. Local artists make up almost a third of what we play, and that number keeps going up.

From the request line

Every show on ArrayFM starts with a simple rule: play the track you would send to a friend at 2am. 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. A good transition is invisible: you only notice it when it goes wrong, like a page that flashes white between clicks.

Our schedule is built in blocks, with softer sounds in the morning and heavier beats after dark. We run on a tiny budget, a lot of goodwill and a very generous hosting sponsor. We record every show, trim the talk, and publish it as a podcast by the next morning. Late nights are for experiments: long mixes, ambient sets and the occasional field recording. The station started as a side project in a spare room and a borrowed microphone.

Behind the scenes, the playout system is a small pile of open source tools glued together with very careful shell scripts. When a listener sends a track we have never heard, it goes straight into the next hour. Our engineers obsess over latency because a stream that stutters is a stream people switch off.

Lessons from the studio

We record every show, trim the talk, and publish it as a podcast by the next morning. We learned early that a stable stream matters more than a fancy one. If you have ever wondered why a song sounds warmer on air, the answer is a ridiculous amount of compression. Accessibility matters to us, so every show gets a transcript and every page works with a keyboard. We keep the stream running around the clock, which means someone is always awake, caffeinated and slightly too excited about a B-side.

Local artists make up almost a third of what we play, and that number keeps going up. We test new segments live, keep what works and quietly retire what does not. Every Friday we look at the numbers, and every Friday the numbers say people want more synthwave. We keep the stream running around the clock, which means someone is always awake, caffeinated and slightly too excited about a B-side. Some weeks the playlist is meticulously planned; other weeks it is a group chat argument that somehow turns into a show.

• No autoplay, ever
• Live sessions from Studio [0] every Saturday
• Request a song from any page
• Podcast feed updated nightly

Our favourite metric is the number of listeners who stay through the ad break. If you have ever wondered why a song sounds warmer on air, the answer is a ridiculous amount of compression. Listeners tell us they tune in while they code, study, drive, cook and occasionally while they should be sleeping. Some of our most-loved segments started as a joke in the green room.

Questions we keep getting

We learned early that a stable stream matters more than a fancy one. Our engineers obsess over latency because a stream that stutters is a stream people switch off. We keep the site lightweight on purpose, so it loads fast on a train, a tired laptop or a phone at 5% battery. A radio station is really a promise: that there will be something good playing whenever you tune in. Guests are always surprised by how relaxed the studio is, until the ON AIR light turns red.

We record every show, trim the talk, and publish it as a podcast by the next morning. The studio is small, the monitors are loud and the coffee machine has its own on-call rotation. We believe the music should never stop just because you clicked a link. Morning shows are for energy, weather, traffic and the one story everyone at work will talk about.

A station is only as good as its worst transition.

Behind the scenes, the playout system is a small pile of open source tools glued together with very careful shell scripts. The archive now holds more than two thousand hours of shows, all searchable by track and guest. The best feedback we ever got was a single line: “you made my deploy go faster”. Radio has always been about company, and that has not changed just because the transmitter is now a rack of servers.