TFA247

INTRODUCTION

The engineering tests broadcast before the start of any music radio station have usually proved better than the programmes they go on to broadcast so I have created a station which is in perpetual test mode, and will never go into full programme service. The stream is therefore liable to interruption for maintenance software updates etc.

This is what happens when a sound engineer decides to create an Internet Radio stream!

It all started in December 2018 when I used some fairly basic software - Winamp and Edcast - to stream Christmas music to myself at work, and as I set up to do the same thing in 2019 I idly wondered whether I could do something a bit more organised on an ongoing basis. Before too long the wondering became less idle and I looked at what software was available to do this at little or no cost. After running feasibilty tests during January 2020 the embryonic TFA247 was born and christened. (It's named after my community radio show The Friday Alternative.) A tentative schedule began to coalesce and soon moved from scraps of paper to a spreadsheet, a Google document, and ultimately this web page.

The schedule includes hat-tips to broadcasting history. particularly that of the Light Programme, Radio 2 and Capital Radio. The music is all hand-picked. The comedy is taken almost entirely from past shows broadcast on the BBC Light Programme, Home Service, and their upstart successors. Likewise the documentaries, though you may spot occasional programmes taken from the World Service and even the early days of Capital Radio. It's also worth mentioning, too, that the station is entirely digital, with as much of the output as possible sourced from either CD or high-quality digital downloads.

The schedule will change from time-to-time and content may vary from the schedule and additionally suffer/benefit from planned/unplanned changes/interruptions! There's a changelog here

Finally, don't forget, TFA247 is a private, unlicenced Internet Radio stream. Friends only. That's why it's password protected :-)

SCHEDULE

NEWS

• TFA247 takes 3-minute and 5-minute news bulletins live from BBC World Service. All bulletins are live at xx:01 and follow this schedule...
  

HOUR	MONDAY-FRIDAY	SATURDAY	SUNDAY
00	3'00	3'00	3'00
01
02
03	3'00	3'00	3'00
04
05
06
07	5'00	3'00	3'00
08
09
10
11	3'00
12
13	5'00
14
15	3'00
16
17
18	5'00
19
20	3'00
21		3'00	3'00
22
23	5'00

DOCUMENTARIES

• The documentary hour features a range of diocumentaries produced by the BBC.
• 144 programmes from the BBC R3 series Between The Ears can now be heard at 2300 Mon-Fri. These are described as 'adventurous audio' and the topics are wide ranging. Most of these programmes are documentary in nature, but some are presented as plays.

COMEDY

VINTAGE BBC COMEDY SHOWS NOW INCLUDE

• 1994 (complete)
• Absolute Power (complete)
• After Henry (series 1-4)
• The Blackburn Files
• Bristow (complete)
• The Burkiss Way (complete)
• Cabin Pressure
• Chain Reaction (complete)
• Cliche (series 1)
• Conversations From a Long Marriage (complete, series 3 added 17-Nov-2022)
• Dad's Army (complete) - currently being rested
• Flywheel, Shyster & Flywheel (complete)
• The Goon Show (complete) - currently being rested
• The Michael Bentine Show (complete) - Sundays at 13:04
• Hancock's Half Hour (all surviving) - currently being rested
• Hello Cheeky (complete) - currently being rested
• I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (series 1-75, almost complete) - currently being rested
• It's A Fair Cop
• I've Never Seen Star Wars (series 1-6)
• J Kingston Platt (complete)
• John Shuttleworth's Open Mind (complete)
• Laura Solon - Talking and Not Talking (series 1)
• Linda Smith's 'A Brief History of Time Wasting'
• Lines From My Grandfather's Forehead
• Many A Slip - Sundays at approx. 13:30
• Mark Steel's In Town (complete) - Saturdays at 13:04
• The Museum of Curiosity - Saturdays at approx. 13:30
• The Navy Lark / The TV Lark (complete) - currently being rested
• Old Harry's Game (complete)
• People Like Us (complete)
• Radio Active (complete) - currently being rested
• Round the Horne (series 1-4)
• Star Terk II (series 1-2) NEW
• Take It From Here (series 7-13) - currently being rested
• That Reminds Me (series 1-2)
• The Shuttleworths
• Trivia Test Match
• Uncle Mort's North Country
• Yes Minister

  The audio quality of the archive comedy shows varies considerably

CHRISTMAS

• Christmas music features on TFA247 during 1-25 December, temporarily displacing some regular rotations. There are more than 4.500 tracks in the TFA Christmas rotation, taken from a wide variety of artists, albums and genres. You're welcome! :-)

mb21 by Mike Brown Hosted by