My Teamspeak Server's Future

[scancapecod]

Hello,

I currently run a small/regional Teamspeak Server which provides live scanner feeds from primarily Massachusetts, but periodically (and hopefully) from other New England states as well. I also have one part time feed from New Jersey (Ocean County).

The server currently runs out of my home. Comcast is my ISP. They provide me with very limited upload bandwidth (384k). I also run my "primary" feed from the house, which users can access via Winamp, WMP, Real Player, and any other compatible program. Between it and Teamspeak my upload bandwidth disappears in a hurry.

It is my thought to move the Teamspeak Server to a remote location, hosted by a third party company. This would cost about $18 a month for a 50 client server and would be paid for primarily by the periodic donations the website receives. I have found a company that is willing to host the server. This would provide a much more robust platform, allow me to increase the bandwidth of the feeds that are provided, and would take the load off of my dwindling upload bandwidth.

Teamspeak continues to be in my opinion out of the mainstream where scanner feeds are concerned. Despite the fact that the client software is easy to install, free, and relatively bug free from my experience, I'm surprised that more folks don't give it a try. My server sees varying amounts of use that tend to peak during large "in progess" events. The Democratic National Convention was one such example; the server was inundated and struggled to provide listeners with a good sounding feed. We relayed some of the post Katrina feeds as well, and again the server was jammed beyond practical use. Were the server in a remote location with adequate bandwidth this would not have been an issue.

The two "big" Teamspeak Servers available out there are of course Incident Brodcast and Scanner Buff Network. Both are fine servers and offer a great variety of feeds. It's my intention to continue to run my server and to keep it regional in nature. With that in mind, if I do make the move to a commercial server, is there anyone out there in the New England area that would be willing to provide full-time feeds from ME, NH, VT, RI, CT, or Western MA. Currently we have the Boston area, Cape Cod, and central MA very well covered by dedicated 24/7 feeds. I'm also interested in comments on the general interest in Teamspeak and thoughts on its performance with regards to providing scanner feeds.

The current server can be accessed at scanmassachusetts.no-ip.com:8767 if you have the Teamspeak client installed. It is not necessary to register to listen to the feeds. A view of current server status that shows active feeds, active clients, and provides a method of logging into the server can be found at http://scancapecod.us/xoops/modules/...ndex.php?id=12 .

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

[Utah_Viper]

I currently broadcast my feed on Incidentbroadcast.com teamspeak server. My feed is of the Salt Lake County, Utah area. I am sure that your feed would be greatly welcomed on the system there.

[scancapecod]

The server has been moved to its new location. The following link can be used to access it from your Teamspeak client:

nescannerfeeds.no-ip.org:8005

The server can also be connected to via this page at the Scan Cape Cod/Scan Massachusetts website:

http://scancapecod.us/xoops/modules/...ndex.php?id=12

The move to a commercial server has resulted in a drastic improvement in bandwidth and feed quality. The following Massachusetts channels are currently available:

Boston Area
Cape Cod Civil Aviation
Cape Cod Public Safety
Cape Cod/SE Massachusetts FD's
Central Worcester County (part-time)
DCR Central MA Fire Towers (seasonal)
Eastern Hampden County
Greater Fitchburg Area (Part time)
MetroFire (Boston Metropolitan Area)
Northern Worcester County
Southern Worcester County
State Police Central Massachusetts
State Police Eastern Massachusetts
State Police Western Massachusetts
Worcester Fire and EMS
Worcester Police

A part-time feed from New Jersey is also available:
Ocean County/NJSP

Special Event Feeds (Not Full Time):
Fenway Park Security (On before and during every game)
Gillette Stadium (Security/Public Safety before/during New England Patriots games and other events)
TD Bank North Garden (anyone want to buy and/or run the Bruins? You'll probably do better than the current brain trust!)
The DX Corner - Live DX (conditions permitting)

We also have a chat channel where text or voice chat is permitted. Three "in progress events" channels are also available for breaking events. Anyone can stream an event in these channels at a moment's notice. Teamspeak Client is required. Download at http://www.goteamspeak.com .

I have a tentative feed for northern Vermont coming on line later this week, and plans for NH, RI, and CT feeds in the future. Each feed streams at 19.5 Kbps.

