lol I was just going to write something similar. was considering doing a show myself around that time various things are happening in town which may mean I have a weekend social life again, so I wouldn’t want to commit to a spot and then not be able to do it. if I did it would be a weekend afternoon/teatime spot.

I don’t want to be seen as encouraging poaching presenters from other stations (though there is no reason why he could not TX on both even at the same time) nor unduly criticising other stations operations methods, but there is now even more competition for online ears than on the normal radio, as yet there isn’t the Communications Ministry of your country regulating them (as there isn’t the risk o dangerous interference to aircraft) – the limitations are commercial pressures to the ISPs and telecoms companies.

So we are sometimes at the mercy of them, a broandband circuit is not guaranteed to give real time audio for the length of your show, hence why mainstream broadcaster use ISDN or the digital music lines – these are way expensive (several hundred pounds a month) and not always available outside a large town in England, hence why sometimes folk can’t do their shows.

but what I do see is too many stations cobbling together some “free online radio” package on a free hosting website.

If these things work at all, they work by delivering ads between your shows, perhaps delaying your stream even more than the usual offset caused by encoding. Further ads are embedded into the site. it is possible to block the site ads with adblock etc, but a website host can see you are doing this. I’ve thus seen anything from polite messages that the ads are funding the site and to expect them, to whole sites locked off but I suspsect more that some places count the ad revenue from each “free” station and if its not enough they lower the resources allocated to them.

further, these “free ones” claim that you don’t need tech knowledge and hide stuff like servers, bandwith controls away.

Fair enough – its not a easy subject (and I am a former broadcast engineer), I spent the last couple of weekends going through various obscure tech documents and not all in English either just so I could make sure my local kit and partyvibe always have good strong sound. I accept some would rather play or make music than deal with computers and electronics, though (like many folk across the North Sea) I enjoy both (as the enjoyment of your own hi fi is beter!)

But if your presenters come from different locations (or even different coutnries) its could be not just herding cats, with level control and a variety of home studio equipment – its like a mixture of European and Persian cats to Siamese (they meow at different frequencies and volumes). Then add to this the usual DJ politics/competition and so quite often the owners of these stations find themselves “out of their depth” and daft things happen.

at least with multiple options/peering you can always get your signal out somehow – especially if crews work together to share bandwidth/servers. just 10 years ago only the BBC (and other similar broadcasters) could do that.

safari?…more like ninja I like to tink…you know, black eye bandana and all….and a big yellow glow in the dark smiley painted on the forehead :laugh_at:

also we grew up in a time when the only way to get independent radio out was to illegally transmit a band II signal and risk getting in shit for it and the equipment confiscated. This, like illegal raves, led to folk forming alleigances with drugs dealers or even selling drugs and doing other crime themselves to “get back at the system” and replace what the authorities took. it was only very recently that legal community stations were allowed in England and they have low transmit power and less audio quality due to equipment used to stop harmful interference. Other nations are better (like Belgium) but here even a Conservative government is too scared to request the BBC give up some of their allocations and they have a entire half of band II..

now we’ve reached a stage where you can safely and legally broadcast both high quality audio and video from your own home or venue, usually outside of the full regulations of the Communications Ministry and its also forced back censorship/control on community stations (for instance ICR has (accidentally) transmitted content with swearing previous to 21:00 but not got hauled up for it). There are even free services for folk to use!

Unfortunately this situation might not last. not because of any particular govt wanting to censor or even copyright feds, but things like peak oil pushing up the cost of electricity and solar flares blowing up satellites ultimately could mean govts worldwide commandeer large chunks of the internet for vital communications (military, blue light services) and commercial businesses push up the price of acccess as the fibre optic cables way below the sea don’t get blasted by solar storms. this wouldn’t even mean the net got totally stoppped or censored but it would be restricted to business use and public services rather than frivolous things like music or cute cat videos.

so we might as well all make the most of this whilst we have it, and therefore try to get the best and most reliable broadcast quality online.