Time for a change

After a wee bit of neglect we have decided to have a bit of a rearrange of the schedule. Sundays are to be our specialist show day. We will be replaying Are We Alone at 9 am followed by the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy at 10 am. The Goon Show will still play Sundays at 9 pm and Mondays at 10:30 pm (just because that is the way it was when I was growing up)

The Nobelangelo Ceramalus Interview

While the rest of  Waiheke’s media is wimping out it has been left to Waiheke Radio and Chris Walker to ask the tough questions. On the 7th of March 2009 Chris interviewed the infamous Nobelangelo Ceramalus.

Chris Walker interview with Nobelangelo Ceramalus

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Opinionated Islanders Alan Knight and Mark James

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Chris Walker interview with Denise Roche

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Onetangi Beach Races 2009

On Air

 The Waiheke RadioStation Playlist program and logs were copied from the studio to a laptop, mixed with live mics and a PA feed from the MC with a Fostex 4 channel mixer to bring all the action live from the beach. Linking was achieved with a second laptop running Winamp and SHOUTcast Source to a Shoutcast server in the studio. A local LPFM transmitter on 107.0 was employed for monitoring. Splash FM then took the stream from Waiheke Radio.

Mr Fox

Technically it was a trial for Waiheke Radio and we look forward to many more collaborative events. Being able to get out and about with a Radio Mic to interview people all over the beach provided some marvellous moments which I am sure will be the subject of podcasts to come.

For me the highlight of the day was the Sealegs race. Although not an official entry in the Beach Races tote, seeing 9 of these ingenious craft racing on and off the water was a thrill. There was the usual mix of horese races, tractor races and Tug of War.

Sealegs Race

Waihekepedia T'Shirt

 For more pictures visit Waiheke Radio

Tomizone

I had a Linksys WRT54GL sitting on the shelf that I was planning on using as an experiment in setting up a mesh network. I decided to put it to work as a Tomizone. A Tomizone is a clever invention that allows you to share your internet connection for money. Simply create a Tomizone account, upload the Tomizone firmware to your router, give it a name, connect it to the internet and you might just start earning some money. The clever people at Tomizone have sorted all the billing and money is added to your account. So my Tomizone is running, just waiting for someone to connect. Find out more about Tomizone at www.tomizone.co.nz.

Waiheke Radio streaming server up and running

Dropped in to the Studio and installed the streaming audio server. It can be heard here. Splash FM is planning on taking Island Life on saturdays via the stream. It is set at 96k 44.1 stereo.

Shoutcast embedded player for WordPress

After getting the streaming audio server running for Waiheke Radio I got to thinking about embedded audio players, I figured I must not be the only one that wanted it.

I stumbled upon ShoutStream , downloaded, installed and hey presto, even autostarts

Brilliant

Waiheke Radio Streaming Audio Server

Well I finally got around to building a streaming audio server for Waiheke Radio. I took one of the small fleet of Mini-ITX based computers from under the bed. Loaded a copy of Windows XP and installed Winamp, Shoutcast and the Nullsoft SHOUTcast source DSP. Installation is a doddle. Set the input on the mixer to line in and input tab of the plugin to Soundcard input.

Then came the basic make it work without distress mods. Set BIOS to auto power on, install TweakUI and set auto logon, open port 8000 in the firewall, add Winamp and Shoutcast to the startup group and install Logmein free in case it all turns to gooey stuff.

Now it is just a case of installing it at the station, setting a static IP so that the router pinhole will always find it and getting Brent to assign it a nice happy URL and a big LISTEN NOW button onthe web site.

You Have Mail

I always enjoy it when I get home and there is a little parcel containing something that I have purchased on Trademe or eBay waiting for me. Today it was my Sound Blaster Audigy 2, in one of those impossible to open Post Office plastic bags. I plan to test the Breakaway Audio Processor with it over the next couple of weeks. I am concerned that I do not have a PC with the horsepower to run it, but we should be bale to overcome that reasonably quickly.

Next Tuesday I have enrolled in the TSOLPFMBI (The Society Of Low Power FM Broadcasters Inc) J Pole building class. It should be a hoot.

Chris Knox

 A friend came to visit in the weekend, mainly to to catch Chris Knox play at the Waiheke Radio fundraiser, but we got to talk about synchronous FM. I initially argued that you could run two transmitters on the same pole synchronously under the 25km rule, effectively doubling  your e.i.r.p. He quickly refuted my claim by reminding me of the field strength measurement rule. Oh Darn. Back to synchronous though, I did a search and came up with a paperby my good friend Chuck Kelly. My friend, who has designed for Rakon and has a brain the size of a planet, hypothesized that modern crystal oscillators are accurate to 1ppm. This coupled with his transmitter design that uses a single oscillator to derive both TX frequency and pilot / 38kHz that synchronous transmission should be feasible. This will need some testing.

Oh dear, I have just won a broken Francis Francis coffee machine on trademe for spares to rebuild ours, which will win out, caffeine or wireless.