Feed Application - Replace somebodies existing feed with a better feed

[hruskacha]

My county (Muskegon County) has two different feeds from different providers for Muskegon County Police Dispatch. (Feed A, Feed B). I noticed that both feeds have issues including Inconsistent Uptime, Feed Quality, TrunkTracking issues [see feed B description & frequencies], and extended outages. After observing these issues, I did message the feed provider to offer some insight and feedback on their issues, but they did not reply on Radio Reference forums. With the lack of return communication, I decided to submit an application to feed Muskegon County Police dispatch myself, but it was rejected due to being a duplicate.

My intentions are to give the Broadcastify listeners the best experience possible, regardless of who the feed provider is. I know that some feed providers try the best they can and have limited knowledge, but if they provide an inadequate audio feed, I honestly don't believe their feed should remain if somebody offers to provide a better stream.

My Broadcastify Calls Node (#999) has an incredible track record and can simultaneously monitor all individual trunked channels of Muskegon County Simulcast, which means it nearly never misses a beat. I I have the intentions of using SDRTrunk or Trunking Recorder to supply an Audio feed to Broadcastify, but can't do so due to it being a duplicate. I did submit a request on Broadcastify Support via Zendesk and am awaiting a response. But how do others feel about this issue? Should quality trump feed start duration?

 

[n8zuz]

and have limited knowledge

That's a bit harsh to think they just aren't as smart as you. It might not be a knowledge issue at all. It is good you reached out to them to see if you could help but if you contacted me with a "smarter than you" attitude (and maybe that's not how you approached it) about my feed, I'd also just ignore any contact.

It might be they have Consumers Energy for the electric provider and they live near a bunch of woods and their power is out often (yes, I used to work for Consumers in W. Mich and they have some serious lack of tree trimming issues that need addressed but they never do address that). It might be they have a bad internet provider with a ton of outages as that used to happen to my feed a lot when I was on a wireless internet provider. It might be they are working through some bugs with their equipment or they might even be running that station remotely, as in they live out of state but a friend is hosting the station at their friend's house. The feed owner then remotes into the station to make changes, etc. I know @wgbecks does that with several stations in MI and probably elsewhere.

Since broadcastify is a first come/first served type service, you might have to wait your turn. Thankfully, someone was willing to do those feeds before you to get that area on the internet, even though they might be sub-optimal. You do know this is pretty much a thankless hobby/service we provide through broadcastify right? Don't add to the frustration for other providers but rather be humble and be patient.

Just my $.02.

Thanks,
Jeff

 

[hruskacha]

That's a bit harsh to think they just aren't as smart as you. It might not be a knowledge issue at all. It is good you reached out to them to see if you could help but if you contacted me with a "smarter than you" attitude (and maybe that's not how you approached it) about my feed, I'd also just ignore any contact.

It might be they have Consumers Energy for the electric provider and they live near a bunch of woods and their power is out often (yes, I used to work for Consumers in W. Mich and they have some serious lack of tree trimming issues that need addressed but they never do address that). It might be they have a bad internet provider with a ton of outages as that used to happen to my feed a lot when I was on a wireless internet provider. It might be they are working through some bugs with their equipment or they might even be running that station remotely, as in they live out of state but a friend is hosting the station at their friend's house. The feed owner then remotes into the station to make changes, etc. I know @wgbecks does that with several stations in MI and probably elsewhere.

Since broadcastify is a first come/first served type service, you might have to wait your turn. Thankfully, someone was willing to do those feeds before you to get that area on the internet, even though they might be sub-optimal. You do know this is pretty much a thankless hobby/service we provide through broadcastify right? Don't add to the frustration for other providers but rather be humble and be patient.

Just my $.02.

Thanks,
Jeff

I did not intend for it to sound like im trying to show superiority by being having more knowledge, or anything along those lines. But I actually speak on behalf of the community who doesn't have ANY radio / scanner knowledge whatsoever. The multiple scanner related facebook groups i am a part of all show some sort of frustration with Broadcastify due to the very reasons I mentioned. The people listening to those feeds don't always do it just for fun, but some people put lots and time and effort into listening to those feeds and posting their findings on Facebook, and if you put an inaccurate source in front of somebody who doesn't know its inaccurate, then that info they relay turns into complete nonsense when their followers read about it.

 

[Reconrider]

You can make the same feed but you need to add something extra or remove something.
So if they have police only, you can add ems and fire.
Or if they stream pd and fire, you can do pd fire and ems.
Or if they do pd, fire, ems you can leave out ems/fire/pd and do the stream.
That's about the only way you can do it


Before posting edit: After looking at both feed links, I see 1 is doing PD only and the other is doing pd,fire,ems.
If you leave out one of the 3, you should be able to stream it. In the part where they ask why you want to stream(if they still ask that) just mention that the streams they have are what you mentioned above in the OP(not the crap about them not knowing enough to make it a good stream, talking about the uptime, audio quality).

 

[west-pac]

Yea, that's a great argument for encryption....we need more and better feeds for Facebook scanner pages.....smh.

 

[hruskacha]

Yea, that's a great argument for encryption....we need more and better feeds for Facebook scanner pages.....smh.

Muskegon Encrypts sensitive channels. If there is something they don't want the public to hear on the scanner, they have every ability to prevent us from hearing it. Plus the scanner is nothing special considering that Muskegon County Central Dispatch has an event map and incident lookup page with pretty much everything we already hear, plus some. So in my defense, there is absolutely nothing wrong with making the best of what is given in the clear on the scanner.

 

[hruskacha]

I know that some feed providers try the best they can and have limited knowledge, but if they provide an inadequate audio feed, I honestly don't believe their feed should remain if somebody offers to provide a better stream.

I want to clarify my previous statement. When I said "Can have limited knowledge", that does not mean that they aren't smart, but rather the information they need to provide a quality stream is not there. Not all radio system information is instantly available, lots of this stuff takes patience and research to obtain, especially if its not in the RR database. Lets say somebody wanted to stream a trunked system but they have not yet discovered the trunked frequencies. In this exact case, there is nothing wrong with saying they have limited knowledge, because its simply that. I could have phrased it differently, but I didn't expect it to sound the way it did.