Suggestion: Limit Your Feed

kenisned · #1 (**permalink**) 08-17-2009, 10:11 PM

I love online feeds. Listen to them all the time. Thank you to all of you who host one!

Suggestion for you all.

Please limit your feeds and specialize.

For instance, don't scan five counties, especially if you can barely hear them. Pick one or two nearby counties.

Lastly, pick fire/ems or police. I know that most of the police action around me in the suburbs is boring stuff. Car stops, welfare checks, etc. So, in the middle of listening to a working fire, the scanner stops on a Police Officer reading off the DL number on a traffic stop! This is especially important if there are four other feeds in your county! Break it up!

Thanks. I hope this didn't come off as a rant, it's really just a suggestion.

Thanks again.

nofdexplorer406 · #2 (**permalink**) 08-18-2009, 12:38 AM

lol i found this out the hard way. i was hosting 2 countries Police, fire and, ems about 20 or more channels total. when i told my FD what i was doing and was showing them the recorded audio they took real good interest in it. We was going through a fire and it stopped or another counties agency they got mad and said you gotta do away with them lol. so now i do our county only Fire and EMS. We merge all the audio of a incident and take out the dead spots for critques

RolnCode3 · #3 (**permalink**) 08-18-2009, 01:42 AM

Sometimes it's tough, because those of us running feeds know what we want to listen to. Surely, everyone else would want to listen to that as well?

Problem is, when I hear something I want to listen to when on a scanner, I just pause it. Online listeners can't do that.

It's easy for us to forget that. Plus, we're walking the line between listening to enough channels to have traffic on a near constant basis vs. listeners being able to follow a single event. Not easy.

Best bet - if you have a specific feed that you would like to see pared down or focused more, contact that feed owner and talk to them about maybe cutting out some stuff. They might even appreciate the input.

Caesar · #4 (**permalink**) 08-18-2009, 01:29 PM

I have actually dropped one of my feeds b/c i like to listen to them all and ofcourse can hit hold on the scanner which the online listener can not, so I took one offline to keep as my primary to monitor everything and the other 3 became much more specific agency scanners. I agree that this is much more appreciated by the online scanner listener.... I agree though that sometimes it can be real dull with not much to listen to, so maybe rural areas would be good to combine fire/police/ems...

gmclam · #5 (**permalink**) 08-18-2009, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kenisned

Suggestion for you all.

Please limit your feeds and specialize.

For instance, don't scan five counties, especially if you can barely hear them. Pick one or two nearby counties.

I think this is great advice. If someone wants to feed lots of different agencies, it needs to be done with SEPARATE feeds. I know it takes more scanners/etc, but that's the only way to make it listener friendly.

There are times when I try to listen to a feed of something distant, and it gets very frustrating very quickly. I expect audio to be "broadcast quality", alpha tags to match what I am hearing and feeds that are not bloated.

trooperdude · #6 (**permalink**) 08-25-2009, 09:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gmclam

I expect audio to be "broadcast quality", alpha tags to match what I am hearing and feeds that are not bloated.

You're expecting a LOT from a hobbyist.

TXFirefighter112 · #7 (**permalink**) 08-30-2009, 02:47 AM

Oh my god yes! Please do! I tried listening to the Bryan County, OK feed tonight because helo was bringing a patient to Dallas from scene there. I couldnt tell who the hell I was hearing!

All I wanted was to know where the helo came from, but I had to listen to a feed that covers the following:

TX-Grayson/Fannin/Lamar/Hunt counties Sheriff, Police, Fire and EMS, with State Agencies (over 100 channels & users right there)
OK-Bryan county/Durant Primary Dispatch and OHP

That's right! Two different states! And everyone sounds alike on the radio so I have no idea why the hell person A told Sherriff 1 they were out of toilet paper. I have no clue if I heard anyone from Bryan County actually talk on the radio.

It's worse than listening to a trunked system with a non-trunking scanner!

DELCOLHFC · #8 (**permalink**) 08-30-2009, 09:16 AM

kenisned makes a good point, as far as being in an areas with multiple feeds, to keep individual feeds more focused.

gmclam's advice to feed multi agencies with multiple feeds in broadcast quality audio with text tags on everything sounds like a no brainer, but in reality it's a little hardware intensive and costly for a volunteer feed provider hobbiest. Maybe you could help out by putting up a feed for your area?

RolnCode3 suggests communicating with the feed provider to let them know what you like and or dislike about their feed to help tailor it meet more folk's wants/needs. Excellent advice! I have had several email/PM conversations with many listeners to my feed since I put it online. I haven't been able to give everyone everthing they wanted but it did give me an opportunity to explain what the intended purpose of my feed is. (My feed has the ability to drive the casual listener nuts, more on that later....)

TXFirefighter112 voiced his frustration at trying to follow a single event on a multi state multi county feed. Looking at that feed it appears that it's the only one for the several counties it covers. So it's a matter of hearing a little of whats going on or hearing nothing. What is better? Who knows? If the provider fed only Bryan County then you may have gotten the info you wanted, but if he limited the feed to only one of the other counties then you wouldn't have even had the chance of trying to catch the location, there is no other feed for the area.

