Західний полюс West Pole 32k AAC

Західний полюс West Pole 32k AAC is one of two entries in Ukraine whose names are the same but for a number, and this one's number is thirty-two. A broadcaster numbering its streams like that is separating feeds, not stations, so read the number as the part that matters.

Західний полюс West Pole 32k AAC sits in the tail of Ukraine's 125 entries. The tail is the part of a directory that goes missing first, and it is the part worth keeping: the head of every country's list is the same handful of national broadcasters, and everything that makes a dial local is behind them.

The gap here is large: 32 kbps where Ukraine's stations typically run 192. Rates at this level were designed for dial-up and for mobile data that was billed by the megabyte, and plenty of stations simply never changed the setting.

The format here is AAC, against a listing for Ukraine overwhelmingly made of MP3. Both play in a browser; the difference shows up in how much quality survives at a given bitrate, where AAC has the advantage at lower rates.

The stream is served from online.z-polus.info, an address one other entry in Ukraine uses as well. A small shared host is usually a group of stations under one owner or one technical provider rather than a platform.