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Updated 2011.08.10
TrackStreamer status update blog
Bote's Mixer Board, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Bote's Wild Feed, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Bote's Southernmost Feed, Key West, Florida
Bote's Boat Feed, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Bote's Mobile Feed, anywhere
You should listen to these feeds using WinAmp, as that does the best job that I have found. It is free. It is widely used. Shoutcast was written by the same people as WinAmp so they were made for each other, and Icecast follows on the heels of Shoutcast. There are numerous plug-ins and skins for it to enhance your enjoyment of it.
Here is a WinAmp equalizer file that will make the audio a little easier to listen to. It rolls off the highs and the bass a little bit for better communications-grade audio.
Buy the Logitech Squeezebox Radio
YouTube video
showing Squeezebox tuning in RadioReference Internet scanner feeds with ScannerBox app
It can be your bedside alarm clock radio to wake you up to music, talk radio, fire or police scanner streams, railroad radio streams, you name it
You can buy a tabletop alarm clock-radio that receives Internet streams as well as AM and FM broadcasts. It can even play mp3 files off of a USB thumb drive. The sound is rich and full from such a small package, of course that also depends on the source.
The Infinite Radio 200 is sold under both the Acoustic Research and RCA brand names, so you might see model ARIR200 or RIR200 because of that. It's not perfect, but it's neat being able to "tune in" to an Internet radio station without tying up a computer to do it. It has 6 preset buttons across the top that save stations for each listening mode. It also allows you to go to their web site to browse thousands of online radio streams and store favorites on their web portal so that you can pick them quickly from a list on the radio screen. You can also search by location or by genre from music and talk radio stations. It's pretty cool.
The ARIR200 is great for listening to Icecast and Shoutcast streams because it scrolls the current selection across the screen, although on live feeds the name tag is not synchronized with the audio that matches it. I'm trying to get them to fix that.
You can order an ARIR200 from Amazon.com for about $90 as of this writing, which is the top of my comfort range. Still, I'm glad I bought this Internet radio because it is too useful to be without now, really.
Windows Media Player will work, but it does not display channel tags to tell you what you're hearing. Plus, you must sell your soul to Bill Gates in order to use it. Apple's iTunes also works on mp3 streams, but can be inscrutable in its operation. VLC is freeware and can be buggy, plus its authors don't give a rat's ass about you unless you are streaming videos from one part of your house to another.
The server is Icecast version 2.3.2 running on a linux box at a well-connected co-location facility in Dallas, Texas.
Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida, U.S.A.
TrackStreamer status blog
Listen to Bote's Mixer Board Fort Lauderdale Streaming Scanner Feed — Icecast server mount point /botemixer
The fully qualified uri to Bote's Mixer Board is
http://colostreaming.com:8000/botemixer
This feed will be up full-time.
Less chatty.
Normal program audio includes:
If there is a noteworthy fire or water rescue incident and I am here to control the scanner I will focus on that as warranted. Also, I will post it on Incident Alerts system.
The beach patrol calls the roll at quitting time every afternoon at 16:30 which can be annoying so I lock that out when I can.
Radios: Uniden BC780 scanner for the Fort Lauderdale area Mixer Board feed.
Audio: A Mackie 1202 mixer board allows me to feed scanner and other audio into the streaming computer. So you never know when I might pipe in some other audio besides the scanner audio. Ya been told!
The streaming software on my end is Radio Feed. It is simple to set up and works reliably. You can find configuration instructions on Radio Reference. The monaural audio streams at 16kbits/sec with a sample rate of 22050 samples/sec. It sounds pretty good.
Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida, U.S.A.
TrackStreamer status blog
Listen to Bote's Wild Feed — Icecast server mount point /botewild
The fully qualified uri to Bote's Wild Feed is
http://colostreaming.com:8000/botewild
More chatty.
Normal program audio includes:
If there is a noteworthy fire or police incident and I am here to control the scanner I will focus on that as warranted. Also, I will post it on Incident Alerts system.
