Snapping sound on LAPD Citywide Dispatch feed?

[parallax]

For the last couple of days I've noticed a subtle, but present, snapping or popping artifact on the LAPD Citywide Dispatch audio feed. It seems 'spikey' and erratic, not pulsed. I'm wondering whether Broadcastify or the feed provider may have changed something relevant to the feed that might be causing it. Has anyone else noticed this snapping sound?

[parallax]

The crackling appears to have stopped. Maybe the feed provider realized the problem and reseated his audio connection cable(s) or something ;-]

[kma371]

Instead of posting to the forums, there is a "contact" section in that feeds page to report a problem directly to them. Sending a post to everyone doesn't help much

[parallax]

Originally Posted by kma371

Instead of posting to the forums, there is a "contact" section in that feeds page to report a problem directly to them. Sending a post to everyone doesn't help much

The reason I posted here is because I was wondering if others were hearing the crackling as well. Utilizing the 'report a problem' feature in the feeds section would have little chance of rendering an answer to that question. Once I had received confirmation that others were as well hearing crackling artifacts on the feed is the point that I would have reported the issue to the feed provider.

[Halfpint]

Originally Posted by parallax

The reason I posted here is because I was wondering if others were hearing the crackling as well. Utilizing the 'report a problem' feature in the feeds section would have little chance of rendering an answer to that question. Once I had received confirmation that others were as well hearing crackling artifacts on the feed is the point that I would have reported the issue to the feed provider.

Makes sense, especially if some people who might be listening `direct' rather than via `streaming' were hearing the same artifacts. Anyway... Nice to read that it appears the problem has vanished, for now.

[parallax]

As of today, I'm again noticing the sporadic crackling artifacts on the LAPD Citywide stream. Does anyone else hear it?

[parallax]

The crackling has vanished now (again). The stream sounds quite clean.

[bemyax]

I was hearing a similar popping, or cracking, sound recurring on the Black Hawk County, Iowa feed, but I couldn't put my finger on the cause. I thought it came from my listening device since it's connected via wifi. 2.4 GHz. It lasted for a couple of hours, so I discounted the possibility of a neighbor's old microwave oven. That's a dirty frequency, so I suppose an RF super sleuth could help me narrow it down. Also, I did not notice it when listening on a wired device.

If one were able to observe it in the archive for those specific time frames, that would mirror my experience of when the guy across the alley from me would run the arc welder in his garage!

[parallax]

Each time this happens on the LAPD feed I check multiple other RR/Broadcastify feeds and the result has always been that the artifact sounds seem exclusive to the LAPD feed. And FWIW, I'm using Winamp with a wired DSL connection to acquire and play the stream. When the crackling appears, it seems to last for 12 hours or less. Checking the archives for presence of the artifact sounds within the correct time frame(s) is a good idea.

[kma371]

Have you tried contacting the feed provider yet?

FWIW, I don't hear anything unusual as of right now.

[parallax]

Originally Posted by kma371

Have you tried contacting the feed provider yet?

FWIW, I don't hear anything unusual as of right now.

No I haven't. That's because most of the time the signal is clean, and each time the crackling artifacts emerge my first goal is to try and get some confirmation from other listeners that they're hearing the same thing. If and when I'm able to do that I'll contact the feed provider.

And yes, as of early this morning the crackling disappeared. As far as I know the stream has remained clean since then.

[kma371]

Originally Posted by parallax

No I haven't. That's because most of the time the signal is clean, and each time the crackling artifacts emerge my first goal is to try and get some confirmation from other listeners that they're hearing the same thing. If and when I'm able to do that I'll contact the feed provider.

And yes, as of early this morning the crackling disappeared. As far as I know the stream has remained clean since then.

I'll keep listening to see if I hear it.

Do you have another computer or mobile device you could use to listen at the same time you hear it?

But since its a stream, I highly doubt you would hear it and we wouldn't. Thats why I still would suggest you contact them directly, plus you only hear it on that feed not the others. But oh well.

[parallax]

Originally Posted by kma371

I'll keep listening to see if I hear it.

Do you have another computer or mobile device you could use to listen at the same time you hear it?

But since its a stream, I highly doubt you would hear it and we wouldn't. Thats why I still would suggest you contact them directly, plus you only hear it on that feed not the others. But oh well.

Thanks. I do have 'Scanner Radio' on my android phone. But Scanner Radio has a glitch that affects my particular phone model. Said glitch produces a different kind of clicking artifact on the same LAPD feed, and it's present at all times. It's not likely that I could discern the intermittently-present crackling/popping from those 'always there' glitch clicks.

The feed still sounds clean this morning on my DSL connection. It seems to occur so seldom that it may be hard to pinpoint.

[kma371]

I have the same app on my android phone and I don't hear anything that your describing.

[parallax]

Originally Posted by kma371

I have the same app on my android phone and I don't hear anything that your describing.

My phone is a Motorola Atrix and the developer of the app claims it's a problem with the way the player is integrated on this particular phone. It only seems to demonstrate the problem on audio feeds from digital radio systems. The developer of Scanner Radio doesn't seem to think it has anything to do with whether or not the originating audio is from a digital system, though. I can listen to any of the analog feeds with it - such as the CHP feeds - and they're always clean. But it's no good for checking the quality of digital scanner streams for some reason.

[bemyax]

This thread has helped muchly. I listened to the LAPD feed on all three devices at the same time - Motorola Droid, HTC Thunderbolt, Galaxy Nexus - through Scanner Radio. No popping. Then I did the same with my aforementioned Black Hawk County. The first two devices did have the popping, while the third didn't. I might not otherwise have made this distinction. :haveabeer:

[parallax]

Originally Posted by bemyax

This thread has helped muchly. I listened to the LAPD feed on all three devices at the same time - Motorola Droid, HTC Thunderbolt, Galaxy Nexus - through Scanner Radio. No popping. Then I did the same with my aforementioned Black Hawk County. The first two devices did have the popping, while the third didn't. I might not otherwise have made this distinction. :haveabeer:

I'm assuming it's the other kind of "popping" you're referring to (i.e., the pops that are more abrupt and sound a bit like random packets, speech syllables, or audio snippets), and not the slight crackling that I started this thread about? If so, it leaves me wondering why I get these harsher artifact sounds from the LAPD feed using Scanner Radio on my Atrix, whereas you don't hear them on the LAPD feed with any of your android devices. But instead you get them on two of your devices when listening to a different feed. I think I'm somewhat lost over all of this. Is the Black Hawk County feed a digital system?

[parallax]

The crackling on LAPD Citywide is back this morning.

[parallax]

And now it's gone.

[parallax]

And the crackling has once again returned. It's been there most of the day.