Premium Membership with an Audio Feed..?

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Skypilot007

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Dec 26, 2005
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2,535
Location
Medford, NJ
Sometimes my feeds will go down due to no fault of my own. Power outage or internet service interuptions are the most common causes of this. I have no control over these issues. I notice shorty after my feeds go down my premium membership access is denied. Is it possible to perhaps put a 24 hour delay on this instead of what seems like an instantanious switch. I provide 2 feeds, one of which is very active at all times and have been doing so for a long time. I feel that 24 hours of leeway on a down feed would be sufficant time for most to get it back up and running. Even 12 hours would be good. I think the turn off time is far too short for the effort us feed providers put forth to help this site generate listeners(income). What can be done about this.
 

w2xq

Mentor
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Jul 13, 2004
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2,318
Location
Burlington County, NJ
Wirelessly posted (Moto Droid Bionic: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.4; en-us; DROID BIONIC Build/5.5.1_84_DBN-74) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

Living a couple of miles away from Skypilot007 in an adjacent FD, I can vouch for his problem with power outages. We've recently been hammered with severe t-storms rolling through almost every night; weather fronts stagnate due to the Bermuda high. The toneouts on F1 are nonstop. I'm getting tired of resetting clocks...
 

richtidd

Active Member
Database Admin
Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
1,150
Location
San Mateo, Ca
Sometimes my feeds will go down due to no fault of my own. Power outage or internet service interuptions are the most common causes of this. I have no control over these issues. I notice shorty after my feeds go down my premium membership access is denied. Is it possible to perhaps put a 24 hour delay on this instead of what seems like an instantanious switch. I provide 2 feeds, one of which is very active at all times and have been doing so for a long time. I feel that 24 hours of leeway on a down feed would be sufficant time for most to get it back up and running. Even 12 hours would be good. I think the turn off time is far too short for the effort us feed providers put forth to help this site generate listeners(income). What can be done about this.

Yes it is real time.

Per Lindsay, the RR policy is feed owners must have an active online feed to get the premium membership.

This is to help prevent misuse of the premium membership by having a fake feed up only to be able to have data base etc access for free.
 

UPMan

In Memoriam
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Apr 19, 2004
Messages
13,296
Location
Arlington, TX
Maybe RR could sell an "insurance policy" for a reasonable fee (I'm thinking like $2.50 a month) that a feed provider could purchase to hedge against such outages.
 

Skypilot007

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Premium Subscriber
Joined
Dec 26, 2005
Messages
2,535
Location
Medford, NJ
Yes it is real time.

Per Lindsay, the RR policy is feed owners must have an active online feed to get the premium membership.

This is to help prevent misuse of the premium membership by having a fake feed up only to be able to have data base etc access for free.

How does one put up a "fake feed" ? I understand that someone could feed the server with no audio but don't you guys check on that sort of thing? I'm not trying to get one over on anyone here. Sometimes our power will flicker in the middle of the night and I'm unaware that it happened until I get to work and realize that the feeds are down. I'm sure other feed providers have experienced similar issues. Not all of us can afford a temporary power backup device on every computer. These devices are quite expensive on top of the two scanners already dedicated to the feeds.

I want to put this out in the forum for discussion and see what others think. I think most of your feed providers are honest people and deserve a buffer time to get their feeds back on line. Suggestions, comments, all is welcomed.
 

simmsrep

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Nov 5, 2010
Messages
292
Location
Alton, VA
The area I live in is about the same as you described. When a thunderstorm comes through, if the power doesn't go off the internet will. Usually for the duration of the storm. I try to check my feed every morning when I get up and sometimes it shows the internet was down and the sky was crystal clear. I'll throw this out. How about for every month of uniterrupted service we earn some off time hours,(ex. for 1 month uniterrupted service youn get 1 hour of down time before your premium membership is canceled).Lets say you could earn up to say a weeks down time. Sound fair?
 
Joined
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Messages
411
Location
Natrona Heights, Pennsylvania
So, while working, sleeping. Mother Natures knocks on your door and cuts out your power. At 6am you wake up to find your clock flashing, you run to your computer and see no power. You fire up the PC and see you have been off line for a few hours, you proceed to start your feed and check your status and see your Premium Membership has been cut to a standard user and if you want to keep your Premium Membership it will cost you
only $14.95 per month. A certain person is praying for severe thunder storm's,earth quake,high winds , to visit your area before he go's to sleep at night, when he wakes up at 9 am he checks his online banking account, mumbles America is a great Country! Maybe in a few months the Standard users could pay something as well. Someone else who is pissed off could start a scanner feed, maybe a little competition is needed.
 
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N9PBJ

Member
Joined
Aug 1, 2012
Messages
2
Location
San Antonio, Texas
Just my two cents here.... But I'm a new feed provider, and my feed went down for 6 hours before I realized it, during which my account was cut back to standard. But, since I was asleep for most of those hours, and then at work for a couple more, my not having premium account for that time didn't hurt. Within seconds or minutes of my feed coming back online again my premium access was back.

Maybe I'm missing it, but what's the harm with your account going standard while all of your feeds are down? If your feeds are down due to a power outage or Internet disruption, what do you need the premium for during that time?
 

