Radio Heatherwood Internet Service
( Shoutcast Stream )
Radio For All, Wherever You Are
The push to bring Radio Heatherwood to be received via an internet (
shoutcast ) stream was born from the change in habits by individuals
who were using more and more smart devices to keep them connected and
entertained. We were also working on the basis of any future
disruption to the Heatherwood site, we could still provide a broadcast
service.
In support of the service we would also actively use social networks
to advise listeners of the service available.
Key “Shoutcast”= is a method of delivering music to
listeners who visit web pages. This streams the data in real time and
keeps you connected to your music source.
2015 Green light
Background
Our knowledge of the use of wi-fi delivering a signal to smart devices
on ward 4 cemented our resolve to extend this to the whole site but to
use the internet as the delivery method. In February 2015 we began
some of the work on a number of areas. The league of friends agreed to
fund the development of the service and the plan was to get it up and
running asap.
Our history pages for 2015 describe all the development.
Roll forward to 2016 and the move to broadcast is close at hand, from
January test transmissions begin with internet shoutcast providers.
We were also doing extensive testing on different devices and
finalising the web page.
The first half of the year was about finalising the last of the
technical challenges,our aim was to start broadcasting from our 40th
birthday on the 10th June.
Foreign listeners
One of the challenges we had to overcome was to prevent listeners
across the world as the more listeners you have the more ppl licence
you pay. We were of the thinking,why would you need a listener in
Brazil etc. You are a hospital radio for patients and staff in the
Thames Valley.
PDF Downloads
The first pdf file shows over 200 countries accessing our stream
between Feb and May 2016
The second pdf file shows we have reduced it down to 6 foreign
listeners.
Our listening web page was set to only accept visitors with UK or USA
addresses. We would have reduced it to UK only but the web site was
hosted in the states so they were included.
We couldn't work out at the start how we were getting listeners when
we hadn't even advertised the address of the stream. What also
contributed to our foreign listeners were shoutcast hosting
directories, who add our stream automatically to their listings. It
was by pure fluke we found that in the configuration of the shoutcast
stream where you want it to be private, the default boxes on the
set-up were filled with default data which immediately told the
directories we were live. Removing all text from the configuration of
station type, solved the problem.
The stream not being listed on the directory web sites of radio
stations gave us greater control of who should be listening.
It was purely a financial decision not to allow worldwide listening.
Quality
The quality of the stream was tested at various bit rates up to 128kbp
any more than this, mobiles cannot decode properly. We settled on
using 128kbp.
The radio station has always provided a what's playing web page since
the introduction of the rhapsody service in 2003,it was only available
to internal computers, the bedhead company never gave the hospital
radio the chance to add it to their service.
Sending the what's playing information to our shoutcast server on the
internet allowed the station to include this information on the tune
in web page and also send the information to our new twitter account.
3 Month Broadcast
The stream was due to be open to the public from the 10th June,due to
the lease issues it was delayed and in the end only broadcast for
three months from the 3rd September until 3rd December.
Was The Internet Service Successful ?
It's hard to quantify the answer to this,successful in quality yes
Listening to the stream was no different than listening to an FM
radio.
successful in technical achievement yes
The bringing together of various technical systems and web page
listening was simple and easy to use.
successful in listeners ?
We gained some listeners but not as many as we would have liked. I
don't believe the service was given enough time to be promoted and
gain listeners through word of mouth, a longer period of use would
have helped us pick up more listeners.
If I was starting a station from scratch today and wanted a method of
listening I would make sure my web site displayed properly on mobile
devices, this is where your listeners are going to be.
The stream address would have been programmed into our loan internet
radio's on ward 4 to offer a chance to listen for those without a
mobile device. It was not to be. On the 3rd December the internet
stream stopped at 10AM along with the Wi-fi service which had been
working since 2012.
