Questions About ScanAmerica

[12Gauge]

Thanks for obtaining ScanAmerica & all it's forums & feeds. I hope that the transfer goes very smoothly. I understand that the Feed Providers will be given Premium Subscriber status, when will that occur? On June 15th or when? What if a Feed Provider wants to add an additional Feed, what kind of process do we need to go thru? Will there be an Instructional Forum to do so?

The reason I ask is because I have in mind for the future, a purchase of a new scanner (when funds allow) and thus hooking up my current digital scanner Uniden BCD396T, to provide a local PD separate scan feed. It was very easy to setup my original feed. If this continues then there should be no problem...right?

12Gauge
Marietta, Georgia

 

[WouffHong]

Premier status

Just curious - I supply 3 N. GA Counties to ScanAmerica and have for years through Gordon. - Where did you hear that. - would be nice - I don't download anything more than once in a year and had let my access to do that lapse.. Mac

Thanks for obtaining ScanAmerica & all it's forums & feeds. I hope that the transfer goes very smoothly. I understand that the Feed Providers will be given Premium Subscriber status, when will that occur? On June 15th or when? What if a Feed Provider wants to add an additional Feed, what kind of process do we need to go thru? Will there be an Instructional Forum to do so?

The reason I ask is because I have in mind for the future, a purchase of a new scanner (when funds allow) and thus hooking up my current digital scanner Uniden BCD396T, to provide a local PD separate scan feed. It was very easy to setup my original feed. If this continues then there should be no problem...right?

12Gauge
Marietta, Georgia

 

[stuck22]

We need a Scan North America... Canada has tons of online feeds. Maybe RR should purchase canadascan.ca and do the same thing as scanamerica.

 

[WouffHong]

We need a Scan North America... Canada has tons of online feeds. Maybe RR should purchase canadascan.ca and do the same thing as scanamerica.

I used to own scanamerica.us and still own scanusa.us, scanusa.org, scannortheast.com, scansoutheast.com, scanmidwest.com, scannorthwest.com, and scansouthwest.com as well as scanflorida.com, scanmilair.com, scanflight.com, scanspaceflight.com and more, including scanallcanada.com and scancanada.net along with some 280 more! ;-) (Yep - I AM nuts! - Had over 500 at one time)

Mac

AKA DG

 

[12Gauge]

I read a notice by the CEO of RR on ScanCobb....I believe it was actually posted to all the ScanAmerica groups......it was noted that the full 'turnover' would be on or about the 15th & that all feed providers would be given a Premium Subscription as a benefit for providing a feed for others to listen to.

Being a bit political about things, I never had a problem giving the feed to Gordon (it falls in line with my continued service to the community), but when money exchanged hands regarding SA being bought by RR, I was concerned.

Please understand, I have nothing against RR or SA....quite the contrary, but I felt that if our collective feeds were a part of the deal and it was expected that we continue the feeds thru RR, that it would be fair to give the Feed Providers SOME benefit above that of the Standard Membership on RR. When I read the post by the CEO (or Prez) , I felt my concerns were allayed by the Premium Membership.

Kudos for supporting those who supply those Feeds....And I am considering offering a separate Feed for Smyrna PD (possibly FD), as there is just too much traffic with the 6 Cobb cities to actually be able to follow any single activity. While I may have a Marietta mailing address, I live closer to Smyrna & have a close (past) association with SPD.

If you can't find the Msg on ScanAmerica, I'll copy it & post it here.

12Gauge

 

[WouffHong]

Yes, please do send me a copy OR just PM me.. TNX es 73..

 

[shaft]

I read a notice by the CEO of RR on ScanCobb....I believe it was actually posted to all the ScanAmerica groups......it was noted that the full 'turnover' would be on or about the 15th & that all feed providers would be given a Premium Subscription as a benefit for providing a feed for others to listen to.

Being a bit political about things, I never had a problem giving the feed to Gordon (it falls in line with my continued service to the community), but when money exchanged hands regarding SA being bought by RR, I was concerned.

Please understand, I have nothing against RR or SA....quite the contrary, but I felt that if our collective feeds were a part of the deal and it was expected that we continue the feeds thru RR, that it would be fair to give the Feed Providers SOME benefit above that of the Standard Membership on RR. When I read the post by the CEO (or Prez) , I felt my concerns were allayed by the Premium Membership.

Kudos for supporting those who supply those Feeds....And I am considering offering a separate Feed for Smyrna PD (possibly FD), as there is just too much traffic with the 6 Cobb cities to actually be able to follow any single activity. While I may have a Marietta mailing address, I live closer to Smyrna & have a close (past) association with SPD.

If you can't find the Msg on ScanAmerica, I'll copy it & post it here.

