TubeNet

I do it with my DSL hookup, but use an FM transmitter to send the signal to all of the radios in the house. Works great--and a even an old Pentium machine should be able to handle things pretty well. The bigger concern is the data rate that's coming over your modem. If you can get clear audio on your current setup, then you're okay.

As far as needing CPU horsepower, nah. The same 450 MHz PIII system that does the audio here, also fetches and filters my email and serves as a router for the other systems in the house. Audio doesn't even make it blink.

Sadly, good theory, but doesn't work. Slow computers just won't do it. I have a newer Toshiba Laptop, with a wireless cable modem, and dual Intel Centrino processors, and iTunes radio sometimes is really choppy.

I got my inlaws hooked on XM Radio. There are promotions all the time for free equipment. The diversity of channels is absolutely incredible. AND you can even bring it with you in the car. All for one $13/month fee.

It is a steal. 170 channels!

I second Woodshedding's suggestion . Xm or Sirrius is a better way to go . After the initial invest of the need equipment ( approx. $69.99 for the recieverand the rest for the adapter that lets you hook it up to a radio in your house ) all you pay is $12.99 monthly .
Plus you can use it in your car if you so choose to install it that way . It comes with the all you need to self install .

Well worth it .

Yes, unfortunately, it's not the frequency spectrum of AM radio, which rolls off starting @ 3500 Hz in order to compress into its alloted broadcast channel, it's the sampling rate of digital audio which requires the faster processor to keep up. Even though the digitized AM audio may have nothing but zeros in its digitizaton of the higher frequencies, because of the nature of the digitization, it still has to make and transmit all those zeros so the receiving station can read and decode back to analog the entire digitized mutiplexed signal properly.

When I was in high school I worked for awhile part time for the local radio station back when you still had to pass parts I, II and IX of the FCC tests to work the board (turn the microphones, tape players and record players on and off, and do basic power up and power down for sign on and sign off).

The reason the AM stations alter their broadcast characteristics after dark is because of the ionosphere, the layer of the upper atmosphere that is electrostatically charged enough from a combination of the magnetic field of the earth and the solar particle wind that it will bounce AM radio waves like skipping a flat stone across a lake. Because of the direct radiation of the sun during the daytime, it's like trying to skip the stones while its raining. The raindrops (solar wind) breakup the surface of the water, and the stone won't skip. At night, the layer is "smooth" as when there is no rain or wind on the water, and a good arm and a good stone will skip quite aways. The station I worked in was licensed for 3000 watts daytime, with shutdown at dark so it would not interfere with another station a few hundred miles away that had a higher power license. On a good night, amateur radio operators can talk to each other literally around the world.

tubaguy9 wrote:Sadly, good theory, but doesn't work. Slow computers just won't do it. I have a newer Toshiba Laptop, with a wireless cable modem, and dual Intel Centrino processors, and iTunes radio sometimes is really choppy.

More likely that's either iTunes or your system. My setup (no theory) plays without a hitch 24 hours per day, and I'll guarantee that it's not even a quarter as fast as your laptop.

Of course, it's running Linux, which may have something to do with things.

Joe, here are some internet radio stations to try (all take RealPlayer):

BBC Radio 7 (comedy, drama, mystery, kid's programs):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/realplayer/dsatg2.ram

BBC World Service (news):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/meta/ ... _au_nb.ram

Radio Suisse-Romand (music):

http://real.xobix.ch/live/rsr2.ram

RAI 5 (Italian Radio music service):

http://real.xobix.ch/live/rsr2.ram

Generally, I find RealAudio to be better than MP3 or Windows Media.

There is always shortwave radio, but propagation can be variable. However, a couple years ago you could pick up Dr. Eugene Scott on at least two shortwave frequencies. Hallelujah. If that isn't cause to get a shortwave rig, then the pope isn't Catholic.

Didn't I hear that he died of a stroke a couple of years ago?

Yep. So ... where does one go for entertainment now?

Actually, every now and then, he could deliver a pretty good sermon.
...
now and then.

SplatterTone wrote:There is always shortwave radio, but propagation can be variable. However, a couple years ago you could pick up Dr. Eugene Scott on at least two shortwave frequencies. Hallelujah. If that isn't cause to get a shortwave rig, then the pope isn't Catholic.

Long before Gene Scott (and the other SW radio preachers that seem to be imitating him) there was HCJB, Quito, "The Voice of the Andes" They've been at it for more than three-quarters of a century.

http://www.hcjb.org/

In L.A., Dr. w. euGene Scott (that was the way he wrote his name) still aired nightly on channel 56 in Anaheim when I left. When I was a student, Gene owned his own TV station (channel 30) which had his sermons and travelogs airing 24/7. I loved his travelogs. It looked like he had his wife driving his car and he had a movie or video camera on the passenger side. Some of those home movies on the road lasted over two hours, which included three sermons and 25 replays of "I Want to Know." ("I Want to Know" is a song Gene wrote, sung by an old timey Gospel quartet with oversized polyester suits).


I went to the Channel 56 website and I think they finally got Gene's program off. It used to come on just before Wally George, who died two years ago. When he died, they took his show off immediately.