dvorak posted:How much are we talking about for one of those?
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Feb 10, 2008 00:37
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I've been listening to SW for years on an old kitchen radio - and until I clicked this thread out of curiosity I never knew there was more to Shortwave than the 6 - 9.5 MHz it covered. So after lurking here for half a year I finally snapped ten minutes ago and impulse bought a second hand Roberts R9914 on eBay for £34 - that's $66 (xe.com) to add to the financial drain tally.
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Feb 10, 2008 03:21
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I've got one of those ugly old stuck on top of your chimney antennas. It's probably meant for receiving TV as the ugly wire coming out of the chimney ends with a coax connector.(and it came with the house) So I'm wondering if it will be any good for picking up SW. (TV is UHF/VHF SW is HF, TV for SW is bad bad?) Also, when I say "big ugly antenna" I mean one of those old rusted antennas you get on 50-year old houses that looks kind of like a bird. Desuism fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Feb 10, 2008 |
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Feb 10, 2008 04:08
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Desuism posted:I've got one of those ugly old stuck on top of your chimney antennas. It's probably meant for receiving TV as the ugly wire coming out of the chimney ends with a coax connector.(and it came with the house) So I'm wondering if it will be any good for picking up SW. (TV is UHF/VHF SW is HF, TV for SW is bad bad?) Haha, yeah I mean anything that's of some size and metal, above your house should work okay. However you might want to invest a few bucks in making your own longwire antenna if you can. They're normally pretty easy to make, as basically it's just a wire up between a couple trees or something. Unless you are like, pro-style hardcore DXing, then you'll be satisfied. You should be okay for starting out, just get an adapter for your coax cable to plug into your radio. In the next couple weeks check out making a longwire, you'll thank me later. It will "step yo game up" considerably.
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Feb 10, 2008 04:18
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Holy poo poo! I'm listening to my first ever numbers station! I got one with the Spanish lady, so I assume this is a Cuban station. It is currently 2:13 A.M EST over here in Tallahassee, FL and I'm picking this up on 5.883 MHz with my ghetto-rigged antenna which is really two TV coax cables that have been stripped, and the copper leads tied together. I'm listening to this message and I'm surprised how long it is! The lady has been reading off numbers for easily 2-3 minutes now. I had no idea how long these messages are. Gosh, I wish there was some way to decode these messages... Edit: so for those of you that regularly pick up these number stations - is it just me, or does the code of numbers never use a number above 8? So far, each group of numbers has never contained a number above the number 8. At first, I thought that maybe the code would be a simple number corresponds to letter type deal, but if the numbers never exceed 8, that can't be the case... Another edit: A quick Google search seems to show that this number station comes on regularly around this time EST (which makes it ~7am UTC when it comes on). Also, if any of you like salsa music, 5.027 MHz has great stuff going on. 
Dolemite fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Feb 10, 2008 |
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Feb 10, 2008 08:15
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Thanks for the heads-up. That was the first number station I've caught
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Feb 10, 2008 08:41
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Sexy Pants posted:Thanks for the heads-up. That was the first number station I've caught I'm glad I could help out! Man, shortwave is awesome! In the last ten minutes, I found an international talk radio show about help in Thailand, a barbershop quartet channel, and now I'm listening to a Cuban talk radio show justifying communism and how it "brought great change to Cuba and we need to bring this same change to Florida!" I'm way over using this scanner to listen to sorority chicks babble on their cordless phones in the VHF bands. I gotta get a proper shortwave antenna soon!
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Feb 10, 2008 08:51
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Dolemite posted:I'm way over using this scanner to listen to sorority chicks babble on their cordless phones in the VHF bands. That just sounds like it would be painful to listen to. Slight derail: I played Conet Project disc 1 the other day at work and got a lot of 'WTF' and 'holy poo poo, what is that?!' looks. It was worth it.
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Feb 10, 2008 16:19
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It's burgin' time! 