Everyone has good ideas about this and it's all good advice.......IF it works best for the provider and meets the needs of potential listeners.

I agree that individual feeds dedicated to specific agencies is the ideal setup, but this would require hundreds if not thousands more providers than we currently have. Given that, we need to be a little more accepting of multi agency feeds from areas with NO OTHER COVERAGE. In these situations the provider needs to weight the benifits/negatives of what they monitor. Maybe going with just Police or just Fire/EMS for a multi county feed will make it more useful, maybe trim out some of the lesser "action" oriented agencies/freqs/TGs. Sometimes just tweeking delay times by a second or two will make answer back traffic easier to follow when listening to multi agencies.

In areas serviced by several different feeds then narrowing the focus of individual streams is ideal. Providers in common areas could work together to improve both geographic and agency coverage, with feeds being able to specialize in certain areas/agencies of interest.

I am fortunate to live in an area with several feeds from nearly all of my surrounding counties. From home I have always enjoyed monitoring Fire/EMS from everywhere that my equipment could pull in. Unfortunately from where I work (a concrete/steel cube surrounded by uncountable RF-dirty electronic circuits and massive amounts of high voltage lines, motors and equipment with substations and transformers every hundred yards or so) the radio reception is greatly reduced and an outside antenna is not an option. This situation led me to put my feed from home online, I figured I could monitor my home shack from work and when it sounded like something was starting to happen in one of the surrounding areas I could then switch over to that area's more focused feed (again lots of really good feeds in my area). I never really thought anyone else would want to listen to my very noisey feed, but as it turned out there are several others from the area that have found it to be useful in this way. I typically see around 6-8 peak listeners on most days and have had a high of 159 listeners at one time during an incident that included a channel that is not otherwise covered in my area. (I don't usually scan that channel but I did include it the night of the incident, it's normally a very boring business freq.) I also took an unconventional appoach to covering so many freqs spread over a huge geographical area, I have several (as many as 8 at a time) scanners tied to the feed at all times. They are divided up by geographic area and 2 are set to monitor the digital traffic in specific areas. With this setup less is missed but the ability to have multiple radios speaking at once does allow for a lot of confusion to the unaccustomed ear. TXFirefighter112 I would suggest that you not listen to my feed

I typically monitor 4 states (6 when atmospheric conditions allow) and about 22 counties including Philadelphia and it's metro area. I really think a feed like this can only have any value at all in a well covered area such as where I am, it's next to impossible to follow any single incident using it alone. I do have plans to add some additional focused feeds when I get some hardware issues worked out with a couple of thin clients in the shack.

PeterGV · #9 (**permalink**) 09-03-2009, 11:12 AM

For me, the primary point is: Folks with feeds should send alpha tags if at all possible. In the absence of tags, it is CERTAINLY important to very narrowly focus your feed. For a while, we had a feed from Boston MA that had about 30 different agencies and no alpha tags... you had no earthly way to know what you were listening to.

OTOH, if you ARE sending alpha tags, I think it can make sense to feed more than a very narrow feed. For example, I live in a rural area. If I just sent my county sheriff department's dispatch channel, I'd be sending a whole lot of boring dead air. Add a few more channels (fire, other local PDs, EMS) and you get a feed that actually has something to listen to. If something IMPORTANT is happening, the feed provider can always temporarily limit the transmission to the important channels (and post an appropriate message here on RR). Alternatively a local listener can go get their scanner.

So, I certainly agree... but again, I think what's best for you to feed depends on your situation. And, again, I really wish more folks would send alpha tags.

Peter
K1PGV

KF5DCI · #10 (**permalink**) 09-03-2009, 11:29 AM

I do this. My feed is literally just for my city of 90,000 or so people. I get people who report my feed as down sometimes, even though its not and its up working fine, just there isnt a TON of traffic in our city.

Also as far as PD channels coming over important Fire/EMS channels, the person running the feed needs to setup priority on the scanner if its conventional, or needs to see if priority talkgroups are supported on the trunking site if that be the case.

Honestly though, my feed is there for all who are interested in listening, but primarily is there for other members in my FD to listen from home or their phones who don't have another means to hear the radio traffic.

freybearfreakfan · #11 (**permalink**) 09-05-2009, 08:33 PM

i feed one freq. because of this, lol

i was listening to a fire one day, and missed alot of it due to scanning. so i now have my feed on one freq only, this way the listeners don't miss the action

freybearfreakfan · #12 (**permalink**) 09-05-2009, 08:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pyrofallout

I do this. My feed is literally just for my city of 90,000 or so people. I get people who report my feed as down sometimes, even though its not and its up working fine, just there isnt a TON of traffic in our city.
.

i run one freq, so i am sure i prob get this as well. but i do one freq, to not miss the action.