Don't forget all of the other great Teamspeak Servers out there. This is a unique and very effective way to provide audio-only scanner feeds.

[dsviper22]

I also currently provide a full time feed at incidentbroadcast.com. I stream the New London County in Connecticut. Along with the New London Submarine Base. I have the capability of broadcasting to two servers if you are lacking a connecticut feed. I have a Pro-96 digital scanner so I can feed the CT State PD Apco 25 system.

[scancapecod]

Your feed would be more than welcome if it's not a burden on you to provide. Thanks very much!

[cschmit]

TeamSpeak server for scanner broadcasts? I never thought of that. I have a TeamSpeak server here at my house but it is used for LAN gaming. I may have to look into using it for scanner broadcasts during down time. Anyone have any good info on how they do this so that I can look at setting my own up?

[scancapecod]

It's very simple. Speaker out of the scanner to line in (preferably) of your sound card. If you've configured Teamspeak for voice you'll be able to figure it out from there.

I want to make it clear that I certainly can't take credit for thinking of using Teamspeak in this manner. I believe it was Tim from Tampa Bay that had the original idea, or Tracy Justis from Freq of Nature...not sure which but both were doing it before I discovered it. It really is a neat way to provide feeds.

[cschmit]

Originally Posted by scancapecod

It's very simple. Speaker out of the scanner to line in (preferably) of your sound card. If you've configured Teamspeak for voice you'll be able to figure it out from there.

I want to make it clear that I certainly can't take credit for thinking of using Teamspeak in this manner. I believe it was Tim from Tampa Bay that had the original idea, or Tracy Justis from Freq of Nature...not sure which but both were doing it before I discovered it. It really is a neat way to provide feeds.

Thanks, I kind of thought it might be the speaker out to the sound card in but I wasn't sure. Didn't know if there was some other trick I might not thought of, lol. Thanks again!!

[Napalm]

There's also Ventrilo, but it doesn't look as "good" as TS, it works just as well.

Both run easily on linux.

[N4UYV_Al]

I was feeding amateur radio operations on Hurricane Katrina from Echolink to my friends on Teamspeak, they said it worked great...

[cnmsales]

Im sorry and I dont mean to be rude about this but the fact that you use a protocol for a scanner feed that requires someone to download a totally different app is just silly. Ice Cast and Oddcast work fine and is a breeze to set up.

[N4UYV_Al]

Yeah, but do ya have ta download Icecast & Oddcast?

[cnmsales]

Well the one serving the stream does of course but the end user can listen with either winamp or windows media player.

[trooperdude]

Originally Posted by cschmit

TeamSpeak server for scanner broadcasts? I never thought of that. I have a TeamSpeak server here at my house but it is used for LAN gaming. I may have to look into using it for scanner broadcasts during down time. Anyone have any good info on how they do this so that I can look at setting my own up?

Actually I prefer TeamSpeak to any of the media streams out there becaue of the low overhead.

I can get a decent sounding feed stream with dial-up bandwidth 9Kbps. Something you cannot do with MediaPlayer or Winamp.

I'm surprised more people aren't using it either.

[trooperdude]

Originally Posted by cnmsales

Im sorry and I dont mean to be rude about this but the fact that you use a protocol for a scanner feed that requires someone to download a totally different app is just silly. Ice Cast and Oddcast work fine and is a breeze to set up.

No more so than websites requiring a flash player download to view them.

Teamspeak is a small application, and it uses MUCH less bandwidth overhead than Media Player or WinAmp.

Yes, people are lazy and don't want to be bothered to set it up, but I didn't find that
to be an issue.

[trooperdude]

Originally Posted by cschmit

TeamSpeak server for scanner broadcasts? I never thought of that. I have a TeamSpeak server here at my house but it is used for LAN gaming. I may have to look into using it for scanner broadcasts during down time. Anyone have any good info on how they do this so that I can look at setting my own up?

i found a tutorial here:
http://www.scannerbuff.net/teamspeak/teamspeak.html

[mmartinfan]

I also am on Teamspeak (IBN.com) Columbus Fire Feed/Central Ohio I like it but the server keeps going in and out. Drives me NUTZ!!!!!!!!