The Internet of Broadcast Things

Some very important issues were brought up here. Some of which I'd like to talk about and one is Internet security. This is one reason I don't like running a shoutcast or icecast server directly at my place of residence.

It is best to know your provider is secure and they are not one of those fly-by-night services that over sell their shoutcast servers. This means that they actually have dedicated servers for each client and that they are properly secured with firewall protection.

I don't know how many times I've read different broadcasting forums whereas individuals try and run a shoutcast or icecast server directly at home and then put their station out on radio directories such as iTunes or TuneIn. In a very short while they find out that their internet connection has been totally trashed. This is due to a couple of issues. One is the fact that residential internet service is not meant to handle all those separate connections that will be happening on your internet.

For those of you who might have ever used P2P software or Bittorrents you may remember what happens if you left the simultaneous connections on too high and didn't put a limit on to your upload for those of you who might have ever used p2p software or bit Torrants you may remember what happens if you left the simultaneous connections on too high and didn't put a limit on to your upload bandwidth.

Let's say you were downloading a movie such as Fast And The Furious. Your happily downloading the movie and at the same time you have a swarm of users connecting to you and downloading those bits and pieces of that movie and as more and more people connect your internet became slower and slower to the point where it is unusable.

This is why some folks would put a cap on to the maximum amount of listeners you could have on your station at one given time.

However if many listeners cannot connect to your station they may look elsewhere leaving you in the dust as compared to many other thousands of Internet radio stations.

The next trick they would try and pull which I highly do not agree with is lowering the bit rates way down to something like 32 kilobits per second or if you're lucky 64.

Now for AAC plus you can stream at 60 4 k as it will equal 128k of MP3 audio.

Still Lowering your bit rates too low and limiting their access to your station May tend to P off a few people especially the album rocker who again is an audio file listener.

Many of these folks pay good money for expensive audio equipment and maybe listening to your station on an internet radio equipped Bose system. I can tell you that I'm an expensive system if a radio station has a bit rate that is too low or is broadcasting in mono I would surely not listen just based on that alone.

The solution to this issue is to rent a dedicated icecast version 2.0 or shoutcast server which will have enough slots and support your listeners with buffer free continuous audio at all times if possible.

On top of the remote server you might want to consider a cloud-based back up Auto DJ service in case you're having trouble with your internet at one given time at your location. I can tell you this from experience that The Legacy has suffered Growing Pains dealing with that issue alone as well. Running a virtual server with a copy of your radio automation software might leave a gap as you quickly try and switch to that remote server.

There are web-based Automation Services which have the sensors to tell when your stream is interrupted and then quickly switch over to its automation software and begin playing automatically leaving your listeners still connected to your station and if done right they will not notice the switch over.

Since my sponsor pays for the service we are using a virtual server with a copy of my software on it. But before I had a sponsor I did use a service called live web DJ which was very good at detecting when the stream was lost and begin playing automatically.

There is also a monthly subscription based version of SAM Broadcaster called SAM cloud. There are different plans but I believe there's one for $25 a month in which you get a free piece of software that allows you to stream from your residence to the cloud-based server and then you have relays to which you can broadcast to more than one server if need be.

Yes these services are not free and they do cost a little bit of money but in my opinion and based on my experience that I have had with my radio station since around the year 2008 I can tell you that if you have the money to spend for Quality internet radio streaming I suggest that you do so as opposed to trying to do everything for free.

If you're a good radio station you will eventually be able to get a sponsor most likely. Listeners will start to donate to your station and you will be able to afford to buy and maintain your station based on your listeners support.

Another way to pay for your stations licensing and equipment would be too and I know that some of you are going to have a big sinking in your heart when I say this and that is to have ad-supported content.

At first I tried to be totally advertisement free and run my station out of my pocket and I can tell you that the cost was astronomical and I almost had to close shop for good.

A sponsor contacted me and gave me an offer I could not refuse but also told me that I would have to go add supported content to keep my station afloat because it would be too much for him to invest in my station without it and try to keep it alive.

Reluctantly I bit the bullet and started my ads supported content with ads after every fourth song lasting for a two-minute duration. On my FM transmitter I simply play promotions dealing with the station itself as the ads are targeted towards your location based on your IP address.

Since doing this The Legacy has been a huge success and the ads that are played pay for the internet radio station itself. When I say pay for it pays for the licensing and the server or should I say servers that are used to broadcast 24 hours a day 7 days a week uninterrupted over the internet.

Listener donations are paid by PayPal and they helped things such as computers which I rent from Aaron's Rent to Own, my cell phone service which I use for the request line, my FM transmitter, SWR and Watt meter, antenna and even the adapters necessary for the transmitter.

Playing the right hard to find on regular radio musical format will get you to the donations necessary to continuously run a radio station for FREE. Don't be afraid to run promotions asking for donations I know that some of you might feel like it's begging but especially if your on disability this is a sure-fire way to be able to continue ongoing operation without ever having to go silent. Get enough donations and you might even be able to get a Potomac fim 71 field intensity meter fully calibrated the same as what the FCC uses to track down illegal operators.

My plan right now is to get enough donations to purchase a spectrum analyzer along with that very field intensity meter just so I have one and also for the notch filters that I want to block any remanence of Spurs or harmonics above or below the FM band. What I really want is a notch filter that will only let the very frequency I'm using pass through it.

The Veronica transmitter which has variable output might be something I might be interested in simply because it has the variable power output but I wouldn't do that until I have a Potomac FM 71 meter so that I could measure its field strength and know what I'm dealing with. I am sure that the Veronica transmitter would do a heck of a lot better than any of these Chinese transmitter ever thought too and there is a Veronica transmitter that does have a built-in audio processor and limiter this prevents over deviation so it's something I think I would be proud to own.