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dvorak posted:At first I was using this real junk small shortwave, it wasn't that great. I thought that I wanted to get into Ham but I had no idea what I was even doing, and I had a bit of money around so I bought a Grundig Satellit Millenium Edition for around $700. It's actually much better than the Windows version of the same moniker, fantastic really. It looks like this:
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Feb 10, 2008 16:29
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So it's 11:45am EST over here and now I can't pick up the Cuban talk radio stations I could pick up earlier at like 2am. I'm noticing that in general, less radio stations are coming in when I sweep through the frequencies. Does reception go down during the day versus the night time? I'm just surprised because right now there is literally not a cloud in the sky, it's nice and sunny. I thought that as long as it wasn't raining or cloudy, you will always get great reception?
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Feb 10, 2008 17:47
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Dolemite posted:So it's 11:45am EST over here and now I can't pick up the Cuban talk radio stations I could pick up earlier at like 2am. I'm noticing that in general, less radio stations are coming in when I sweep through the frequencies. Does reception go down during the day versus the night time? Read #7 at the following link. It's all about the ionosphere Well, mostly.http://www.shortwave.org/faq.htm
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Feb 10, 2008 17:52
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IonClash posted:Read #7 at the following link. It's all about the ionosphere Oh wow! Thanks for this! The whole FAQ was really helpful! It perfectly explained why I couldn't receive anything - it was almost noon when I tried to receive everything so the sun was at its most bright and I bet is REALLY heating up the ionosphere! That combined with the fact that the stations I'm trying to receive are well below 9 MHz and you have a recipe for static. It also explains why last night, I didn't really get good reception at all when I tried to tune in to the 800MHz police and fire frequencies! I had it all backwards!
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Feb 10, 2008 18:27
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porktree posted:Slamming windows me, 8 years later, yes it was that bad. That is one sweet set up you've got going, I'm really envious of the antennae and the usb radio. Do you use some kind of specially shielded usb cable? And how far does it have to sit from your computer? Anyway, great radio porn. The Winradio is a software defined radio, as they so much like to say. Basically it means that there is harware in the device that grabs all the radio signals and then sends them to your computer to be played with. Your computer receives only the bandwidth of the IF and frequency that you choose. Then you have about 100 different ways to make it sound better, through software options, or by watching the spectrum analyzer and moving the width of the reception up to like 10KHZ each way, or down, in each direction. It's really amazing. All the signal processing goes on in your computer, the signal comes over USB, to the controlling software. Just a normal USB cable, because I believe the signal is sent digitally from the box. You plug a power cable, a USB cable, and the antenna into it and you're on your way to having the best radio experience one can get. The controlling software is amazing, if not fun to use just to see how the spectrum analyzers and notch filters work. I set the box right on top of my computer and there is no interference issues. It's all about having a well shielded antenna that's outside, preferably above your house. If everyone had an antenna that was over there house, I think everyone would know how amazing radio can get. I found out about Winradios through the reviews and ads that they have in Passport to World band. I saw that they were always top notch reviewed so I decided that I wanted a top notch radio that I could control from a slick interface on my computer too. I looked them up finally about 2 months ago, and settled on the G-313e. That's the external USB model. Although they also have software defined scanners, and PCI card models which do the same thing as mine. You have to order them straight from Australia at https://www.winradio.com if you want the whole software package and all that. They have unbelievable customer service and software support, as well. I asked thema few questions and they got back to me within a couple hours. The nice thing to have is the great suite of software that you can get with it to do all kinds of signal processing and grabbing of data right out of the air. The first time I was pulling down NAVTEX and WEFAX is some of the greatest times I've had with radio. I once myself caught the Biafraland radio signal about two years ago, pretty much now at this point my favorite moment in radio listening. That was on my trusty Grundig Satellit though. Check out the wikipedia article on biafra if you don't know about that whole event.
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Feb 10, 2008 21:22
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Dolemite posted:Oh wow! Thanks for this! The whole FAQ was really helpful! Glad to help
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Feb 10, 2008 21:41
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I'm using my birthday (2/14) as an excuse to by an (G)E5, so I'm wondering about possible placement issues, things like, would this adversely affect radio performance at all? I bet the easiest way to tell is just to find out myself, but it would kind of suck if I turn on my radio and the loudest station is Ethernet traffic.
