About WWMR.
Who / What we are
We are a not for profit organisation, based in London, UK. Really to promote the internet as a broadcast medium, we have help and advice from our good friends at the UK Online Radio Network & Micslive.com
The station is also to provide us with self training, and learning about new technology.
The station is fully licensed for royalties to PPL, MCPS & PRS, which costs us a lot every year. We promise, that if we make more than the cost of running the station, (apart from investment in improving the content, coverage, and getting a Satellite broadcast setup) we will dontate the profits to charity (currently ESSA, and the RNLI).
NOTE: as off Jan 2005 we stopped our live streams, do to the Licencing costs.
Quick description of internet radio
Well does exactly what it says on the tin. It is basically a full radio station, has everything a normal, automated radio station has, but instead of sending the output to a transmitter, it sends the output to a SHOUT Cast DNAS server, which then encodes the high quality output to what ever bandwidth you have free, so in our case it is running at 48kb/s in mono.
Basically this is the list of bits you need for a station that will run up to 96kb/s
- A PC - which can be on 24/7, good idea to have some monitoring s/w if it is in a remote place, like mine, if it gets too hot it turns off:-)
- xDSL connection 512kb/s recommended
- lots of mp3's
- station Automation / playout software - I'm using Station Playlist Studio
- Something to make playlists - I'm using Station Playlist Creator
- Shout cast DNAS
- Winamp 5
- Shout cast DSP plug-in
- a Shout cast provider if you want to stream more than your xDSL connection can allow - I'm using UKshoutcast.com
Most software is free, or very cheap (my automation software cost £100) winamp, Shout cast DNAS, Shout cast DSP plug-in, etc, etc is all free. The expensive bit is the licensing. PPL is about £50 per month, depending on amount of tracks streamed. 50 quid a month, not too bad really, the killer is the MPCS/PRS license, which to stream more than 10hrs in a quarter will cost about £179 per month. Add then together get you a nice bill of around £230 per month - hay looking at it like that, it looks quite a good deal. Less than a weeks pay:-)
Although added up over the year £2760, I could buy another Land Rover, or more pooters for that:-)
Some screen shots of WWMR. (click for a larger shot)
Station Playlist Studio 
Station Playlist Creator 
Shoutcast D.N.A.S 
Any questions about the station, then email us at: engineering@worldwidemusicradio.org |
