Online Radio

[Coffee Phil]

I have a Roku Soundbridge Internet "Radio Tuner" in my system. It does a good job and permits me to listen to the jazz station which I used to listen to on terrestrial radio before I moved. It is however user hostile unless you are a computer geek. It has presets similar to a car radio but loading them is a challenge. They have a program called Radio Snooper which will analyze an internet station which you find on your computer and if the format is compatible (most are) with the sound bridge you can load it into one of the presets via Wi-Fi.

This program requires something called WPCAP.DLL which it tries to load onto the computer if it is not already there. I get a message that its WPCAP.DLL is not compatible with my version of Windows. (Windows 7) I did a search for a version of WPCAP.DLL which would run on my computer. I found something warning not to load a version of WPCAP.DLL unless I could be sure it is genuine. The whole thing spooked me so here I am still not able to program my presets.

What now?

Thanks,

Phil

[MonkeyBoy]

There are some great radio stations here. I'm listening to ancientfm right now. Does anyone have any idea how I can put any of this music on my hard drive? I'm not a computer whiz by any means.

[Coffee Phil]

Hi MonkeyBoy,

I would guess that there is recording software which will do what you want but I don't know which one is capable of it. What I do is run the analog out of my Roku internet radio into my computer and use the same software which I use for digitizing vinyl.

Roku doesn't make them anymore but there are others which seem less user hostile.
here is a link: http://aluratek.com/internet-radio-alarm-clock-wifi-18

I haven't tried the one which I linked but if I can eBay one of my Rokus I will get one and try it.

Phil

There are some great radio stations here. I'm listening to ancientfm right now. Does anyone have any idea how I can put any of this music on my hard drive? I'm not a computer whiz by any means.

[MonkeyBoy]

Thanks Phil. I just bought a cd of Shirley Rumsey who plays lute, violin and other instruments.

We have only one classical station left in the D.C. area but it's really a blend of the two which used to exist. WETA received the entire classical catalogue from WGMS when WGMS went to a latino format after decades of classical. They now have two online stations you can listen to, one is regular classical, the other one is devoted to vocal music. That's the one I like the most. I love choral music.
http://www.weta.org/fm/listenlive/vivalavoce

[megatrends]

I've done a radio show since 1993 at a college station here. Did one tonight actually, it is the one I signed up for the summer as a second show Wednesday nights 8pm to 10 pm ET which is all vinyl.



It may not be for everyone, the format is mostly classic rock but songs you usually don't hear on commercial radio. I also do a heavy metal show on Saturday nights which is my main show. I play some vinyl but not a lot for that one.

Anyway .... the webstream goes down once in a while and it gets back up again when someone resets it. We broadcast on FM so the stream is an afterthought sometimes but they have been good with it. http://www.wrbcradio.com

[fscl]

Sounds like I'm going to have to start streaming HPR......

To get my classical music repertoire in order.....

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/arts/ ... wanted=all

Maluhia....

Fred

[megatrends]

Sounds like I'm going to have to start streaming HPR......

To get my classical music repertoire in order.....

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/arts/ ... wanted=all

Maluhia....

Fred

You should indeed. I love being a radio dj too

[MonkeyBoy]

may i add 2 suggestions

from russia, radio orfei. excellent classic music, not just the usual stuff
http://www.fonotron.ru/ or http://online.paparazzo.kz/Station-5/ (128kbps)

from greece pepper radio. a bit of swing, jazz, latin...
http://tunein.com/radio/Pepper-966-s107399/ (64kbps)

When I got on this site I found that it's actually a whole bunch of radio stations (or at least choices) with a wide range of genres. What a great find. Here's the link for the general heading to get the music type you want.
http://laradiofm.kz/en/

[Coffee Phil]

Below sitting on top of my mono phono stage is one of my two Roku soundbridges:

[img][/img]

It is a model M1001. It will stream music from my computer or tune to streaming internet radio stations via wifi.

I have had a love / hate relationship with these things from the start.