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Feb 10, 2008 21:48
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dvorak posted:The Winradio is a software defined radio, Speaking of which we had someone in this thread buy/build a SoftRock SDR. Anyone heard any word about it?
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Feb 11, 2008 02:09
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The Cuban number station is back at this momnet. 5.883 MHz, but this time I'm getting a ton of interference. 
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Feb 11, 2008 08:02
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Dolemite posted:The Cuban number station is back at this momnet. 5.883 MHz, but this time I'm getting a ton of interference. I get some religious show on 5.850 MHz and some preacher talking about VD on 5.890 MHz, but that's it right now.
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Feb 11, 2008 09:30
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You can add my purchases to the financial drain list. Last night I purchased an Eton E5 for $139.99. Sale on Amazon.com, woop woop! I can't wait until it gets here and I can start listening to all this crazy stuff too.
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Feb 11, 2008 16:56
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So I've been Googling and saw what's called sending out a QSL. Apparently sending a QSL to a stations is just me saying "I can hear you." I want to start sending these out since I want to start collecting the QSL cards that get sent back from the stations. But here's where I'm confused. I've seen other radio enthusiasts' cards that they send to stations and their cards always have their call signs on them. Well, one problem: I don't have a HAM license so I don't have a call sign. I'm just some random dude. Can I still send like a paragraph saying basically that "I like your stuff and I heard you just fine here in [insert location here]." to the station? Am I required to have a call sign?
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Feb 11, 2008 23:21
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Dolemite posted:I want to start sending these out since I want to start collecting the QSL cards that get sent back from the stations. But here's where I'm confused. I've seen other radio enthusiasts' cards that they send to stations and their cards always have their call signs on them. Well, one problem: I don't have a HAM license so I don't have a call sign. I'm just some random dude. You want some SWL QSLs. I've got a ham license so I've ordered some "normal" standard QSLs from these folks, and they're *great*. Small operation, fast service, great prices (I paid around $15 for 100 cards with my call sign, shipped).
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Feb 12, 2008 00:43
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mrbill posted:You want some SWL QSLs. I've got a ham license so I've ordered some "normal" standard QSLs from these folks, and they're *great*. Small operation, fast service, great prices (I paid around $15 for 100 cards with my call sign, shipped). Excellent! I went ahead and bookmarked these guys. This is what I needed to know. I have yet another question for you all though. In my Winradio software tuner screen, I can scan using AM or SSB. I've heard of AM and SSB stations sharing many of the frequency ranges, but I never seem to find anything in SSB mode, it's always just static. Through some Google searching, some people suggest just only scanning in SSB mode. But, how will I know if I'm about to sweep over an AM station? Is there any way to tell you've stumbled onto an AM station while sweeping in SSB? I'd sure hate to miss a number station or crazy preacher station while searching for SBB stuff! Also, my receiver offers the choices of scanning in FM wide and narrow options. For some reason, FM wide seems to always offer much better clarity and reception. Is there ever a reason I would want to use the FM narrow option? Oh, and one last question: When in SSB mode, I have something called a BFO offset. I tried playing with that but it only seems to adjust the pitch of the signal (I played with it while listening to carrier tones). Is that all the BFO does? Dolemite fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Feb 12, 2008 |
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Feb 12, 2008 03:25
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Sometimes it's all bout timing   click for big I bought the Grundig 300 a few moths ago for about $25 at a local radio shack, I liked it, but wanted to get something more advanced after listening to crazy religious shows for a few weeks. I looked but didn't hit the jackpot until two weeks ago, Circuit City has(had?) E5's on clearance for $89.99. I was looking for a monitor, but decided that this was a much better deal and grabbed it up. If you have any near your house head over there asap, I bet they still have some, and that's a shitload better that $150, and the E5 is awesome, comes with everything you need, and just takes a couple minutes to get the hang of it. also chalk up two more, plus $115 more dollars spent 
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Feb 12, 2008 03:29
