Broadcastify Calls vs Traditional Audio Feed

[N8RXX]

Greetings,

I've been providing a traditional feed to Broadcastify for years with just an old HT and an old laptop. Recently, I got back into scanning using dongles and SDRTrunk on a much newer laptop. I decided to share the fun and got approved to provide a Broadcastify Calls feed. It was easy to set up but it's not what I expected. I was used to listening to my original feed, a local 2-meter repeater, using my Scanner Radio Pro app. Would I be better off switching to a traditional type feed and stream the SDRTrunk audio to Broadcastify? I do most of my listening via my Android phone and the playlist option isn't a good fit for this format. It seems to be geared more towards people who listen via computers.

Thank you

 

[blantonl]

you can provide both with SDRTrunk

 

[N8RXX]

@blantonl - Thank you very much. I didn't know that. I will look into it.

I bought another dongle in hopes of moving my original analog feed to this computer and retiring my vintage Radio Shack HT. This would allow me to use one computer for both my new Calls feed and my old analog feed. I'd appreciate input from anyone here regarding which SDR software to use for the analog feed (a 2 meter repeater). It would need to run on the same computer as SDRTrunk.

 

[rjdj2000]

@blantonl - Thank you very much. I didn't know that. I will look into it.

I bought another dongle in hopes of moving my original analog feed to this computer and retiring my vintage Radio Shack HT. This would allow me to use one computer for both my new Calls feed and my old analog feed. I'd appreciate input from anyone here regarding which SDR software to use for the analog feed (a 2 meter repeater). It would need to run on the same computer as SDRTrunk.

I pretty much do this right now. SDRTrunk serves a normal feed and calls for my local P25 system. I also feed a NOAA feed but I use Unitrunker V2 + Radio Feed for that, along with a VB Cable (virtual cable) to route the audio from Unitrunker to Radio Feed. Right now in SDRTrunk there is no separate audio controls to point which audio to what stream.

 

[N8RXX]

@rjdj2000 - Thank you for your input. It sounds like I've got more research to do. I've heard others mention virtual cables and thought it sounded complicated. It will be worth the effort if I can make this work. Since the computer runs 24/7, I may as well feed as much as possible.

 

[Deziel0495]

If streaming from SDRTrunk, you don't need virtual audio cables. You create your playlist, and select what you'd like from the playlist to go to your stream(s). SDRTrunk does the rest. You can send playlist items to different streams if you'd like. Back when I had a regular feed, I sent talkgroups to both the live feed and my calls node.

 

[rjdj2000]

If streaming from SDRTrunk, you don't need virtual audio cables. You create your playlist, and select what you'd like from the playlist to go to your stream(s). SDRTrunk does the rest. You can send playlist items to different streams if you'd like. Back when I had a regular feed, I sent talkgroups to both the live feed and my calls node.

While that is correct and I do this on a system I stream on here, you cannot add a conventional analog channel on there and stream it. You need another way as you cannot point audio for every playlist you are listening to, to a particular stream in SDRTrunk.

 

[N8RXX]

Thanks for the input, folks! I ordered another refurb computer with an i7 CPU and 16 GB of RAM (with room to grow). It's a newer generation than what I'm currently using to test all this. I figure if I can make it work on my current computer, it should work on the "new" computer that's going to be dedicated to all this radio stuff.

SDRTrunk has been running well for 3 weeks and it's currently feeding a Broadcastify Calls node. @blantonl said that I can also use SDRTrunk to feed audio to Broadcastify but I haven't looked into that yet.

Currently, I'm testing SDR# and VB cable to send my existing audio feed (2-meter repeater) to Broadcastify. It seems to work but I haven't gone live yet because I don't want to switch to the new system until everything is ready. I was worried that I'd have issues running SDRTrunk and SDR# on the same machine, but everyone seems to be playing well together. fingers crossed.

 

[rjdj2000]

Yes you can also feed what you are feeding into a calls node to a regular feed. Just have to watch what talk groups get sent, you can sort that out in the alias list on the streaming channels. As to running SDR# and the rest, you should be able to do that no problem. Just setup a i7/16GB machine myself to upgrade from the i5/4 or 8 GB machine I was running for the past 4-5 years. Took me a hot minute to get the audio figured back out as I had it setup and apparently after an update or something, the audio would not route through the VB cable no matter what I did and it was working just fine. So I wiped the machine and started over and once I had it going correctly, then put it back online. So far so good.

 

[N8RXX]

@rjdj2000 - It's good to hear that you got it working and back online. I hope my transition goes well.

I started to apply for another audio feed on Broadcastify but, after reading the application, realized that it probably wouldn't be approved because someone already provides a very similar feed. I guess I'll keep feeding the node but it's not what I hoped for. I thought I read that feed providers can monitor the talkgroups that can't be publicly broadcasted. However, I haven't found a way to do this. Do you (or anyone here) know if this is possible and how to accomplish it?

