Boom
Just a little after 6PM eastern time on Saturday, May 31, all our internet services went offline here at rfma.net, wbcq.com, wbcq.org, wbcq.biz, wbcq.us, 975pirateradio.com, pmlol.com, screwballsquirrel.net, splatterbox.us, mainesearchlight.com, and zirklereunion.org. That is, the web servers were down, mail forwarding was down, and everything went completely quiet.
Our hosting provider suppered an explosion in their main power system that crapped out our domains, as well those of tens of thousands of other customers. We were offline until about 3:45PM on Monday, June 2, when the servers came alive again. We'll be keeping an eye on the planet's maintenance log and wish them well in recovery.
We made Monitoring Times
In the November 2005 issue of Monitoring Times I picked up yesterday at Borders, George Zeller reports in his excellent "Outer Limits" column on a QSL for our M/S Katie broadcasts this summer that we sent to Jerry Berg. George notes that the QSL originated from Radio Free Mount Airy. Cool!
By the way, I highly recommend this publication. It's very well done, and is always a very interesting read. I know I could save a few bucks by subscribing, but as a bookworm, I enjoy surfing through the Borders while looking for the new MT, 2600, Granta, etc.
Low budget webcasting
Good ol' Comcast is capping upload bandwidth for it's cable modem users, like myself, to 19.2K. This is done mostly because cable modem customers aren't allowed to put any services on the 'net, like web servers, and for surfing the net it's download speeds that really matter. Besides, they'd love to sign you up for a business class account if you want any kind of upload bandwidth.
I'm not interested in putting up a web server on my comcast account. I have a more than capable web hosting provider for that. However, I'd really like to send a live music and entertainment stream once in a while to an audio server out on the net. Last night, I built and ran such a beast.
The same problem with upload bandwidth is a bigger concern for dial-up accounts. I was building and configuring a computer to help an international shortwave radio station send a live stream of it's console feed to an internet streaming server. Right now, their primary means of getting on the internet is a dial-up account. They've been doing this for some time now, thanks to Dr. Becker's wizardry. The same scheme can be used to send a low bandwidth stream from a severely capped cable modem connection.
First, you start out with a reasonably equipped computer. In this experiment we used a Pentium II-450, with 128MB of RAM and a 10GB HDD. The system has a nice SoundBlaster PCI card which will handle the hardware side of encoding an audio feed. I installed Windows 2000 Workstation on the computer, and it was happy with this and ready to go.
The machine has a 3Com 3c905 10/100 ethernet card, and I salvaged two US Robotics Courier external modems to support a dial-up. The hardware checked out okay.
Next, I installed Winamp 2.81. Note, the tricks we're doing requires the "classic" Winamp. The new Winamp does not work with our broadcasting tools, just yet.
The next software needed is the Shoutcast DSP plug-in, that facilitates redirecting Winamp'e output to a Shoutcast or Shoutcast-like streaming server. This version is a little older than what Shoutcast is shipping, because we want to use a low bandwidth output setting that the newer versions of the plug-in don't support.
Finally, to support all different kinds of MP3 encoding schemes, we need to install the MP3 CODEC and supporting files. This is the final piece of the puzzle, and now we're ready to webcast.
Through experimentation and experience with this technology, Dr. Becker recommends a setting of 16/11 mono as an optimal setting for dial-up use. Considering the low encoder setting, I thought music would sound really crappy. However, once we poked a couple of holes in the firewall and started up a Shoutcast server to test the feed on, I was surprised at how well the stream sounded. It's not CD quality by any means, but it's not like listening to music that sounds like it was recorded inside a coffee can either.
Our test consisted of running a live stream of a small sample of Radio Free Mount Airy's music and entertainment library across the net to Dr. Becker's Shoutcast server in Kansas, which he then relayed to WBCQ's studio feed (which is offline right now, hence this activity in setting up a new streaming computer). We ran that stream overnight and it was surprisingly reliable and listenable. It was a lot of fun, too!