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Dolemite posted:Excellent! I went ahead and bookmarked these guys. This is what I needed to know. Go stick about 75 feet of wire in the end pin of that Winradio BNC. Get it up high, and as clear as you can. Wait till about 8-9pm local time, and tune around in LSB mode between about 3600 and 4000 KHz. The 75 meter ham band will be alive with legal-limit signals from guys who sit there and ratchet-jaw all night. quote:Through some Google searching, some people suggest just only scanning in SSB mode. But, how will I know if I'm about to sweep over an AM station? Is there any way to tell you've stumbled onto an AM station while sweeping in SSB? I'd sure hate to miss a number station or crazy preacher station while searching for SBB stuff! Yep, it's the preferred way. An AM signal is just two SSB signals back-to-back with a 'carrier' signal sent out midway between the two (or more accurately, a SSB signal is an AM signal with the carrier and one sideband filtered out). Here's the thing - dependable reception of AM signals depends on your radio receiving that carrier tone. If you don't get it, the station fades, even if the _sidebands_ are still there. An AM station tuned in on an SSB receiver sounds exactly like an SSB signal, except that when you tune 'across' the signal, you'll hear the carrier (it'll just be a loud whine). SSB mode is much more sensitive, and there isn't anything you can pick up in AM mode that you can't in SSB. Hence, Occam says stay in SSB. HOWEVER, once you're tuned into a strong AM signal, there's absolutely nothing wrong with switching to AM mode for higher fidelity (the advantage of AM is that it sounds way effin better than SSB and you don't have to tune it 'on frequency' like SSB). One final note: if your WinRadio offers "Synchronous AM" mode, use it when listening to shortwave. It almost eliminates the shortwave fading issues (which are 90% caused by carrier fading) by re-inserting a 'fake carrier' to decode. Result: SSB's performance, AM's sound. quote:Also, my receiver offers the choices of scanning in FM wide and narrow options. For some reason, FM wide seems to always offer much better clarity and reception. Is there ever a reason I would want to use the FM narrow option? quote:Oh, and one last question: When in SSB mode, I have something called a BFO offset. I tried playing with that but it only seems to adjust the pitch of the signal (I played with it while listening to carrier tones). Is that all the BFO does? That's exactly what it does. BFO stands for 'Beat Frequency Oscillator' and refers to a circuit that reinjects the 'carrier' exactly like the synchronous AM detector I explained earlier. The detector uses the BFO signal as a reference frequency to figure out how to decode the incoming signals; hence, changing the reference frequency changes the pitch of the audio. BFO is critical on SSB units because nobody transmits exactly on frequency, nobody receives exactly on frequency, and it's fatiguing to listen to the human voice when the pitch ratios aren't right. Jonny 290 fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Feb 12, 2008 |
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Feb 12, 2008 03:35
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Jonny 290 - Thank you for taking the time to type all that out! You've definitely answered a lot of my questions! I am a little confused about one thing though.Jonny 290 posted:Yep, it's the preferred way. An AM signal is just two SSB signals back-to-back with a 'carrier' signal sent out midway between the two (or more accurately, a SSB signal is an AM signal with the carrier and one sideband filtered out). Here's the thing - dependable reception of AM signals depends on your radio receiving that carrier tone. If you don't get it, the station fades, even if the _sidebands_ are still there. An AM station tuned in on an SSB receiver sounds exactly like an SSB signal, except that when you tune 'across' the signal, you'll hear the carrier (it'll just be a loud whine). If I am interpreting this correctly, that means that if I stay in SSB mode, I'll hear anything that is an AM station as well as SSB? So if I pick up a hint of a signal, I can change over to AM and receive it better if necessary? I think the reason I am confused is because when I've tried to use SSB before, I've never managed to receive a signal! So far, I either seem to get static or tones, but never an actual signal of any sort (by signal, I mean a person talking or something. I assume that those tones are technically signals).When I do manage to catch a signal in AM mode, I've tried switching to SSB mode to experiment and I seem to get static most of the time on that same frequency. Occasionally, I'll be able to hear the same signal but very faintly in SSB mode. Crazy question, but how much of this could be attributed to my "antenna" that literally consists of two 3-foot sections TV coax cable tied together? I have a BNC connector on my Winradio card, so I snipped off the first cable's coax connectors and using a pair of kitchen scissors, stripped away the outer insulation, the braided steel, and the inner plastic surround the copper lead. I then basically dangle the copper lead into the center hole of the BNC connector on the card. I didn't have a female to female coax adapter, so I couldn't connect the two pieces of cable together. I had to further ghetto rig this by stripping the OTHER end of the first cable and by stripping one end of the second cable that goes from the first cable out to my window. I literally just tied the two exposed copper wires together and called it a day. The second of the two coax cables is run to my window and is held in place by a die-cast model of a 1969 Camaro.  Oh yeah, and thanks for answer my FM wide vs. narrow question! I think I will try to pull in police frequencies with the FM narrow option and see if I get better reception.
