This week, we’ve begun the process of building a custom internal management system in order to fix some of the ongoing issues we’ve been working through since our last post. For more details, read on.
Last time, we wrote at length about how the station would intermittently drop all listeners when a cascading failure resulted in our relays disconnecting from the broadcast server due to no audio from Azuracast’s internal AutoDJ system. Unfortunately, even after moving from rolling to release and restoring the broadcast server, the system that controls song playback and selection remains broken. To keep the station running, we’ve been streaming from our studio for the past couple weeks, but this is not sustainable.
We need a more permanent solution, and to do this, we’re working on reconfiguring our broadcast server with a custom solution. One of the key features of the software we used to use before Azuracast was the ability to use custom SQL queries to dynamically determine the next song to play; this function is at the core of our ideal station setup. We’re using some familiar systems to make this happen, so we’ve already got some experience we can build on as we dig into developing and testing.
For a while now we’ve wanted to make a system that is comparable to what we used to use when we collocated our broadcast server which ran dedicated radio automation software. This will also allow us to reintroduce more advanced methods such as song selection influenced by active listener preferences which needed to be removed some time ago. Please bear with us while we build, test, and deploy Gensokyo Radio’s next broadcast system.
Thank you for your continued support. Even as we approach our 14th anniversary, there’s always something to work on and maintain. We aspire to do more, so stay tuned and thanks for listening.
~ Anna the Beagle (February 28th, 2025)
[Knowledge #196]