How To Start Own Radio Station Over the Internet
Creating a Radio Station over the Internet can seem daunting, but in reality is not too difficult. It can often be done in less than 10 minutes if you have the necessary software downloaded before beginning. Having your own radio station will allow you to share your music tastes with your audience or simply host a talk show. The amount of listeners you can have depends on the quality of your server.
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Things You'll Need
- A server to host your radio
- Winamp
- Shoutcast plugin
- Computer
- Microphone
- Music collection
Instructions
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Go to www.shoutcast.com and select the Downloads web page. Here you need to click the "Be a DJ" option. Now you need to follow the onscreen instructions (and download Winamp, if you do not already have the software) and download the Shoutcast plugin. Follow the download instructions to complete the installation.
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Prepare Shoutcast for use. Open Winamp and select the options tab and left click preferences. Select "DSP/Effect" from the left hand side of the screen and then double click "Nullsoft Shoutcast Source". When the new pop-up opens, you need to go to "Output" and then type in the address of your server (Contact your server provider for details) as well as your port and password. Next, go to "Encoder" and select the "MP3 Encoder" and I recommend the 128 kbs stereo encoder setting for maximum performance. Then return to the output screen and click "Yellowpages" to enter your radio show's information. When all this is done, simply click "Connect" and you will start broadcasting.
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Broadcast.
On the Input screen of the Shoutcast source pop-up, you can select whether you wish to play music or communicate with your microphone by switching between "Winamp" and the "Soundcard Input". To play music, select the "Winamp" option then select a song from your Winamp library and either double click or press "Play." If you wish to speak to your listeners, make sure your microphone or headset is connected and change the output to the soundcard; then simply speak into your microphone (make sure any music has been paused and there is no background noise).
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4
To host a talk show you will need the Skype software and speakers that feed into your microphone. It is very difficult to host an efficient chat show on Internet radio due to high lags and severe echoes. The best way to attempt to host a show is to run a Skype call with the guests you wish to have on the show and play the call through your speakers into your microphone. You will need a high quality microphone to do this efficiently and a built in microphone is usually positioned close to the speakers so they can feed into each other.
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Tips & Warnings
Using the Shoutcast Plugin with Winamp is the basic form of hosting a radio show. Alternatively, SAM Broadcaster can provide a useful upgrade for an experienced DJ as it opens up the tools available. The biggest drawback of this arises from a much more complicated system that only experienced DJs will be able to use comfortably.