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Feb 12, 2008 05:01
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Dolemite posted:If I am interpreting this correctly, that means that if I stay in SSB mode, I'll hear anything that is an AM station as well as SSB? So if I pick up a hint of a signal, I can change over to AM and receive it better if necessary? You got it, right on. quote:I think the reason I am confused is because when I've tried to use SSB before, I've never managed to receive a signal! OK, as far as SSB shortwave reception goes, your antenna does the same job that it does for AM and any other mode. Your antenna is pretty rotten at shortwave frequencies - short wires just don't get enough voltage from the incoming signals to make it past the noise and static - and further more, most SSB stations transmit at much lower power. Your average ham transmits on 75 meters between 100 and 1500 watts, with most around 3-600 watts these days. Your average shortwave station is 100,000 watts - they're engineered to shove so much RF into the sky that lovely $2 shortwave radios in Namibia can't help but receive their signal. If you have a few bucks to experiment, the cheapest and most convenient way to get a basic antenna up is to go to Radio Shack or Wal-Mart and buy a 25 or 50 foot roll of cheap speaker wire. Split the two wires apart and join them end to end so that they form a single 50 or 100 foot wire. Jam that bastard in the center pin of your Winradio and watch it come alive. A good way to test AM vs SSB signal strength is to tune in to 5.00 MHz, WWV in Colorado. Try it in AM and then SSB. You may find that though the S-meter moves more in AM mode, the signal has much better signal to noise ratio in SSB. This is why we can talk all day long in SSB at power levels that don't even move the S-meter, as long as we're stronger than the noise. You need much more signal for a decodable AM signal. If you can hear WWV on 5.000, your next neat test is to try listening to CHU Canada on 7.335 MHz. CHU is a very interesting station because they transmit a signal that is basically SSB, but they include the carrier signal as well. This allows them to transmit a more efficient signal (since they're only transmitting one sideband, they can put more power into the other sideband) BUT since they transmit the carrier, cheap AM shortwave radios can tune them in too. So, what you hear on CHU is the carrier right on 7.335, then a USB audio sideband up to about 7.338, but there is no signal on the lower sideband from 7.335 to 7.332. Compare this with the WWV signal which has sidebands on both sides, from 4.997 to 5.000, a carrier at 5.000, and another sideband from 5.000 to 5.003.
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Feb 12, 2008 05:37
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For my knowledge, does DSB stand for Dual Side Band? Also what does ISB stand for? I have these modes on my WinRadio interface but I never really use them as they don't seem to ever really help my situation.
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Feb 12, 2008 10:41
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Jonny 290 posted:Totally helpful I'm getting it now! It looks like I'll be able to enjoy SSB stuff once I make an antenna that isn't crap. If SSB stations tend to operate on such low power, that explains why I can only pull in the really powerful stations like Radio Havana or the crazy Southern preacher folks. I would guess that my antenna is no better than the $2-dollar Namibia special. Even with those mentioned stations, I never seem to get them very clearly. I can pull those stations in, but there's always a decent amount of static, never nice and clear reception like I hear other people getting when they make records of stations. It looks like I'll be hitting Wal-Mart this weekend to grab a roll of speaker wire...