Jay911

Silent Key (April 15th, 2023)
Feed Provider
Joined
Feb 15, 2002
Messages
9,378
Location
Bragg Creek, Alberta
If your feeds are down due to a power outage or Internet disruption, what do you need the premium for during that time?

Some people feed from a location remote from their home PC, and/or can't readily access the feed PC immediately (perhaps it's in a building only open business hours). Or they need parts to repair the machine.
 

blantonl

Founder and CEO
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Dec 9, 2000
Messages
11,068
Location
San Antonio, Whitefish, New Orleans
The side benefit of cutting premium access immediately is that it "incentivizes" the feed provider to get their feed back up and running ASAP. It also incentivizes providers to run high quality feeds that have as minimal downtime as possible.
 
Joined
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Messages
411
Location
Natrona Heights, Pennsylvania
My last down time, I upgraded my audio drivers, updated firmware on cable modem. Also hooked up a better scanner, all this within a couple hours and still am at Standard user. Can you tell me my incentives now?
 
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Location
Natrona Heights, Pennsylvania
"Become a Feed provider" seem to be out dated. So if you try to become one, when you apply for a application ,read the fine print.

Becoming a Feed Provider

Broadcasting a feed to RadioReference.com is easy, free, and rewarding. See each section below for the details on how to become a RadioReference audio feed provider.

Getting Started
If you are interested in providing an audio feed to RadioReference.com you need the following items:
A radio pre-programmed that is dedicated to a broadcast feed.
A computer with a sound card dedicated to providing an audio feed that can remain online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, preferably on an uninterruptible power supply (UPS).
A stable broadband internet connection that is online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
An audio cable to connect your radio to your sound card.
A software package that we provide that broadcasts your radio to RadioReference.com.
An approved audio feed application (see below)

Applying to Broadcast a Feed
All feeds on RadioReference.com must be approved by our audio administration team. Our feed provider application can be found on your "My Live Audio Feeds" tab on your RadioReference account details page:
My Live Audio Feeds
If you do not currently have an account on RadioReference.com, you will need to register for one before you can apply for a feed broadcast. You can register for an account here: RadioReference Registration.
When you apply, you will be prompted to accept RadioReference's audio feed broadcaster Terms of Service which specifies what you are and are not allowed to broadcast. If a feed provider violates those Terms of Service, RadioReference reserves the right to immediately terminate the broadcast feed.
Additionally, as part of the feed broadcast application process, it is extremely important that you provide as much detail as possible about your feed in your audio feed application in the applicable entry fields. Otherwise, you risk having your application rejected and deleted.

Technical Details

Take a moment to review our Broadcasting Feeds article which reviews much of the technical details, policies and procedures that govern broadcasting live audio on RadioReference.com.

Providing a live audio feed does not require a dedicated computer - you can use the computer you normally use as long as you leave it running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to broadcast your feed.
Additionally, providing a scanner feed will not slow down your Internet connection - the digitized audio that is sent to our servers uses only a fraction of the upload portion of your connection... the part of your connection which you use very little of anyways. Providing a scanner feed will use approximately 5GB of bandwidth per month.
Our audio feeds are encoded at a sample rate of 22050 Hz, a constant bitrate of 16 or 32 kbps, and either 1 or 2 channels depending on whether the feed is mono or stereo (stereo is used only if two radios are being used to provide the audio).
The software that we provide to each RadioReference feed broadcaster is ScannerCast. You can view the setup instructions and download links for ScannerCast here:
RadioReference ScannerCast

Benefits of Being a Feed Provider
There is a significant set of benefits available to you when you provide an approved audio feed to RadioReference.com. When you provide a feed to RadioReference you receive:
A solid, scalable broadcast platform designed to support tens of thousands of listeners per feed.
An audience of over 500,000 registered RadioReference members and tens of millions of smartphone users.
A RadioReference.com Premium Subscription worth $30 a year when your feed is online.
Access to detailed charts and statistics about your feed, including listeners per hour, uptime, and max listeners.
A full 30 day archive of all of your feed's content split into 30 minute mp3 file chunks and readily available for download.
A feed provider badge on your RadioReference forums profile.
Active promotion of your feed to the RadioReference and social media community when something newsworthy occurs on your feed.
A lot of grateful listeners and a warm fuzzy feeling in your heart.

Official Feeds Broadcasted by Public Safety Agencies
If you are representing a public safety agency that is interested in providing your communications as a feed on RadioReference.com, please see follow the process on this page to get started broadcasting.
Those agencies that want their feeds marked as being officially broadcast by the agency should follow the instructions on our official feeds information page:
Official_Feeds

Feed Provider Terms of Service
We've reviewed this before but want to make this clear: there are restrictions on broadcast content that all feed providers must adhere to. They are listed on the feed provider terms of service page:
Feed Provider Terms of Service
Go to Broadcasting Feeds
Return to Live Audio
Category: Live Audio Broadcasting
 

SCPD

QRT
Joined
Feb 24, 2001
Messages
0
Location
Virginia
bobf9f5 Any feed person monitor milcom traffic and has a live feed for them and record them to use on live feeds ?? tnx
 
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