What Zeno Sounds like

I'd listen to that for about 5 minutes before the sound quality drove me nuts. I was listening on the speaker in my iPhone.  Things like videos, mp3's, etc sound wonderful. This was not wonderful. Perhaps for straight talk radio, but eeps.

TIB

Oh god, no!

Tim, you got to keep in mind what it is.. The videos, and mp3's your listening to on your iphone is an entirely different creature; their just streaming from the internet at whatever bps your station provides it-

This isn't an intended method to listen to a stream, you've got your internet station for that, if someone wanted to hear your station on a internet-capable device (ie your smart phone or computer), then they would simply do that as normal, but if they don't have access to that (ie: a non-smart cell phone or landline phone), and they want to tune in, to say, a particular program they want to hear, they can by just dialing the number.

It's not supposed to be an alternative for streaming, it's an additional feature to enable your listeners to gain access to your programming no matter where they are in the nation... even if they're somewhere that the internet is inaccesable to them.

No.. I would never use something like this to stream my station either.
I think your looking at it from the wrong angle.

I do get that, but you certainly wouldn't want to be calling in to listen to a music program on it!  It's what I was expecting and that is phone call quality audio. 

I guess it does provide another avenue for getting your programming into peoples ears.  So, if you had a non smart-phone you could call and listen. Assuming you had cell service. If you were on your landline phone you could call and listen - possibly paying for a long distance call for the duration. 

But really, bottom line, you have to have a stream up.  So this would be for people who can't connect to the good quality audio stream, but can dial up to listen to marginal quality audio on a phone connection.

I mean, it's free and all, and if you have a stream going there's certainly no harm in making this available, but I'd have to be pretty desperate to listen to a program for long.

TIB

I agree.. except for one thing you said.. Since when do long distance calls cost anything anymore??

I agree.. except for one thing you said.. Since when do long distance calls cost anything anymore??

I knew about this a long time ago.  The only reason I didn't bother to post it was the fact that the sound is aweful.  Yes I know and get that for those who don't have unlimited Data could listen to The Legacy, but when I did sign up and had a number for my station I called it and could hardly understand the music I had playing. I did expect somewhat listenable mone AM quality audio.  Instead I heard a audio mess.  All distorted and could not understand a thing.  Maybe when it was only talk, but even that was aweful.  I think they are trying to overmodulate the phone lines wih this mess.

Let us not forget that early in radio's history, even pre-radio, the telephone was used for broadcasting.

"To take up your telephone receiver and listen in to the best radio broadcast programs without the trouble of tuning in is a new sensation, but one which new and far-reaching developments have made practical. One may now simply call Central and ask to be connected, then settle back in a chair and listen contentedly with the telephone receiver instead of the customary headphones. But if the family as a whole wishes to hear radio music and possibly to dance to the strains of a popular jazz orchestra sent over the air, loud speaker service is also possible. An ordinary radio loud speaker can be installed in the home, connected by special wires to the regular telephone cables. All the subscriber to this new public service has to do is to turn a switch. The radio set is in the office of the telephone company..."

http://earlyradiohistory.us/1925fre.htm

Another story, a history, more in-depth:

"While the telegraph was mainly limited to transmitting Morse code and printed messages, the invention of the telephone made distant audio communication possible. And although the telephone was mostly used for private conversations, there was also experimentation with providing home entertainment. In 1893 a particularly sophisticated system, the Telefon Hirmondó, began operation in Budapest, Hungary -- one of its off-shoots, the United States Telephone Herald Company and its affiliates, did not meet with the same financial success.

ELECTRIC  TELEPHONE
In 1946, William Peck Banning wrote that "historians of the future may conclude that if there was any 'father' of broadcasting, perhaps it was the telephone itself". After the invention of the telegraph, numerous inventors worked to transmit audio along wires, initially with limited success..."

http://earlyradiohistory.us/sec003.htm

Not to count out the original electronic sending sensation, the telephone.

To this day the 5000 watt commercial AM I work for sends the audio to the trasmitter site 5 miles away via phone line. It's a balanced, amplified, equalized line.  Hundreds of AM radio stations still do this.  We sound wonderful, as do the others. 

I've worked where network programming (ABC and Mutual radio come to mind) came into the station via phone line, as well as church programs, remote broadcasts, sports broadcasts, etc.  There's a HUGE difference between a proper audio line (in each case a closed loop) and a phone call.

What this service is offering is phone call quality at best, degraded on the listener end by being most often a cell phone call at that.  I did just call the number above on my landline phone and it was better than on my cell, but I still wouldn't listen to it unless it was an emergency. 

TIB

I uploaded some different audio.. I think that end80 intro audio was overproccessed to begin with. I replaced it with something which should sound much better, its several minutes long, talk with some underlying music

Where do people thing the word "network" came from? LOL!

i use zeno radio for the adult contemporary internet station me and my friend run, (716)-748-0795 ext 1

sound isnt good at all but its great for people who dont have internet on their phones or have really restricted data plan but its a great alternative

Despite the apparent negative feedback from the part15 community, I still think it's very cool.

Zeno also has another offering which I think all part15er's should like; it's called Zeno Live and it enables you to have a call-in talk show which you can air on your station - All free.

Here's a demonstration from youtube of it in action: