How to listen to a new radio station
A simple way to hear a station's character before deciding whether it belongs in your personal library.
A station rarely explains itself in five minutes. You may arrive during an introduction, a long ambient passage, an unfamiliar language, or the end of a show. That uncertainty is a reason to listen a little longer, not to decide too quickly.
Give it more than one doorway
Try a station at two different times, and look at its schedule or archive if it has one. A daytime talk program and a late-night music show can reveal very different sides of the same broadcaster.
Notice the transitions as well as the tracks. Conversation, silence, field recordings, and the way one selection answers another often say more than a genre label.
Keep a short note
When a station earns another listen, save one concrete reason: a city, a host, a recurring show, or a particular atmosphere. That is more useful later than a long list of generic tags.