“From the Fediverse to the Universe, RADIO FREE FEDI!” a cheerful duo chime. I smile to myself. Here I am, driving home from work, and a seemingly endless stream of songs, short stories, poems, and goofy radio spots are playing through my truck’s stereo. From a distance, it feels as though I’m actually listening to a local radio station. But, Radio Free Fedi is so much more than that.

We are the opposite of a paid genre curated artist obscuring service. We work very hard to balance artist rotation based on number of tracks by each to maximise variety. Many people get it, it is 100% not demographic, algorithm, payola, ad driven. This IS 100% community driven.

Radio Free Fedi’s Admin

Every single song that plays on Radio Free Fedi, every single track, is created by somebody on the Fediverse. The service is given consent by participating musicians on what songs can be broadcast, and everybody is welcome to tune in! The station regularly features “The News”, a segment that contains no news, but instead features short stories, sound bites, poetry, and jokes. The project so far has managed over 190 different contributors from the network, which is astonishing.

How to Listen

There are a handful of apps available for PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android capable of loading Radio Free Fedi as a station, which you can browse here.

However, the station’s two channels are readily available as MP3 streams, and can easily work in media player apps such as VLC for Android:

• Radio Free Fedi Main Stream – the “Main” version of Radio Free Fedi, which includes heavier fare such as metal and rock, experimental noise, spoken word pieces, and more. It can be considered the full experience.
• Radio Free Fedi Comfy Stream – this is a toned down version of the stream that removes the heavier stuff, to make for a more relaxing listen with no jarring effects between tracks. A brilliant consideration, if you like to fall asleep to radio streams.

All you need is the URL of one of those streams, copy and pasted into your listening app of choice. For VLC on mobile, you just need to navigate to “More”, and the “Streams” section should appear.

How to Contribute

The project is always actively seeking new music, new voice clips for the Station ID, and new pieces of microfiction and poetry. It’s also always looking for support by way of listeners and donations!

For audio, the project’s How to Contribute guide gives some great pointers on what is needed for first-time submissions.

You can also financially support the project to help them keep things going at these two places below:

• LiberaPay
• Ko-Fi