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Feb 12, 2008 14:22
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Just though I'd say bump the tally up, as I just stimulated the economy. I picked up a Eton E5 for my dad, as a gift. $89
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Feb 13, 2008 03:55
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I know it's basically a sub-community of a sub-community, but do any of you know how you start out DXing TV stations from around the world? I know it was sort of popular to get those hugeass dishes and put them in your back yard in the 90's. Where does one begin these days to pick up far ranging TV stations. I mean the WRTH even lists international TV channels in their guide, so someone out there is doing it. Trying to take the radio hobby to it's limits is fun and exciting, no profit involved however.
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Feb 13, 2008 07:05
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mrbill posted:You want some SWL QSLs. I've got a ham license so I've ordered some "normal" standard QSLs from these folks, and they're *great*. Small operation, fast service, great prices (I paid around $15 for 100 cards with my call sign, shipped). Also, of note, you don't need a call sign or even a special card to send a reception report. As Dolemite asked earlier, you can just "send like a paragraph saying basically that "I like your stuff and I heard you just fine here in [insert location here]." It helps to include a few specifics -- what frequency you heard them on, what time it was, where you are, exactly what programming you heard, and the quality of the signal. Usually having a QSL card with a call sign on it is for HAMs to send to other HAMs, you don't need anything that fancy to send a reception report to a station if you're just a listener. In fact, I've receieved QSL cards and some lovely extras like magazines and station literature from Radio Havana, Radio Japan, China Radio International, and Radio Netherlands just by emailing them a reception report! Radio Havana even mailed me a christmas card 
StarkRavingMad fucked around with this message at 07:21 on Feb 13, 2008 |
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Feb 13, 2008 07:17
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So I found one really cool advantage of the Winradio card versus an actual shortwave receiver: I can remote in to my Winradio windows XP box through Real VNC and play with my receiver from anywhere! I'm testing it now and it's awesome. I'm controlling this from my laptop, so I can shortwave scan on campus between classes and work when I'm bored out of my skull. I set up an audio stream using VLC, so I can hear the audio that way. Take that, you awesome Grundig/Yaesu/etc. receiver having bastards!  StarkRavingMad posted:Also, of note, you don't need a call sign or even a special card to send a reception report. As Dolemite asked earlier, you can just "send like a paragraph saying basically that "I like your stuff and I heard you just fine here in [insert location here]." It helps to include a few specifics -- what frequency you heard them on, what time it was, where you are, exactly what programming you heard, and the quality of the signal. Usually having a QSL card with a call sign on it is for HAMs to send to other HAMs, you don't need anything that fancy to send a reception report to a station if you're just a listener. Cool, this helps a ton. Time to fire up MS Word...
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Feb 13, 2008 20:57
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StarkRavingMad posted:It helps to include a few specifics -- what frequency you heard them on, what time it was, where you are, exactly what programming you heard, and the quality of the signal. StarkRavingMad posted:HAMs
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Feb 13, 2008 23:02
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So I'm going shopping this weekend to get some wire for my ghetto shortwave antenna. How can I attach a BNC connector to one end of the speaker wire? I've heard of soldering a connector to a cable, but how do I do that? Do I solder the wire to the edges of the connector or something? Another idea: Can I simply buy a 50-100 foot roll of coax TV cable and a coax->bnc adapter? Will TV cable make a good antenna, or will the outer insulation block out shortwave signals?
