BBC Radio Stations

[aj78]

The BBC has a weird approach to its radio station streams. The stream names change randomly every few hours so you can't just add them to the web radios list and be done with it. So here's a script I put together:

#!/bin/sh
cd /mnt/MPD/Webradio
wget http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r2_aaclca.pls
mv r2_aaclca.pls BBCRadio2.pls
wget http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r3_aaclca.pls
mv r3_aaclca.pls BBCRadio3.pls
wget http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r4_aaclca.pls
mv r4_aaclca.pls BBCRadio4.pls
wget http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r4x_aaclca.pls
mv r4x_aaclca.pls BBCRadio4Extra.pls
wget http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r5l_aaclca.pls
mv r5l_aaclca.pls BBCRadio5Live.pls
wget http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r5lsp_aaclca.pls
mv r5lsp_aaclca.pls BBCRadio5LiveSportsExtra.pls
wget http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r6_aaclca.pls
mv r6_aaclca.pls BBCRadio6.pls
mpc update

Put this in your crontab so it runs every hour; it will keep the sources up to date. (You'll have to add the Radio 1 link if you want that, I never listen to it so it's not in my script.)

[ACX]

Hi aj78,
thank for your contribution I'm sure it will be useful for many users here.

[kajica]

thanks for this

great contribution, are there any other radiostations that can be added to this script, like cbc radio 2?

good work on the script

[aj78]

I'm glad you like it I'm not sure about other radio stations. I haven't had much time to explore lots of internet radio stations, I only came across this quirk of the BBC streams because I don't have a separate tuner any more, but do sometimes listen to some of the BBC stations. I haven't heard of any others that do the same thing, but if anyone comes across others it would be useful to post them here so they can be added to the script. Perhaps it could be incorporated into a future version so users don't have to mess about with scripts and crontabs?

[kajica]

Hi AJ,

I added the scripts as per your instructions but my radio links didnt update,

im not sure if i did it correctly. i used nano to edit cron.

is that a problem?

i just couldnt seem to be able to get around the file when using just crontab -e

let me know, maybe i did something wrong. im a linux terminal newbie...

[aj78]

Don't try to edit your crontab directly with a text editor - use the command "crontab -e". It will launch a text editor and let you update the file, but on closing it automatically synchronises the changes with cron. Or something like that - I'm not too clear about the details but I remember running into the same problem!

The other thing that may be confusng you is the text editor crontab launches is "vi" which is really not intuitive if you haven't come across it before. When it loads up the crontab, press i to start editing the file (in Insert mode). You can then add that line I mentioned: 0 * * * * /usr/local/bin/bbc.sh
Then you have to press Escape to get out of Insert mode, and then :wq[Enter] to write changes and quit.

Hopefully that will fix your problem. If you need any more pointers, post back here and I'll see if I can help further.

[kajica]

thanks for clarifying,

vi is really not intuitive at all,

i cant get it to work will try again later, ill look for a video explaining working vi!

[Stwert]

I'd recommend nano as a bit of a more intuitive beginner-friendly command line text editor. Same process, just use the command nano instead of vi.

Edit: Sorry, just realized this about the default editor with crontab, so here is how you can change it: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=82391

[ICLlP]

Don't try to edit your crontab directly with a text editor - use the command "crontab -e". It will launch a text editor and let you update the file, but on closing it automatically synchronises the changes with cron. Or something like that - I'm not too clear about the details but I remember running into the same problem!

The other thing that may be confusng you is the text editor crontab launches is "vi" which is really not intuitive if you haven't come across it before. When it loads up the crontab, press i to start editing the file (in Insert mode). You can then add that line I mentioned: 0 * * * * /usr/local/bin/bbc.sh
Then you have to press Escape to get out of Insert mode, and then :wq[Enter] to write changes and quit.

Hopefully that will fix your problem. If you need any more pointers, post back here and I'll see if I can help further.

I've tried to follow this, but I'm not getting it right. Can you explain for "dummies"?

[aj78]

I've posted a step-by-step guide in the thread you started in the Raspberry Pi forum: http://www.runeaudio.com/forum/post3559.html#p3559. Also, the new step-by-step guide includes all the national BBC radio stations (the one above was missing Radio 1, Radio 1 Xtra and the BBC Asian Network). Hopefully this helps you out!