12Gauge

As a former resident of Cobb County (parents still there) I do enjoy listening to your feeds from time to time. Keep it up, I do appreciate it! Hopefully you will be as active here as you are on the Scanamerica/cobb/etc... forums.

 

[12Gauge]

Thnx....I've been informed from a couple of sources lately that my particularly feed (Cobb Air) is listened to by a few dedicated folks that love it....I know the other Feed Providers like to hear that kind of feedback as well.

My personal scanning is listening to Cobb PD Zone 2, Austell & Powder Springs PD....but that's because I live in Zone 2, have close associations with Austell & PS as well. In fact my 396 is scanning right now. There was a news story about an assault in Austell a day or so ago and I realized that I actually heard the Dispatch to the Burglar in the Home & that the Victim was hiding in the Attic. Nothing like hearing your Public Safety people in Action.

I do love ScanCobb...the postings go according to the responses & subjects involved. I am quick to give an opinion or two .... but have been wrong at times & apologized for it. I've lived in Cobb since 1962...& tho' I love Cobb....it's not the county & people that I grew up with now......too many changes & since I'm older, I don't do change as well as I used to....

12Gauge

 

[shaft]

I understand what you mean, My folks live in Mableton, not too far from you. They moved there in 94 and even that area changed a lot in the past 15 years.

 

[blantonl]

Thanks for obtaining ScanAmerica & all it's forums & feeds. I hope that the transfer goes very smoothly. I understand that the Feed Providers will be given Premium Subscriber status, when will that occur? On June 15th or when? What if a Feed Provider wants to add an additional Feed, what kind of process do we need to go thru? Will there be an Instructional Forum to do so?

We've pushed the conversion date out to June 21st, 2009 - on that date, all the feeds will be automatically converted over to RadioReference and all feed providers will have premium subscriptions.

As long as you are broadcasting a feed and the feed remains in "Active" status, your account will be a premium subscription account. If your feed goes down and stays down for 3 days or longer, the feed will be put into "inactive status" and the premium subscription would be removed from your account. If the feed stays down for 7 days, then it is removed from the site and would need to be readded. (there are exceptions to this for some feeds that are only online for certain events etc)

Users are more than welcome to provide multiple feeds, and we have indeed put together an "feed application" form in the new Your Account section of the site where you'll be able to fill in the details of the feed you want to provide and the admins can approve it and you'll be ready to go.

The reason I ask is because I have in mind for the future, a purchase of a new scanner (when funds allow) and thus hooking up my current digital scanner Uniden BCD396T, to provide a local PD separate scan feed. It was very easy to setup my original feed. If this continues then there should be no problem...right?

12Gauge
Marietta, Georgia

That's correct.. we'll have the system setup so you can broadcast as many feeds as you would like, and you'll be able to manage them from the site as well.

Hope this helps!

Warm regards,

Lindsay

 

[SCPD]

I am not trying to start anything but i think the down time for a feed to be removed should be longer then 7 days what happens if your on vacation and the feed goes down etc.

Or you are providing muti feeds in diffrent states etc. i provide 2 feeds right now 1 in Lafayette La and the other in Clare County MI.

To me i think 7 days is to harsh for a feed to be removed.I would think a feed should be down at least 1 month before being removed.

Thanks

Matt

 

[blantonl]

Matt,

As I indicated above we can make exceptions to these rules. We'll tackle these issues on an individual basis as required.

Warm regards,

Lindsay

 

[12Gauge]

Thanks for the clarifications....I concur with the lag time on Inactive or interrupted feeds. I go to FL about twice a year, and while my wife is still at home, she knows nothing about rebooting my computers. Thus if I'm in FL, I wouldn't know the feed was down until I get home. I haven't been carrying a laptop with me but I might in the future. The main reason, I ride my Harley down there & I have very limited room. While re-booting my pc's might be simple, my wife refuses to have anything to do with them. If I'm away and I ask her to shut down the pc's because of an oncoming thunderstorm, all she does is go in the computer room and push/switch off switches......if that fails, she pulls plugs from the wall outlet......gotta love her!!!!

Anyway, I understand, case by case.......my feeds generally aren't down for more than 12 hours....but that's just being away from home or my pc's. Actually have a life besides scanning......shocking I know.....but I'm also a Santa Claus.....


12Gauge

 

[WouffHong]

Matt,

As I indicated above we can make exceptions to these rules. We'll tackle these issues on an individual basis as required.

Warm regards,

Lindsay

I am also glad to hear that exceptions will be considered, but there may be unexpected events that could shut down a feed for longer than indicated in your earlier statement, ranging from temporary medical issues (speaking as a Senior) that could exceed a month, to a lightning strike (as seen often) up here in the Mountains. - We were without power in the whole area for about 5 hours or so today from a storm and tree-falls and the UPS finally caved in later.

