The request system works in two ways, and it depends on who's playing. I'm planning on making an article over on the radio forums about it, but I'll explain in brief;
When a DJ is broadcasting and has uploaded a playlist, you will be able to see the songs they have on the request system. Simply hit the request button, and the DJ will be sent a message in IRC with the details of your request. This makes sure they have the song you're after, etc.
If you're hankering after hearing a particular song and the DJ doesn't have it, I exported the email-based form from the old stream page for that purpose - simply type in the title and artist of any song you want to hear, your name, dedication, etc, and your email, and an email will be sent to the orbiter radio email account.
Note that not all DJs accept requests and as yet, nobody has uploaded a playlist. If the DJ isn't taking requests, you should be notified of that when attempting to request with the new system. If they haven't uploaded a playlist, then you won't see any files to request, but you can always use the email based route instead.
When the autostream is active (Show entitled "DJ Jolene's Request Show", see the IRC channel for reasons why >.>), the playlist display will appear no different. However, the bot has no free will - she cannot go off and find songs which she does not already have, nor will she refuse to play a request. The upshot of it is, that while the autostream is active, you will only be able to request songs in the playlist.
That playlist is currently just over 5000 songs and represents a hefty whack of my personal collection. More is added to it frequently, but the list will only be updated once every week.
You may also only make one request of the system within 60 seconds. This is to prevent flooding of the bot, server, and connections therein.
Hope that explained it clearly enough.
---------- Post added at 20:23 ---------- Previous post was at 02:58 ----------
I've finished reconfiguring the IRC webclient to the new site, and added a link to the main page for it. Join us in IRC at
http://www.orbiterradio.com/chat !