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Feb 14, 2008 00:41
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Dolemite posted:So I'm going shopping this weekend to get some wire for my ghetto shortwave antenna. The connector should have obvious tags or flat surfaces inside that you can solder to, hopefully. Failing that, use a bit of sandpaper or wire brush or grinder on a Dremel to make a rough patch on what you wish to solder to. I think the co-ax's outer sheath is going to almost perfectly block any signal entering the cable 
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Feb 14, 2008 01:01
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meltie posted:...I think the co-ax's outer sheath is going to almost perfectly block any signal entering the cable Crap! I was afraid of that. So, it looks like I'll be buying a roll of speaker wire, a BNC connector, and teaching myself how to solder this weekend. Look at what all of you have done to me! I'm supposed to be studying for exams AND packing all our stuff for the move to our new apartment! Not building antennas! AstroZamboni - I blame you if my girlfriend beats the hell outta me because I'm building antennas instead of helping her move! After all, you started this thread, jerk!
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Feb 14, 2008 01:55
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Dolemite posted:Crap! I was afraid of that. Well, if all you need is a long length of wire, you could perhaps use the outer sheath as the antenna... In which case you're probably better off doing what everyone else does and using speaker cable anyway Nothing more romantic than asking your girlfriend to be helping hands on your first evening soldering 
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Feb 14, 2008 02:07
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So I've been playing with my Winradio receiver from work and I figured that before I go to bed, why not share the audio stream that I've been using with fellow radio Goons? I thought maybe I could tune the receiver in to a shortwave station and stream that, but pretty much everyone in this thread can pick up shortwave WAY better than I can. So, here's a potentially fun little morsel from me to you: A VHF band radio stream of Florida State University's police department. You can listen to the FSU PD stream at http://98.192.147.62:8080 You'll need to download VLC Media Player(http://www.videolan.org/) so you can stream this as this is the software I use to stream the radio. Once you have the player, go to File -> Open Network Stream. From there, select the HTTP radio button and enter in the address above. Then, go to the bottom of this screen under Advanced Options. Tick the "Caching" box and set the value to 1800. Then hit OK. It's about 2:30am over here, so there is a possibility that you could hear some retarded, drunken freshman kids getting busted by the cops. Maybe. Because the "server" is a crap Pentium 3 600 with 128 megs of ram somehow running Windows XP. My connection is a Comcast cable connection with craptastic 128K upload that really works out to less than that on bandwidth tests. Some notes if you decide to listen to the stream: I noted that the police tend to announce where they are as if they have patrol routes. They'll call out the building where they are and a police code. 10-97 means "arrived at the scene" and 10-98 means "available for an assignment". The buildings are: Leach - the campus gym UCC - a wing of our big McHuge football stadium where teams from all over the nation come to kick our asses. Westcott - the pretty building with the pretty fountain you see in all our brochures and adverts. DeGraff, Deviney - dorms. If the cops name drop these, listen harder. You might catch a story of a retarded freshman. Woodward - nothing special, this is the FSU PD headquarters. Nothing fun happens here. Dolemite fucked around with this message at 08:35 on Feb 14, 2008 |
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Feb 14, 2008 08:31
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Dolemite posted:FSU PD Just a word to the wise, retransmitting a police frequency can be  , depending on the laws in your local jurisdiction. In some states, it can also be illegal just to tune in to such a frequency, barring some exceptions (licensed hams are often exempt from such laws). It's a pretty low-risk activity, but knowing the local laws never hurt anybody.Not that that matters a great deal at the moment, since your stream is telling me about CASH NOW! and not drunken college students.
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Feb 14, 2008 20:02
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McRib Sandwich posted:Just a word to the wise, retransmitting a police frequency can be I did a quick Google search before I threw up the stream to see if other sites were broadcasting police frequencies and I found a bunch of radio enthusiast sites broadcasting Miami, Orlando, and Tampa frequencies so I figured that perhaps Florida doesn't care. I'm definitely not aware of the laws though, so I hope I didn't just get myself sent to jail.  Yeah, the stream right now is set to a generic Clear Channel R&B station. I use it to make sure that the audio stream is working properly since the station has such a powerful signal. I can't change the frequency because I'm on campus right now and they must have the ports for Real VNC blocked. I can't remote into my Winradio PC at the house to tune in to something other than R&B. Sorry guys.
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Feb 14, 2008 21:00
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