I therefore throw in my "vote" that y'all don't automatically dump a long-time (or established new) feed for possible acts of God or Personal/Medical issues until a contact is established. Most who INTEND to drop a feed will usually (not *always* for some) let y'all know it will be dropped at their end as a common courtesy.

To help with that, I would be amenable to supplying a personal phone# (Probably a Cell#) to cover the possibility that I am out of the area or in a position wherein I could not call or e-mail, but the XYL could take a call and advise of the situation.

As an afterthought: I would also be happy to volunteer to research and validate downed feeds for y'all..

As Gordon may remember, a few years back I set up the scannorthga feed at Radio Shack for redundancy, but they kept using the computer for other stuff or needing that Router port, and I have restablished it here at home.

Bottom line, Lindsay, please remain flexible and allow more "wiggle-room" for us.

Keep up the great work - The Lindsay/Gordon marriage was a great move, but at the end of every feed, there is one of us imperfect scan-nuts pumping it out from bedrooms, cellars, and lord-knows-where! ;-)

Tom

 

[12Gauge]

Pumpin' it out from bedrooms, cellars, & lord-knows-where!

Couldn't have said it better myself.....my computer room is a back bedroom.....I'm planning on making my Ham Shack downstairs in the garage.....just gotta get some funds put together for the coax & stuff....& a decent power supply for my Icom.....

KJ4BNO

12Gauge :O

 

[blantonl]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

One of the reasons why we pushed out the release is we've developed a ton of exceptions to account for all of these types of issues.

We'll also most likely change the feed removal time to 15-20 days. You guys have provided good feedback!

 

[SCPD]

Thank's Lindsay and Gordon for all your quick reply's.

 

[WouffHong]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

One of the reasons why we pushed out the release is we've developed a ton of exceptions to account for all of these types of issues.

We'll also most likely change the feed removal time to 15-20 days. You guys have provided good feedback!

Well, (IMHO), that's a bit better, but please consider retaining the "inactive" status as opposed to complete removal IF notified of a scheduled, absolutely-necessary, down-time with a scheduled restart!

Unfortunately with so many feeding from the home environment, leaving a PC running in an unoccupied home, a situation that could start a fire, will negate Fire Insurance (according to our agent).

With Gordon, if we had to go down or intermittent (As was the case with my NASA HF SSB feeds), JUST restarting the feed from this end activated the mount and was relatively efficient AND painless.

Perhaps it is merely semantics, Lindsay, but the usual interpretation of "Being Removed" indicates the feed account and Mount self-reactivation would not work, but would require re-applying for a mount, and essentially starting all over again from scratch, despite a satisfactory feed relationship/history. True?

Perhaps a clarification of the "Removed" to "Active" process for a previous, well-established, feed could be addressed here? Will it be "efficiently painless" or "starting all over", my friend?

Tom

 

[blantonl]

Tom,

We have a number of exceptions that are in place for implementation of feeds. We can set flags on feeds to never deprovision and all kinds of other rules around setting inactive and notifications to feed providers when the feeds go down.

Obviously, if I feed provider explains their individual situations, we'll have the tools and exception handling in place to support 99% of requests.

We are going to make a big effort to insure that quality of the feeds is good. If we have a lot of fly by night feed broadcasting, it could negatively impact the service as a whole (perception issues). Gordon has done an absolutely superb job of running ScanAmerica and we aren't going to change many things at all from how things were previously managed.

But also understand that when we go live on RadioReference we've got to be prepared to scale the Live Audio operations potentially 4-fold as additional exposure to the process is out there. Much of that is back-end management and workflow to help Gordon with the feed management process. That is what Gordon and I have been working on.

In addition, if a feed is de-provisioned for one reason or another, it takes us about 1 minutes to re-add it, or for the feed provider to "reapply" and us to approve it. We can provision a new feed directly from an application from a member - so literally it could take just seconds to go from user filling out application to feed being online.

Warm regards,

Lindsay

 

[12Gauge]

Too funny, the very thing we've been talking about has happened. Last night about 3:45 a.m., my desk top PC decided to shutdown & I suppose re-boot. Unfortunately, it never completed the Shutdown cycle and the Air Feed was interrupted. Since I'm a night owl (read that as cronic insomniac) I woke up about 1 p.m. I started checking emails and discovered the notification that my Feed went offline. So I immediately went in and got the desktop restarted and the Air Feed back on line.

I actually got suspicious when I found my laptop had also re-booted and was stuck on the Opening Password Screen.

I figure Microsoft issued a comprehensive software update for Win XP & Vista last night and my automatic updates re-booted both pc's. My desktop runs XP (which also handles my Scanner Feed) and my laptop runs Vista.

So things beyond one's control tempted fate......

Thanks for the clarification on status. I think most of my questions have been adequately answered. I do appreciate your responses. Every bit as good as Gordon has been in the past on ScanAmerica.

12Gauge