RichPowers

This is an interesting and hard to believe it’s free service.. They will assign your station a phone number which people can dial and listen to on any telephone!
http://zenoradio.com/en/broadcasters/

All of the following information is from their website…

ZenoRadio offers listeners a unique service and offers broadcasters and advertisers interactivity and user information not possible with conventional or sattelite radio.

Becoming a broadcaster is easy and best of all, it’s FREE!

Just send us your broadcast stream (URL or IP) and ZenoRadio will assign a dedicated phone number for your station. Users just dial and start enjoying your station’s content from any phone. Now  promote the service to your listeners and sit back and enjoy your new audience.

ZenoRadio enables radio and other audio content from around the world to be heard on any phone in North America at no cost to users who have unlimited voice plans. No smart phones or data plans are needed.

Benefits of becoming a Broadcaster

• Free dedicated phone number for your station
• No computer or smartphone required
• See real time detailed statistics about your listeners
• Have the ability to reach out to your audience
• Marketing and support team to help you grow your radio station

No more estimating, and no more guessing! ZenoRadio provides all of our broadcasters with reporting tools that will give you insight on who is calling in, when they are calling in, and which station they are listening to. We will give you real-time information and metrics on the number of listeners, calls, call duration, and peak hours. All of our reporting is a free service for broadcasters who sign up to ZenoRadio’s network.

Zeno Player
Imagine the convenience and ease of use in a  ZenoRadio web player. All your stats collected in one easy to use Web Interface.

• 100% free
• Cut down on stream costs
• No limit on listeners
• Customized welcome prompt -just like on your ZenoRadio phone player
• We can help sell your advertising

http://zenoradio.com/en/broadcasters/

There have been numerous responses to the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking’ in regard of how to help the AM band issues.

“..individuals and companies offered suggestions ranging from moving stations off the AM band entirely, to giving owners more flexibility in terms of signal coverage, antenna equipment and interference protections…”

I came across the following comment in the midst of those responses and kind of got a kick out of it:

AM ONLY WORKS IN CARS ANYMORE
RF manufacturing engineer Dave Hershberger filed these comments as an individual:

The main problem with AM radio is that it only works in cars anymore. It is mostly unusable in residences. Speaking from my own experience, I am 6.4 miles from my local 5 kW AM station (KNCO, Grass Valley, Calif.). My daytime signal strength is predicted to be 47 mV/M. This is a good strong signal. Yet on common radios in my house the signal is unlistenable. … I bought a Pixel Technologies active broadband loop antenna, poured concrete for a mounting post, and trenched in coax in conduit. The Pixel loop antenna is 130 feet from my house. At last, I can receive AM radio in my house again. …

In relation to the above, one of the user comments at Radio world (Ken) said: Dave has a recording of his reception, with and without the outdoor, directional antenna, at: http://www.w9gr.com/clips/KNCO-loop-test.mp3 Sounds like something arcing in his house, or a nearby Plasma TV set. I’d be interested in what an FCC Inspector, or the local power company RFI investigator, could find. And, I applaud Dave for his initiative.

Another user (Randy) commented in response: Ken, I’ve heard that exact sound before, and YES it’s something in his HOUSE doing it. I just don’t remember WHAT. I’ve heard it before. He might try tripping circuit breakers, one at a time, until it goes away. Then pull plugs. etc on things one at a time to find it. I’ll bet it’s something that ‘Can’t POSSIBLY have anything to do with it!’

– See more at: http://www.radioworld.com/article/am-ideas-fill-the-fcc-inbox/269465#sthash.oibzHOQh.dpuf

I find this an article I read in Radio World to be absolutely fascinating. It’s called “Radiogram” and it basically is a method of embedding webpage like content within a tone via an shortwave AM broadcast!

No internet connection or special equipment is needed to receive or decode the signal other than a standard shortwave receiver and a computer or smartphone.

Below I’ve copied and pasted the highlights from the full article at http://www.radioworld.com/default.aspx?tabid=75&entryid=10210

..They want to draw attention to VOA Radiogram, a form of international high-frequency broadcasting. Radiogram is a VOA program experimenting with digital text and images via shortwave broadcasting;

Radiogram broadcasts Web content via error-detecting/correcting AM tone modulation, using standardized formats commonly used by ham radio. They say this approach is robust and resistant to interference.

“The user’s ordinary shortwave receiver, tuned to a Radiogram transmission, feeds its audio to a user device. These could include mobile phones, tablets, laptop and desktop computers and the new ARM-based miniature computers and embedded devices. The user device decodes the tones and displays text and imagery despite propagation impairments and intentional interference — and without Internet connection.”

They point out that no hardwire connection is required; putting the radio near the phone or computer is usually sufficient. “By adding a simple audio cable between receiver and user device, however, reception can be silent and covert. No specialized hardware is needed, and the software platform for decoding is long in the public domain.”

The user need not be present to receive content, and essentially receives a web magazine “updated at will and always ready for use” that can be redistributed.

“Naturally, the audio tone transmission can be recorded for later playback. Even when buried well under music or noise, the nearly inaudible recorded broadcast can nevertheless deliver 100% copy upon decode. “

Radiogram’s transmission methods provide text at 120 words per minute, along with images.

“Sent over regular broadcast transmitters (no modifications needed), this approach effectively extends the reach of the transmitter. In other words, the digital text mode will decode in locations where the audible speech over the same transmitter would be too low for aural intelligibility. The audio recorded or captured could be replayed over another transmitter to even further extend the reach of the broadcast.”

This sounds cool.. only I’m not sure what it is.. but it’s interesting.. but I don’t quite comprehend what their doing.. but it’s neat that they’re doing it.. whatever it is.. or was.. But one this is certain, it really cool.. or it might be.. I think…

Maybe you can make sense of it.

The best I can surmise is they utilized numerous part 15 transmitters located in numerous houses, spread across an entire subdivision to create some kind of game show in which people participate by driving around the area and listening.

It’s an art project of NPR (Neighboorhood Public Radio).

Other than that, I don’t know the objectives or how one might acheive being a winner in this “game show”… To be honest, I got tired of trying to read it.

Perhaps some one else might be more patient to delve into to the details and provide a better summary.

http://www.neighborhoodpublicradio.org/TALKINGHOMES/

LunarCaster.. It seems to be still under development but from what I’ve gathered so far it is fully funtional with no major bugs. There have been several updates applied to it and it’s free to download.. I will take a closer look at it soon and play around with it to see how it feels, but for now I thought some of you might want to check it out too.

It looks pretty interesting.. http://www.lunarcaster.com/index.php/screenshots

I really like Zararadio, but you never know..

 

 

Here’s another tidbit I just read about on Arcane Radio Trivia.. Evidently prison inmates have portable radios with excellent selectivity that are different than the ones we in the general public can get.. The Sony SRF-39FP radio.. it’s a varient of the Sony SRF-39. The big difference is that FP models (stands for Federal Prison) are transparent so the inmates can’t hide any thing inside them.

A “Sony spokesperson confirmed.. that selling portable radios in American prisons has long been a “stable business” that represents “sizable” sales for the company. Of the models available, the SRF-39FP remains an undisputed classic,..”

You can read his blog about this radio here: http://tenwatts.blogspot.com/2014/03/srf-39fp.html#links

(for some reason you have to scroll up to read his blog after clicking the link)

You can read another article about it in The New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/01/the-ipod-of-prison-sony-radio.html?currentPage=all