Build Your Own Radio Experience on BT Braille and BT Speak

Our radio tuner app offers a convenient and fully accessible way to listen to radio stations on your BT Speak or BT Braille. The radio tuner obtains its list of stations from the Radio Browser database, which currently offers over 55,000 radio stations from around the world. Beleive it or not, that number continues to increase! While the database of radio stations offers something for every interest, we realize that no radio tuner offers every radio stream that a listener might want.

Adding a Station to the Database

One benefit of our Radio tuner is that anyone can add a new station. This can be done by visiting the Radio-browser.info Web site and selecting the New Station link. The page contains a form asking for information to find the stream, such as its name, the URL of the station’s Web site, the station’s state and country, etc. The Web address of the station can easily be queried and verified using your search engine of choice. The trickiest part of the form is entering the direct stream URL of the station. This URL is critical, as it's required for the database to play the audio. Finding the direct stream URL can be somewhat challenging, not to mention that some stations obfuscate the direct audio link. The good news is that there is a handy search engine to facilitate retrieval of the URL.

Obtaining the Direct Stream URL

The Radio Stream URL Search Engine is a useful tool for locating the direct audio link for a radio station. This search engine lets you enter a station’s name or call letters and attempts to provide direct listen links for the station, as well as the station’s home page. Of course, not every station will be listed but in many cases this tool greatly simplifies the process of adding a station to the database.

Once at the Search Engine, locate the edit field and enter the call letters or part of a station’s name, followed by enter. If the station that you want appears in the search results, select the link for that station.

You will find a link to the station’s Web site (or home page), along with a direct streaming link. The easiest way to capture the link is to activate the copy button, which copies the direct streaming link to your clipboard.

Next, navigate to the Add a Station form in the Radio-Browser database and fill in the needed information. When you get to the edit field labeled URL, just issue the Paste command (ctrl+V, or command+v on a Mac) to paste the direct stream URL that you just copied to your clipboard. After you fill in all of the required information, activate the Save button to save your entry.

Note: some stations are only available to listen to in specific regions.

Final Step: Refresh the Database

Once you add the stream, it may take around ten minutes for the Radio-browser database to add that new stream in its database. After waiting for around ten minutes, go to your BT Speak or BT Braille to refresh the station database:

To do this:

O-chord for the Options menu,

A for Applications

M for Media

R for the Radio Tuner,

R to refresh the station database.

The refresh process takes a couple of minutes. Once the database has been updated on your device, you will be told the total number of available radio stations. From there, go to the Listen to a Station option in the Radio Tuner app and search for the station you just added to get to listening.

The radio tuner puts you in control. Discover new stations and build your own listening experience exactly the way you want it.

Happy listening!!