What a great way to build your music collection

Replay Radio is really cool. Most of the radio shows I love don't have podcasts, and Replay enables you to record live streaming radio even when you're not by your PC (or simply forget to listen). You can then transfer them onto your portable device. I have an entire week set up so that my PC opens radio streams from all around the world at designated times, and records the radio shows I want to hear.

If the stream is not in RealAudio or Windows Media, you'll have to install another player on your PC (like WinAmp) that has the right codec to understand the stream. But Replay Radio will record streams in any format for which you have the appropriate player by opening the player on its own, and will even record any stream for which you designate a URL; if you don't know what the URL of a radio stream is, you can right click it, "Copy Link Location," and paste it into your scheduler. It even copies files and adds them to your iTunes library. Because there are lots of ways to stream audio, you may need to tweak your settings a little bit, but I really love this program.

Every radio station devotes different bitrates for streaming. For example, the NPR station in New York,WNYC supports a Windows stream at 20k and an MP3 stream at 32k and 96k, while
WFIU in Bloomington, IN, offers a Wiindows Stream at 128k and a Real Media Stream at 44k. I am not as picky for talk radio shows as I am for live performances, for which a higher bitrate (and therefore higher fidelity) is key.

And two great resources to find out what's on when are Allegro!, which has a listing of musical public radio programs availabile on streaming audio, and Public Radio Fan, which has just about every public radio station and show imaginable.