milf · #13 (**permalink**) 09-05-2009, 10:52 PM

Now the next question is.. Is there a way to run alpha tags using the PRO-96.. answer.. not unless you dedicate the webcam locked on your screen.. There goes the bandwidth lol. I remember a certian feeder from Memphis who did this.. had the webcam looking at the scanner screen... You saw the tags... but it used more bandwidth... With feed providers like me that are limited by A- type of scanner, B- area being fed (Only one in the region as soon as my friggin gear gets here...) and C- not perfectly reliable internet 100% of the time.... You have to do the best you can... So I am going to have certian TG's on the City TRS prioritized, and will have 3 to 4 second delay on to catch all convos. Will have a lot of the State tg's, but will lock out the non "essential" ones on the State TRS, and will only feed the closest county TG's that are near me... But will have at least 5 other counties that run mainly conventional SO's, FD's, OEM's, and a couple of EMS agencies in addition to my primary county.... And in special situations a HAM net, and the magor Utility TRS.... If we get more feeds up around me, i will cut areas out as they go online from other feeds. I would love to have it where I could ideally just run the county I live in's conventional, the local city TRS, and the State TRS.. One day that may happen, or I may get lucky and everyone go to the State TRS LOL...

kenisned · #14 (**permalink**) 09-06-2009, 08:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by milf

Now the next question is.. Is there a way to run alpha tags using the PRO-96.. answer.. not unless you dedicate the webcam locked on your screen.. There goes the bandwidth lol. I remember a certian feeder from Memphis who did this.. had the webcam looking at the scanner screen... You saw the tags... but it used more bandwidth... With feed providers like me that are limited by A- type of scanner, B- area being fed (Only one in the region as soon as my friggin gear gets here...) and C- not perfectly reliable internet 100% of the time.... You have to do the best you can... So I am going to have certian TG's on the City TRS prioritized, and will have 3 to 4 second delay on to catch all convos. Will have a lot of the State tg's, but will lock out the non "essential" ones on the State TRS, and will only feed the closest county TG's that are near me... But will have at least 5 other counties that run mainly conventional SO's, FD's, OEM's, and a couple of EMS agencies in addition to my primary county.... And in special situations a HAM net, and the magor Utility TRS.... If we get more feeds up around me, i will cut areas out as they go online from other feeds. I would love to have it where I could ideally just run the county I live in's conventional, the local city TRS, and the State TRS.. One day that may happen, or I may get lucky and everyone go to the State TRS LOL...

Does that type of scanner have an online/computer control program?

There is a way to screen-cap a certain portion of a screen and send it with audio... i'd have to do some serious research to remember how!

milf · #15 (**permalink**) 09-06-2009, 11:39 AM

The RS PRO-96/2096 does not have a control software. There are programming softwares, and P-25 trunking control chan decoding softwares,... But the interface apparantly prohibits control vias computer. But as mentioned. we are for the majority not paid professionals broadcasting this stuff. We are volunteers hoping to promote the hobby, as well as provide basic entertainment/information for other hobbiest. A couple of us are professionals, and have the resources to do "Perfect narrow focused with tagging and professional quality audio" streams. But for the majority.. you have go to be kidding! We have an pc with internet access, a scanner, or two, and a audio patch cable. And as for that.. lol.. maybe by Tuesday USPS will arrive with the cable, and my usb hub so I can get rolling. Have fun y'all.

kenisned · #16 (**permalink**) 09-06-2009, 01:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by milf

The RS PRO-96/2096 does not have a control software. There are programming softwares, and P-25 trunking control chan decoding softwares,... But the interface apparantly prohibits control vias computer. But as mentioned. we are for the majority not paid professionals broadcasting this stuff. We are volunteers hoping to promote the hobby, as well as provide basic entertainment/information for other hobbiest. A couple of us are professionals, and have the resources to do "Perfect narrow focused with tagging and professional quality audio" streams. But for the majority.. you have go to be kidding! We have an pc with internet access, a scanner, or two, and a audio patch cable. And as for that.. lol.. maybe by Tuesday USPS will arrive with the cable, and my usb hub so I can get rolling. Have fun y'all.

I used to provide a feed years ago. I completely understand the limitations.

The whole "perfect audio" comment was not mine. I just offer suggestions and am happy with what I get!

Thanks!

milf · #17 (**permalink**) 09-06-2009, 03:07 PM

Not trying to be rude or snide, sorry if it sounded that way..

tspainiv · #18 (**permalink**) 09-26-2009, 12:13 AM

I completely understand limiting the feeds to one agency per talkgroup. I would love to do this with my feed, but needing 4 seperate feeds, I would have to have 4 digital scanners, that's at least $2,000, not to mention the hardware to run it. Sorry, but I have other things to spend 2 grand on....

Now, I will gladly accept donations for scanners

And I was the one using the webcam to include alpha tags with the audio, from a Pro-2096. It worked really well, but the bitrate was way too high.

saveourtrainsmichigan · #19 (**permalink**) 09-26-2009, 10:01 AM

I think it also depends on the area for exsample if the counties are all VOL FD you can have a lot of dead time as where the police will fill in some of the dead time plus in the smaller counties the State Police and SO and local PD get on the scene before FD so you can get an update.

2nd it depends also on the scanner you have mine has 10 priorty ch's so the 2 SO ch's are the last and i have the county i live in on priorty 1 and 2 fire main and the tac ch.