I love them because I can listen to the station displayed on the picture. I have moved out of the range of that station on terrestrial radio so this and the computer are my only options. Of course I now have access to thousands of other streaming stations.

OK, why the hate part? These things take user hostility to a new level and Roku's customer service is utterly useless. It is possible to browse internet radio stations however it is time consuming. It has presets and favorites however loading them requires one of two computer programs. One called Radio Roku allows you to search their data base for stations and hopefully load them into the favorites in the Roku. So far I have had no success with that program. There is a second program called Radiosnoop which I had some success with in the past. With Radiosnoop running you find a streaming station on the computer and Radiosnoop analyzes it for compatibility with the Soundbridge. If it is compatible you load it into the Soundbridge via wifi. Radiosnoop does not run on Mac (my wife's computer). It is compatabile with some versions of Windows. When I had access to a Windows machine from work I had some success in loading the presets. I now have my own Windows machine running Windows 7. It turns out Radiosnoop is not compatible with Windows 7.
One of my Soundbridges got into a snit and I had to reload the firmware. It works now but the only presets it has are the crappy ones which someone at Roku likes.

I have reached my limit of exasperation with these things. I am at the point of Graig's listing them and buying competitive boxes such as Squeezeboxes.

Is there anyone here who can help me with these infernal boxes?

Thanks,

Phil

[Coffee Phil]

I have made some progress with this thing.

Radio Snooper will not run on Mac or any Windows after XP and I don't think Roku is inclined to update it. I have a near prehistoric Windows machine running (I think) Windows 2000. Setting it up will require some effort and money but I may do it. An other option is to get a copy of Windows 2000 or XP and load in on my wife's new Mac power-book. It has Boot Camp so that is an option.

It turns out that Radio Roku will load the presets. Radio Roku is web based and maintained by Roku which I see as a cloud on it. What if they up and quit supporting it? Radio Roku works on Windows and Mac OS. It is a web site. Each Roku device is registered on it. Users also register and get an account. If I were to sell one of my Rokus I would have to "release" it so the new owner could tie it to his account. Radio Roku opens on my Windows machine (Windows 7) but does not really work right. I opened it on the old Mac (which I am falling heir to) and it works fine. I can load favorites and presets. I also went to a Radio Roku tutorial and it appears that I may be able to get it to work on the Windows 7 machine. Something about Java scripts and applets. All that computer geek acronym mumbo jumbo makes me nuts but I look at it as a challenge and I intend to figure it out.

Still there is some incentive to get Radio Snooper working on some machine in my possession so that if Roku goes out of business (which I think they deserve to do) my Internet tuners will remain useful.

Phil

[Coffee Phil]

I navigated all that Java alphabet soup and got Radio Roku working on my Windows machine. I still can't use Radio Snooper however.

In all this I found a pretty good Jazz Vocal Link:http://www.1.fm/station/ajazz/Default.aspx

With the name adore jazz I was expecting some sort of smooth jazzy vocals, but this site is pretty good with the likes of Lady Day, Ella, Sara, Carmon, and Karryn Allyson.

It is a part of a bunch of streaming stations of many genres. Otto's Classical, and Otto's baroque which I already knew of are also apart of 1.FM.

Phil

[Alec124c41]

I often listen to online radio, using iTunes,when I'm at my computer. Hundreds of stations, of all genres.
JAZZ.FM91 playing live broadcast now.

Cheers,
Alec

[Coffee Phil]

Hi Alec,

Happy to share "our" Jazz station with you. I am a member of KCSM. When I lived in the SF Bay area I used to listen with with my terrestrial FM tuner. Now the Internet is the only viable option.

Phil

I often listen to online radio, using iTunes,when I'm at my computer. Hundreds of stations, of all genres.
JAZZ.FM91 playing live broadcast now.

Cheers,
Alec

[Alec124c41]

Jazz.FM91 is a Toronto station, CJRT, broadcasting on 91.1 MHz.

Cheers,
Alec