I'm looking into costs and feasibility of moving a live feed from a FM radio station from the station to a point that's past the usable range of their radio signal. It's a rural location and Internet service is not available at the station. If the destination was closer or their transmitter was more powerful, I could avoid this step and just plug in a radio, but.... My best idea so far is to rent a dedicated phone line from the station to the point where we need the feed, then get some kind of on-the-fly audio compressor to hook up to the main board in the station, push it out over the phone line, then decompress it at the destination. I'm pretty sure there is dedicated hardware to do the compression/decompression (whatever they use to do those "radio remotes" from Sally's Sofa Sales without sounding like they are broadcasting from the bottom of a rain barrel) and I'm currently looking into that angle too, but I'm wondering if it would be cheaper/easier/better to have something running on Linux at both ends of the connection to handle the audio compression/decompression. Especially since I'm planning to run a Centos server at the destination end for other aspects of this project if we proceed with it. -- MELVILLE THEATRE ~ Melville Sask ~ http://www.melvilletheatre.com
Frank Cox wrote:> I'm looking into costs and feasibility of moving a live feed from a FM radio > station from the station to a point that's past the usable range of their radio > signal. It's a rural location and Internet service is not available at the > station. If the destination was closer or their transmitter was more powerful, > I could avoid this step and just plug in a radio, but.... > > My best idea so far is to rent a dedicated phone line from the station to the > point where we need the feed, then get some kind of on-the-fly audio compressor > to hook up to the main board in the station, push it out over the phone line, > then decompress it at the destination. > > I'm pretty sure there is dedicated hardware to do the compression/decompression > (whatever they use to do those "radio remotes" from Sally's Sofa Sales without > sounding like they are broadcasting from the bottom of a rain barrel) and I'm > currently looking into that angle too, but I'm wondering if it would be > cheaper/easier/better to have something running on Linux at both ends of the > connection to handle the audio compression/decompression. Especially since I'm > planning to run a Centos server at the destination end for other aspects of > this project if we proceed with it.Can't you find a place that has both radio reception and internet service to park something like shoutcast? Or if you want canned hardware, I think slingbox has an audio-only mode - but maybe that's only in the windows/mac software players. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com
Frank Cox wrote:> I'm looking into costs and feasibility of moving a live feed from a FM radio > station from the station to a point that's past the usable range of their radio > signal. It's a rural location and Internet service is not available at the > station. If the destination was closer or their transmitter was more powerful, > I could avoid this step and just plug in a radio, but.... >FM quality radio remotes are usually done with ISDN lines and hardware encoder boxes like aTelos Zephyr.. otherwise, its juts a voice dialup line, analog lowfi voice. http://www.zephyr.com/
Frank Cox wrote:> I'm looking into costs and feasibility of moving a live feed from a FM radio > station from the station to a point that's past the usable range of their radio > signal. It's a rural location and Internet service is not available at the > station. If the destination was closer or their transmitter was more powerful, > I could avoid this step and just plug in a radio, but....Might want to consider the one-time cost of a nice directional antenna pointed at your radio station on a tower (possibly an already-existing one - cell phone or other radio/communications) at a location with internet access, versus the yearly cost of other alternatives suggested. If there are no mountains in the way 52.3km is not a long way for a radio signal to travel. The engineer who maintains the station should be able to help, or find a local ham radio operator who is knowledgeable about antennas and propagation to do the link calculations and determine antenna gain requirements for you before investing in such an approach. Phil
On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 5:39 PM, Frank Cox <theatre at sasktel.net> wrote:> I'm looking into costs and feasibility of moving a live feed from a FM radio > station from the station to a point that's past the usable range of their radio > signal. It's a rural location and Internet service is not available at the > station. ?If the destination was closer or their transmitter was more powerful,<snip> Any possibility they might move the Studio to a place where Internet access is available? To do Streaming, I don't think the stations actually need a Transmitter, because a few of the stations using the StreamAudio.com service are listed as "IR" which I assume stands for "Internet Radio". The Classical music genre lists 2 "IR" stations: <http://www.streamaudio.com/site/Stations.aspx?format=16> The other thing, if it is Line of Sight, as suggested by previous posters, is a VHF radio link.