Radios: BCT15X scanner.
Audio: An audio cable from the scanner to the feed computer.
The streaming software on my end is ScannerCast, a FREE feed encoder from K1PGV. The monaural audio streams at 16kbits/sec with a sample rate of 22050 samples/sec. It sounds pretty good for communications quality audio.
Location: Key West, Florida, U.S.A.
TrackStreamer status blog
Listen to Bote's Southernmost Feed — Icecast server mount point /botekyw
The fully qualified uri to Bote's Southernmost Feed is
http://colostreaming.com:8000/botekyw
Normal program audio includes:
If there is a noteworthy fire or police incident I will post on Incident Alerts system.
Key West is a party town so you will hear calls for girls flashing their tits or couples having sex in public, especially during Fantasy Fest.
With the massive throbbing erection of a 1/4-wavelength high band antenna in early June 2010 the scanner can now hear local VHF marine traffic and the Monroe County fire UHF repeater which carries paging tones and clear dispatcher audio. I also added the 5 interoperability repeater 800 MHz frequencies in case those are ever used down the Keys.
When you see "Monroe FD UHF KW" it is Monroe County fire traffic, but the repeater itself is located in Key West. Monroe County maintains a string of UHF fire repeaters up the Keys, but this is the only one that comes in at milemarker 0. If you hear a ton of paging tones going out you know it's a pretty big incident most times.
Radios: BCD996T scanner fed by a 1/4-wavelength high band groundplane antenna about 20 feet up.
Audio: Volume Logic, a WinAmp plug-in, via Virtual Audio Cable attempts to limit the dynamic range of the mumbling Monroe County mobile units and the very loud marine and Key West units. It sounds pretty good, but I can't make them speak clearly into their microphones. YMMV.
The streaming software on my end is Radio Feed. It is simple to set up and works reliably. You can find configuration instructions on Radio Reference. The monaural audio streams at 16kbits/sec with a sample rate of 22050 samples/sec. It sounds pretty good.
Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida, U.S.A.
TrackStreamer status blog
Listen to Bote's Boat Feed — Icecast server mount point /boteboat
The fully qualified uri to Bote's Boat Feed is
http://colostreaming.com:8000/boteboat
This feed is not online and will be installed in the future.
Moderately chatty.
Normal program audio includes:
The marine channels are most active during daylight hours while the F.E.C. railroad channels pick up at night. CSX hosts the Tri-Rail commuter trains during waking hours and usually brings the handful of freight trains through southeast Florida in the wee hours.
Radios: BCD996T scanner.
Audio: Asus netbook computer, Griffin i-Mic USB audio input.
The streaming software on my end is Radio Feed. It is simple to set up and works reliably. You can find configuration instructions on Radio Reference. The monaural audio streams at 16kbits/sec with a sample rate of 22050 samples/sec. It sounds pretty good.
Location: Anytown, U.S.A.
TrackStreamer status blog
Listen to Bote's Mobile Streaming Scanner Feed — Icecast server mount point /botemobile
The fully qualified uri to Bote's Mobile Feed is
http://colostreaming.com:8000/botemobile
I only operate this mobile feed on long road trips where there will be something interesting to hear.
This feed has whatever my mobile scanner is receiving, usually railroad traffic, but could be public safety, ham radio, or aircraft audio. Check the channel tags in the stream and my TrackStreamer blog for the latest.
AT&T gave me no end of trouble on my last aborted attempt at a mobile feed and really took the fun out of it. There's no telling when I'll do this again.
Radios: BCD996XT scanner.
Audio: HPQ laptop computer, Griffin i-Mic USB audio input, and tethered Android phone for mobile data access.
The streaming software on my end is Radio Feed. It is simple to set up and works reliably. You can find configuration instructions on Radio Reference. The monaural audio streams at 16kbits/sec with a sample rate of 22050 samples/sec. It sounds pretty good.
Happy monitoring!
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