Technical » Splash FM

The Genual User License for FM has been released and in conjunction with the Lazy Lounge and Waiheke Radio we have developed a plan for Splash FM to move to 87.6 and the Lazy Lounge will move to 88.0 and Waiheke Radio will remain on 88.3.

This press release from Waiheke Radio will be in this weeks Gulf News

Local Radio Frequencies to Change

Waiheke radio stations are this week changing frequencies following a review of broadcasting regulations.

Community radio station Waiheke Radio will retain its existing frequencies, 88.3 and 107.4fm. Onetangi radio station Splash FM will broadcast on 87.6fm and 107fm in Ostend. Waiheke Wireless, operated by the Lazy Lounge in Oneroa, will shift to 88.0fm.

Waiheke Radio’s Chris Walker explained that the changes will be positive for listeners of all three stations as the new regulations have allowed the stations to have greater separation between frequencies, reducing the risk of interference.

The change also means all three stations may cover areas that they didn’t before. “People who haven’t been able to pick up a station should try again on the new frequencies”, said Chris Walker.

Radio regulations restrict all three Waiheke stations to broadcasting on low power FM frequencies. Reception will be improved by use of an aerial. Inexpensive wire aerials are available at many electronic goods stores.

Splash FM began broadcasting over 2 years ago on 88.2 MHz from Onetangi on Waiheke Island. Splash FM , along with Waiheke Wireless from the Lazy Lounge moved to 88.1 to make room for Waiheke Radio to use 88.3 from Seaview Rd. Now with the new GURL (General User Radio License) pending there is a real possibility that Waiheke Radio will lose 88.3. New frequencies will be made available and Splash FM will likely change frequency. In the meantime we will stay on 88.1 with our new mast and antenna so stay tuned.

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.

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.

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.

While I was whiling away the hours trying to get Oddast to talk to Windows Media services I got to thinking about audio streaming and a little project I promised to do for Waiheke Radio. The difference between what Waiheke Radio does and what Splash FM does is quite simple. Waiheke Radio has real people. So where everything that comes out of Splash FM comes out of a computer it is not so easy for Waiheke Radio.

My thoughts were to take one of the many mini-itx pc’s I have here, load a copy of windows on it and run up winamp with oddcast and feed to a shoutcast server or similar.

I was chatting (msn) with an old friend Chuck Kelly who works for Nautel in Halifax. He introduced me to Barix. n particularly the Barix Instreamer. This box has a retail price of $US395.00 which may seem a lot, but hold the phone. $US395.00 gets you a whole lot of smart in a small box that draws 4watts. It also has no moving parts. Now the geek in me says build a PC, but them I got to thinking. A PC will draw approx 100 watts and the Barix a mere 4watts. Now that is approx $140 per year in power.

Its not easy being green.

I have managed to back out my ill fated dll updates and have Oddcast running again on Station Playlist. I have both Windows Media and Winamp streams resurrected. I will be putting instructions on doing this on the how to page.

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