Roy's Monday Media:
Internet Radio

The whole world is yours to hear
For many years, I was an avid shortwave listener. I loved the mix of music and interesting voices that I could listen to from all around the world at any time of the day or night, as long as reception conditions were good. I became a fan of Internet radio shortly after I got my broadband line for many of the reasons that I still love my old shortwave receiver. When I started my graduate studies three years ago, having Internet radio as a steady source of "sonic wallpaper" made the long hours of reading, researching and writing go a little more easily. By the way, I'm not talking about the online feeds from conventional broadcast stations, but the audio streams put online by producers, remixers and amateurs who use the Internet as their broadcast medium. Most of the Internet "stations" are commercial-free or have few ads. They generally don't have DJs, just a constant stream of music, usually of one genre, and there are dozens of stations online playing every type of music you can imagine.

My current favorite Internet stations are listed at ShoutCast.com. ShoutCast is the streaming media method associated with the WinAmp media player. ShoutCast stations typically broadcast in MP3 format, one of the most common non-proprietary audio formats used online, so RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, XMMS, iTunes and other media players will support ShoutCast streams. The stations listed on the ShoutCast site are almost all free, but would appreciate donations, because most of them are small operators, running music streams for the sheer love of doing it. Because listening to a media stream requires a continuing connection to the host server, and a server can only do so much at once, there are limits to the number of connections the server will host, and you can see those numbers on the ShoutCast site. If a server is full, you have to wait until someone disconnects to hookup and listen to the stream yourself, but once you attach to the server, you can usually stay connected as long as you like.

How to get tuned in
I'm assuming you have a compatible media player already installed, so here are general directions on how to connect if you've never tried this before:

I'm a fan of the WinAmp player. They have a free version that's full of great features, and a commercial version that includes stream ripping and CD burning options. You can donwload WinAmp from their Website at:  http://www.winamp.com/

If you're using WinAmp, loading a new station from the ShoutCast site is as easy a a couple of mouse clicks. Just click the "Tune In" link next to the station you want and when your browser opens the query window to ask what application you want to use to open the link, choose WinAmp, then sit back and enjoy. One of the reasons I prefer WinAmp is its easy bookmark system for recalling favorite stations. If you like the stream you just chose, right-click the WinAmp player, choose "Bookmarks" from the popup menu and then click "Add current as bookmark" on the bookmark list. Now you can open the bookmark list and choose the station again the same way you choose a favorite site from your browser's bookmarks.

Another way to connect to an Internet station is to get the URL and manually set it in your media player. The URL for an internet stream will look something like this: http://64.236.34.196:80/stream/1003. This is the URL for a station run by DigitallyImported.com, which runs several Internet radio stations on the same server. The first four numbers are the IP address of the server. The 80 directs your connection request to the part of the server that communicates on the Web. "stream/1003" tells the server which of the several available streams you want to hear.

Your media player will have a menu item for loading a URL. On WinAmp, you right-click the player, then click "Play" on the popup menu and "URL" on the flyout menu . On the Windows Media Player, click "File" on the menu bar and then click "Open URL" on the drop-down menu. This will open a text box where you can paste the URL of the program stream you want. Click "OK" and the stream should begin playing in a few seconds.

A few of my favorites
Here are a few stations you can try on for size. Copy the URL, the part beginning with "http" into your media player and listen up:

• Digitally Imported.com "ChillOut" http://64.236.34.196:80/stream/1035
  Downtempo twenty-first century club music at its best, featuring full-length DJ mixes on the weekends.



• BestOfMusic.czhub.org "Strongly Ethnic and Jazz Beat" http://212.96.181.36:8000
  Alternately deep, funky, kitschy or just plain odd, but never boring. This stream tends to come
  and go without warning and the production values are a little shaky, but when it's there, it's a lot of fun.



• RadioTeenTal.com "100% Indian Music Live from Paris" http://213.251.129.40:80
  Contemporary South Asian pop, with lots of cultural fusion.



• Bollywood.mu "Live Mix Enjoying Indian Vibes" http://213.251.129.23:9100
  "All Bollywood all the time." If you're a fan of those improbable Indian romance films, you'll like this station.



• Creation-Steppin.com "Diggin' fi Roots" http://www.live365.com/play/bahilman27
  Their positioning statement, "Diggin fi Roots" says it all. This is one of the most respected online sources of Reggae.
  Highly recommended by Mark "HennaBoy" Foster.



• SwissGroove.ch "This planet's grooviest Webradio" http://63.249.3.194:8010
  Yeah, I know, Switzerland is a wonderful place, but "groovy" isn't the first word that comes to my mind either.
  However, somebody in Switzerland definitely has it wired. This station features smooth jazz, trip-hop, lounge, latin and more.
  How do you say "groovy" in Romansch??

Wait...there's more!
The fun doesn't stop here. If you have WinAmp, you can tune in to Internet TV, video streams of concerts, video clips of your favorite performers and more, using libraries of hyperlinks that WinAmp installs automatically. I'll walk you through using some of the other WinAmp goodies in a future article.