The last thing, which I didn't test but should work just fine, is running a true live feed. Presumably you'd have your mikes and mixers and various audio sources run through a mixer and other audio hardware and gizmos, and fed directly into the sound card's microphone input. It is easy to tell Winamp to take input live from the mic input rather than use a library of wave files and MP3s like I did. This will increase your CPU and memory requirements, but our PII-450 should handle this with cycles to spare.
This setup should reliably stream over a 33.6 dial-up, if line conditions are good. It helps to have a better quality modem, like the USRs I have sitting around from my BBS days.
Radio Free Mount Airy Show Number Three
Now in heavy rotation on Radio Free Mount Airy's Live365 stream.
- Go - Crack The Sky - Ghost
- Zoom - Crack The Sky - Ghost
- Refrigerator Heaven - Alice Cooper - Easy Action
- Song for Bob Dylan - David Bowie - Hunky Dory
- The Ballad of Jenny Ledge - Toy Matinee - Toy Matinee
- I Am an Animal - Pete Townsend - Empty Glass
- Pirate Radio - The Toasters - Enemy of the System
- Mother Says - Joe Walsh - Barnstorm
- Words - Missing Persons - The Best of Missing Persons
- I, Robot - Alan Parsons Project - I, Robot
- Cleetus Awreetus-Awrightus - Frank Zappa - The Grand Wazoo
- Monkey Time - Crack The Sky - Rare!
- For His Namesake - Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes - Migration
- Separate Beds - Squeeze - Argybargy
- As I Said Before - Zebra - Zebra
- She's an Angel - They Might Be Giants - They Might Be Giants
- Changes - Yes - 90125
- Secret Agent Man - Johnny Rivers
- Baltimore Joe - Cruel Shoes - Cruel Shoes
- Detachable Penis - King Missile
- Dizz Knee Land - Dada - Puzzle
- Funky No. 7 - Hot Tuna - America's Choice
- International Feel - Todd Rundgren - A Wizard, A True Star
- Supposed To Be free - Steamhammer - Steamhammer
- Watch Your Step - Dr. Feelgood - Malpractice
- Slipped My Disco - The Tubes - Young and rich
- (I Love the Sound of) Breaking Glass - Nick Lowe - Jesus of Cool
- Empty Glass - The Who - Who's Next
- Little Green Men - Steve Vai - Flexable
- Rocket Launcher - Bruce Cockburn - Live March 9 1999
- Worried Man - Devo - We're All Devo
- Night of a Thousand Stars - Phil Lesh and Friends - There and Back Again
- Heads Down No Nonsense Mindless Boogie - Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias
- Can't Take It With You - Allman Brothers Band - Enlightened Rogues
- The New Math (What He Said) - OSI - Office of Strategic Influence
- Head First - The Babys - Head First
- Radio Radio - Elvis Costello and the Attractions - This Year's Model
- Jeremiah 33:3 Ministries - Radio Free Mount Airy - Paranoid Conspiracy Theory
- The Space Report With Cosmik Debris - Brother X - You Are What You Think
- Chapter Two - Radio Free Mount Airy - Paranoid Conspiracy Theory
- Baby Snakes - Frank Zappa - Sheik Yerbouti
- White Collar Drunks - Lenny Bruce - Lenny Bruce Originals Volume 2
- They Love Each Other - Grateful Dead - Lindley Meadows, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California, September 28, 1975
- Tarzan - Lenny Bruce - Thank You Maksed Man
rfma goes "live"
Our Live365 station has gone "live" this weekend. As long as we can maintain the stream, there's over fifty seven hours of just about everything to hear.
Tape number nine volume two
First broadcast: February 11, 2003.
