Discovering Online Radio

If you’re just starting to discover the world of online radio, you might be at a bit of a loss as to how to tune in to the wide range of stations available for listening.  Most of us are accustomed to turning the dial and scanning through stations on our analog radios.  In reality, listening to news, sports, talk, and free music on our computers isn’t really any more difficult.  All you need to do is make sure that you have the right setup on hand and then it should be smooth listening from there!

-In order to access the wide variety of free music online, you should have a fairly recent computer.  It doesn’t have to be state-of-the-art, but if it is older than four or five years, you might have some difficulty.

-An Internet connection is also essential.  If you have a dial-up connection, you might find that you have trouble getting your streaming media to play.  A broadband connection is much better for applications that use such high bandwidth.

-Obviously, you’ll have a bit of trouble hearing what the radio is playing if you don’t have any sound coming out of your computer.  Make sure that you have a sound card that works properly and that you have either speakers or headphones plugged in.

-Make sure that you have the right media player installed, if necessary.  Some radio streams are embedded in the webpage, while others require you to have software such as Windows Media Player or RealPlayer installed.