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Note: this tutorial assumes that your feed will be hosted on a site like RailroadRadio.net.
Now that you have your scanner and your computer running, you are ready to install the software
that will make your feed available to the Internet. We will be using software packages from
Nullsoft, the makers of the well-known MP3 player, WinAmp. Here is a link to the ShoutCast online
documentation which is very good and worth a look: http://www.shoutcast.com/support/docs/
There are actually two pieces to the sofware package:
1. The Player/Encoder: this takes the audio from your sound card and encodes it in to streaming
MP3 format that can be delivered to a server for broadcast.
2. The Server: for this turorial, it is assumed that the server portion will be hosted on a site
such as RailroadRadio.net.
The first piece of software to download would be the player. A free version of WinAmp 5+ is
available from http://www.winamp.com. However, most stream operators have found that the
newer versions of WinAmp are not as reliable and take up more memory/hard disk space. With
this in mind, most of them (including myself) use an older version such as WinAmp
2.95. Thank goodness we have access to a great site called
OldVersion.com: http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=winamp. Slip over here and pick yourself up a copy of WinAmp 2.95 and install it.
Once WinAmp is up and running, head over to the ShoutCast downloads page
(http://www.shoutcast.com/download/broadcast.phtml#download) and grab the encoder plugin for WinAmp 2.x. Or download it directly here: http://www.shoutcast.com/downloads/shoutcast-dsp-1-8-2b-windows.exe
The encoder plugin installs just like WinAmp. Go ahead and install the plugin, then we will move on to other tasks.
When your feed is hosted by a site like RailroadRadio.net,
the webmaster will provide you with a server address, port number and password. We will use these to set up
the WinAmp player that will encode the live audio.
With the server information close at hand, let's jump over to WinAmp and set it up to connect to the server.
First, fire up WinAmp - then click in the upper left hand corner of the main WinAmp form, and from the
menu that pops up, select Options then Preferences. Optionally, you can use the keyboard
shortcut Ctrl-P to open the Preferences dialog.
Next, look under Plug-ins and click on DSP/Effect. You should now see the Nullsoft
SHOUTCast Source DSP listed.
When you click on the Nullsoft SHOUTCast Source DSP plugin, the following dialog will pop up:
There are four tabs in the SHOUTCast Source dialog. There are no settings under the Main tab as shown in the image above.
However, there are settings you will need to change/check under the other three tabs. The image below shows the Output tab.
With the Connection button pushed, you will see the settings shown in the
image below.
Here is where you will use the information given to you by the website hosting your feed. In the image below you
can see the settings that need to be to set. Here is a quick list:
Address This is the server address given to you by the feed site host.
Port This is the server port given to you by the feed site host.
Password This is the password given to you by the feed site host.
Now click on the Yellowpages button and you will see the settings shown in the image below.
Fill these fields in to suit whatever you would like to say about your server. Certainly change "Unnamed Server"
to a description of your feed - something like "Live Railroad Scanner Feed from City, State" would be good.
How you describe your station here will come in to play later if you are looking for your server among the other servers
advertised at ShoutCast.com.
I didn't show the Encoder tab dialog contents because there is not much to set here. It should likely be
already set, but if not, set the Encoder Type to MP3 Encoder and the Encoder Settings to
24kbps, 22.050kHz, Mono
The last setting will be under the Input tab. Just match the settings in the image below and you will be fine.
If you turn your scanner on now and there is talking going on, you should see some activity in the Input Levels area.
What I usually do, is tune in to our local weather service since I know this will be a steady stream of voice
audio and set the volume on the scanner until it stays below 0 dB regularly. For clarity, you don't want the
volume set so high that it stays at 0 dB all time.
Now, flip back over to WinAmp and the SHOUTCast Source DSP dialog and under the Output tab
click the Connect button. If everything is working right, the Source area right above the
Connect button will now show a time and "Sent xxxxx bytes".
If you get an error or the SHOUTCast Source DSP seems to have trouble connecting to the server,
double check all your settings in the Output tab. It's not likely, but it is possible
to have problems connecting to the server if you have any firewall software or hardware that
might prevent the connection.
Your feed is up and running! If you have a website, you can link to the website that
is hosting your feed! I hope this little tutorial has given you some insight as to how to set up your own live scanner feed. If you
find this tutorial helpful, please drop me an email. If you do set up your own feed, please let me
know so that I may post a link to your feed for others to listen to!
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