The "tape number nine" tracks on my live365 stream (thanks Dr Becker) have a really strong personal meaning for me. I'm presenting them on the stream in the order I recorded them, more or less, in 1984. Yeah, I know some of the tunes haven't really stood the test of time. Bachman Turner Overdrive, for example, seems rather campy to me today, but this music is something that's been, in this order and this form, with me for a long time, and I'm really psyched that I can use it to inaugurate my web stream. However, if you think Jefferson Starship's "Miracles" is crappy, it's still part of my experience, and I can still devolve into the seventies for a bit and enjoy it.
"Can't find my way back home" finishes the original tape number nine. The tunes filling up this series I added some fifteen years after the original tapes, hoping to continue the theme that struck me back in the eighties when I was spinning LPs and making road tapes. The last track, "Worried Man" by the incomparable Devo, is one of the definitive Radio Free Mount Airy songs that I'll continue to broadcast as long as we can broadcast.
Many of the tunes presented on my web stream are ripped from the original vinyl. Dr Becker and I have taken great care to provide the best possible listening experience for radio free mount airy, but be aware that what you're hearing may reflect the original medium.
- Perfect Imperfection - Little Feat. From "Down on the Farm".
- I Never Dreamed - Lynyrd Skynyrd. From "Street Survivors".
- Up On Cripple Creek - The Band.
- Whispering Pines - The Band.
- Can't Find My Way Back Home - Traffic. Live, June 30, 1970.
- Two of Us - The Beatles. From the "Let It Be" sessions.
- Brain Tap Shuffle - Steely Dan. From "Android Warehouse".
- Watching The Wheels - John Lennon. Acoustic demo.
- Eyes of the World - Grateful Dead. Roscoe Maples Pavillion, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, Friday February 9, 1973. First live performance of this song.
- Estimated Prophet - Grateful Dead. Swing Auditorium, San Bernadino, CA, Saturday February 26, 1977. First live performance.
- Worried Man - Devo. From the 1983 video "We're All Devo".
Tape number nine volume one
First broadcast: February 11, 2003.
- Unbroken Chain - Grateful Dead. Studio rehearsal.
- So Far Away - Carole King. From "Tapestry".
- It's All Too Much - The Beatles. Alternate version from "Secret Songs in Pepperland".
- You Can't Always Get What You Want - Rolling Stones. From "Let It Bleed".
- You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet - Bachman Turner Overdrive. From "So Far".
- Haitian Divorce - Steely Dan. From "The Royal Scam".
- I Talk To The Wind - King Crimson. From "In the Court of the Crimson King".
- Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd. Live, May 1, 1977.
- Miracles - Jefferson Starship. From "Red Octopus."
- Midnight on the Bay - The Stills-Young Band. From the LP of the same name.
- It's All Over Now, Baby Blue - Grateful Dead. From "History of the Grateful Dead", a quasi-bootleg LP containing early shows from 1966.
- Badge - Cream. From "Heavy Cream".
- Razor Boy - Steely Dan. From "Countdown to Ecstasy."
- Still...You Turn Me On - Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Live on the King Biscuit Flower Hour.
A Christmas memory
Two years ago tonight, we were woken up from a nice slumber with our freaking fireplace on fire. Twenty five thousand dollars worth of damage later, and the worst freaking Christmas on record, we emerged from the stinky mess into a six month house renovation featuring the worst of scumbag insurance adjusters, wood butchers, and contractors whose idea of getting a job done was to wait for seven weeks before showing up to screw up mounting a lousy piece of drywall. We ended up doing the majority of the renovation ourselves, thanks to Jane's brother Mark, the ultimate restoration expert. From this experience we learned to hang the Radio Free Mount Airy flag high and proclaim No more wood butchers!
To commemorate this event, we present Christmas On Acid, which I heard for the first time on a pirate shortwave broadcast on December 24, 2000. Those days we could use Napster to search for cool music, and I indeed found this tune on Napster around mid-day on December 25, 2000. Little did we know that 12 hours later the song would prophetically come alive with gingerbread men dancing around the tree, on fire.