Quill Radio: the next generation of the ACB Radio Tuner.

What's new in 2.1.1

• NOAA Weather Radio, from an authoritative directory. The Weather/NOAA branch is now powered by the WeatherIndex directory of actual NWR transmitters: browse state by state (each named with its call sign and frequency, like "KHB36 162.550 MHz Manassas") and press Enter to play the best internet re-stream. Search understands weather-radio geography too - type a SAME code, a call sign, or a "County, ST" and get exact transmitters. Weather menu > Listen to your Local NOAA Weather Radio plays the transmitter covering your saved location in one keypress. All 1,035 transmitters ship inside the app, so it works fully offline.
• Radio Reading Services - the human newspaper, on the radio. A new category for the audio information services that read newspapers and local print aloud for blind and print-disabled listeners: WRBH, Sun Sounds of Arizona, CRIS, the Connecticut Radio Information System, ACB Media, the NFB Radio Network, Voice Corps, and more. 20 vetted services are bundled (offline-ready) and blended into Search; Station > Update Radio Reading Services refreshes the list on demand.
• iHeart in Browse, and Find in this folder. iHeart joins Browse Stations, grouped by genre and then A-Z. And a new "Find in this folder" search narrows to just the source you're highlighted on - one genre, one state, one source - so results stay small; Clear returns you to the folder you searched from.
• Fixes from your feedback. The Source filter in Search Stations now shows a station under every directory it appears in (a SomaFM channel RadioBrowser also carries is no longer hidden); NOAA Weather Radio states never show empty online; iHeart genres sort 0-9 before A and alphabetise within each letter; and a favorite added while Browse Stations is open appears right away.
• From 2.1.0. The top-level Weather menu (official weather as fully spoken text - conditions, forecast, an extended daily outlook, and active alerts first), the unified Browse Stations tree, one-click update-and-restart, and keyboard favorite reordering.
• Still here from 2.0. Record as many stations at once as you like, broadcast polish and live Sound Enhancements previews, recordings that survive a restart, scheduling you can manage, a wake-up timer, hardware media keys, and iHeart and TuneIn in the search.

Read the full 2.1.1 release notes.

Where this came from

Quill Radio is offered with real gratitude to the American Council of the Blind and everyone who built and maintained the original ACB Radio Tuner. That project proved something worth proving: a radio app designed specifically for blind listeners, by people who understood exactly what that meant, could be simple, dependable, and genuinely loved. Quill Radio doesn't replace that legacy - it's an attempt to honor it, by taking the same care and pointing it at the whole dial.

Everything you'd expect - and everything you didn't have before

From ten streams to the whole dial

The bundled ACB Media directory carries all ten ACB streams - Mainstream, The Trove, Cafe, Community, Live, Special, and the rest - playable the moment you install. Browse Stations opens the live RadioBrowser directory: tens of thousands of stations worldwide, searchable by name, genre, country, or language, with a Test button to preview before you commit. Find Streams from a Website scans a page you give it for stream links, and you can always paste a URL directly. However a station reaches you, one keystroke makes it a favorite.

Favorites that grow the way your listening does

Folders as deep as you want - News, then News > Morning, then News > Morning > Local - created wherever you need them with New Folder (Ctrl+Shift+E), before a single station lives there. Rename any station to what you call it; your name follows it everywhere. Delete a folder and its stations step safely back to the top level - nothing vanishes with it. Every favorite remembers its own volume, because stations are mastered wildly differently and you should only have to fix that once.

Recording that survives the real internet

If your connection drops mid-recording, ffmpeg first rides out the gap; if the drop is real, Quill Radio waits, reconnects, and resumes into a cleanly numbered part file - attempts and spacing entirely yours to tune. Record what's playing, or record a different station while you listen to something else - the recorder never needed the player. Schedule a show once, daily, or weekly, picking straight from your favorites. The Recordings window shows the whole life cycle live: recording now with its size growing, recorded and ready, or scheduled and waiting.

An appliance, when you want it to be one

Check Resume Last Station on Launch once and Quill Radio becomes exactly what a radio should be: something you turn on. Play Last Station (Ctrl+L) picks up where you left off with no navigation at all. The Wake-Up Timer is the sleep timer's twin - pick a favorite, pick a time, once or every day. Hardware media keys control playback system-wide, even from the tray, with a live now-playing tooltip.

Built to be heard

Everything Quill Radio does, it says out loud, through the same announcement engine that powers QUILL - accurate, and compatible with JAWS, NVDA, and Narrator without ever stealing focus. The Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) puts every command behind one searchable list. What's Playing (Ctrl+T) speaks the current track or show title from the stream's own metadata, the instant you ask.

One data store, shared with QUILL

Quill Radio shares favorites, history, recordings, schedules, and settings with QUILL and QUILL Cast. Favorite a station here, and it's already a favorite in QUILL. Set a wake-up timer in QUILL, and it fires here. Nothing is ever set up twice.

Tell us what to build next

Quill Radio is free, and it grows from the people who use it. Help > Report a Bug, right inside the app, sends us a note in seconds - no account or sign-up needed - stamped with Quill Radio's own version so we always know exactly what you were running. Every report shapes what ships next.

Documentation