 

[rjdj2000]

Yes you can. Go into your node, even though you are not supposed to listen this way, but as the owner you can. Click the manage button, then the little lightning bolt which will take you to the live calls of your node. Once on there you can listen to it all. I believe while on there that there is a systemwide button that will allow the same without the giant yellow box telling you that you shouldn't be listening this way. For the main part I do try to listen through the systemwide one but I do end up on the main live side more than I probably should.

What is your node #? I have been down that route before with trying to do an audio feed. I have been doing a feed since 2011 and someone else came in and did a Fire/EMS only and was calling it the system name for the county. I pleaded my case with the admin here and was able to get that name onto my feed as I did the whole system, less what was not allowed in the TOS. There is too many audio issues with that feed and pretty much everyone around the area knows which feed is better. I'm still thinking a little Intel NUC might be the way to go as I am only using 2 RTL sticks and only 2-3 programs. So far it isn't even stressing the CPU in the new machine... it sits at 16% CPU and 46% memory right now.

 

[N8RXX]

@rjdj2000 - Thank you for the information. I tried listening to my node but I don't hear everything that I hear on SDRTrunk. Based on what I've read, that's because any traffic that the other local provider feeds to his node won't be heard on my node. So, I made a playlist that included several talkgroups that are banned from public broadcasts. Sadly, the banned talkgroups aren't played on my playlist.

I thought a perk of providing traffic to Calls was being able to listen to talkgroups that aren't available to the general public. There doesn't seem to be a practical way of doing this with Broadcastify. Maybe I'll go back to sending my SDRTrunk traffic to Rdio-Scanner. At least that way I hear everything.

 

[rjdj2000]

@N8RXX - If you have V0.6.0 of SDRTrunk, you can do OpenMHz as well and be able to listen to everything, there is an app for iOS devices also for listening. Kind of wonky to get to the admin and get it setup but once you do, it is easy to add and get working. I am running the latest release of SDRTrunk and that seems to have fixed a connection issue Denny had with OpenMHz.

 

[N8RXX]

@rjdj2000 - I checked out openMHz. It looks good but I use Windows and Android so not a practical option for me. Fortunately, Rdio-Scanner works well, except that Android tends to kill it while in the background.

 

[rjdj2000]

Well it is another option, just have to use browser to get to it on android and windows. Been out of android for over 10 years, first smart phone I had was android.... Figured out how to root it and put other versions onto it but once I ended up on iOS, I've stuck with it since. Have thought about going back but it is hard to go from something that just works lol

 

[N8RXX]

I've considered trying iPhone but always end up with Android when I upgrade. Maybe someday. . .

 

[egftechman]

Greetings,

I've been providing a traditional feed to Broadcastify for years with just an old HT and an old laptop. Recently, I got back into scanning using dongles and SDRTrunk on a much newer laptop. I decided to share the fun and got approved to provide a Broadcastify Calls feed. It was easy to set up but it's not what I expected. I was used to listening to my original feed, a local 2-meter repeater, using my Scanner Radio Pro app. Would I be better off switching to a traditional type feed and stream the SDRTrunk audio to Broadcastify? I do most of my listening via my Android phone and the playlist option isn't a good fit for this format. It seems to be geared more towards people who listen via computers.

Thank you

I do them all... Traditional Broadcastify feed, Broadcastify Calls feeds (one per site), OpenMHZ feeds (one per site), a couple of private Icecast feeds only I use (a tightly filtered one that only carries likely major "events", and a "firehose" one that streams EVERYTHING SDRTunk hears), and a feed to a private Rdio Scanner instance I use essentially as my personal "scanner' front end (might kill my private icecast streams since that works well). They each have a custom list of call groups sent to them based on ToS of each service (for example, the traditional broadcastify feed doesn't have tactical, EMS reporting, jail, etc. since they are not allowed on the service), that is setup in the playlist editor.

 

[egftechman]

Greetings,

I've been providing a traditional feed to Broadcastify for years with just an old HT and an old laptop. Recently, I got back into scanning using dongles and SDRTrunk on a much newer laptop. I decided to share the fun and got approved to provide a Broadcastify Calls feed. It was easy to set up but it's not what I expected. I was used to listening to my original feed, a local 2-meter repeater, using my Scanner Radio Pro app. Would I be better off switching to a traditional type feed and stream the SDRTrunk audio to Broadcastify? I do most of my listening via my Android phone and the playlist option isn't a good fit for this format. It seems to be geared more towards people who listen via computers.

Thank you

Share your feeds with Broadcastify for the community (and also gives you access to other feeds from around the globe)....and then also run a private instance of Rdio Scanner on something like a Digital Ocean droplet ($5/month) and use the Rdio Scanner app on Android as your personal scanner interface.
I'm sure as the calls playback API is reviewed by developers, there will be better apps developed to use the Calls system in the future

 

[N8RXX]

@egftechman - You have an impressive setup!

I got everything squared away with monitoring non-TOS talkgroups via my playlists. My "new" computer should be here tomorrow and I hope to get it set up this weekend. I will continue with my traditional feed and the new Calls feed on this computer.

Thanks for your help!