As I stated in my other thread, I have Zara Radio Ver. 1.6 running on an old IBM T23 Laptop to learn how to use the program before moving it to my main computer. Everything on the sound system works correctly, and has been tested several times recently to make completely sure it was fully functional.
I have the Time, Temp, and Humidity features working thanks to the posts on here showing me where I was going wrong, but I'm also wanting to add the severe weather alerts from my Midland WR-100 NOAA Weather Radio.
When my radio started going off with Marine and Thunder Storm warnings earlier, I tried plugging the audio out port on the radio into the microphone in port on my laptop with a patch cable, but it didn't play through Zara. I left the radio playing constantly between the weather alerts to make sure the mute function wasn't the problem with no change. I could hear the sound in Windows Media Player when I checked to see if sound was coming into the computer though.
Does anyone do this already and can tell me how to get it working, or know of a site where I can read how to get it to work? I've tried searching for the information already, but I'm running into dead links or sites that are no longer available. Even Zara Radio no longer has a company run forum that I can find.
I know I'm more than likely just missing something simple that I need to turn on in the program and will have a major Homer Simpson Duh moment including the forehead smack when I find out how to get it working.
I'm also looking for FREE to download funny little jingles, funny commercials or parodies, and the like to make the program sound like a fully functional radio station.
Does anyone know of a site or sites that I don't have to purchase a package from, purchase a membership to, or go through 50 different "buy me" screens and visit 2 other sites to try to sell me things I don't need before I can try to download the file? I'm honestly getting tired of jumping through all the hoops just to have an incomplete file to download or the file isn't even close to what was represented.
-Scott H.
Scott you can do the within the event section on Zara using the satellite event. What is does from memory is stop Zara from playing and fades up the line input on your soundcard for a set amount of time and then it fades the input down and starts your main playlist again. You set your satellite input in the main options and I think you have to have the button in the top bar of Zara that looks like a jack plug clicked on.There is a Zara help forum here http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ZaraRadioAutomation/
For some free jingles, there is some here http://www.drs2006.com/ under the voiceovers. Some are just advertising for the software, but there is some that are not. I use a few of them on my station.
Scott:
You can pull the NOAA weather forecast directly from their website...and it's free.
Find the NOAA weather station closest to you whose forecast you wish to use. They post an MP3 audio file on the site and update it throughout the day. The entire file runs anywhere from 90 to 120 seconds, but since the forecast is recorded in short-burst two or three word sentences, I only use the first 30 seconds of the forecast, which covers about 12 hours. It's updated three times a day under the same file name, so it pulls a current weather forecast without me ever having to touch it.
You would schedule it as an event, and under event type, scroll down to open internet stream and enter the web link to NOAA. This is not the link you use, but follow this one to get there:
http://www.weather.gov/pbz/radio
You would then click 'forecasts' next to the weather station under 'transmitter' that you wish to use. When the audio forecast comes up and plays automatically, cut and paste THAT link from your browser and enter that into the address for the webstream on Zara.
Then you should be good to go. If you're using temperature files to accompany it, you might want to schedule them to run before the forecast, or schedule a 1-second pause after the weather runs so they're not stepping on each other. Let me know how it works for you!
This may not be available in all areas. At the Tampa NWS site I see nothing about internet audio files.