Why is this allowed?

[tipster67]

Tonight I came across a "New Feed" in my area.... Wichita Metro Area Sheriff, Fire, EMS, and HWP Live Scanner Audio Feed
Nothing "New about it, it is just a Copy of what is already being broadcast. Last time I asked about something like this I was told it was not 100% Identical to any other feed. That was correct. It was a combination of Two feeds that had been around a long time. Granted one of the Feeds quit shortly after this was allowed to continue. I just don't think it is right to the Guys and Gals who have been faithfully broadcasting with the site for a given time. If a feed has issues and goes down for a period, I think someone should be allowed to take over the feed. But broadcasting what someone already broadcasting is a smack in the face to someone who has been doing this for some time. Also this same feed is listed as being US > Kansas > Harvey (County) [Wichita] .... Sorry but Wichita is not in Butler County and never has been. Thanks for letting me vent

 

[ak4fn]

I think it is great, the more feeds the better! It would be great to have a feed for every freq in my area then I could quit scanning and do some monitoring!

 

[K3HY]

I think it is great, the more feeds the better! It would be great to have a feed for every freq in my area then I could quit scanning and do some monitoring!

Especially if something really bad goes down, it'll help with each feed provider's server load.

 

[webstar22]

Especially if something really bad goes down, it'll help with each feed provider's server load.

The feed provider has no server load. What are you talking about.

 

[K3HY]

The feed provider has no server load. What are you talking about.

Well if you don't understand that there are server resources being used for sending audio over the net, then there is nothing I can say that YOU would understand.

Regardless, you have no exclusivity on the content.

 

[GTR8000]

Especially if something really bad goes down, it'll help with each feed provider's server load.

Well if you don't understand that there are server resources being used for sending audio over the net, then there is nothing I can say that YOU would understand.

Regardless, you have no exclusivity on the content.

There is only a single connection from the feed provider to RR, equal to about 16 kbit/s, regardless of whether there is 1 listener or 10,000 listeners. All server loading is on RR's end of things. Therefore it is irrelevant from the feed provider's point of view whether there is 10,000 listeners on a single feed, or 5,000 each on two identical feeds.

 

[K3HY]

There is only a single connection from the feed provider to RR, equal to about 16 kbit/s, regardless of whether there is 1 listener or 10,000 listeners. All server loading is on RR's end of things. Therefore it is irrelevant from the feed provider's point of view whether there is 10,000 listeners on a single feed, or 5,000 each on two identical feeds.

Ok, so it's RR's server resources being used, not the one who only just relays from scanner to RR.
Is there an agreement that says RR is supposed to notify a provider when someone else is going to put a similar feed up?

 

[GTR8000]

Similar feeds are permitted by the RR TOS. Exactly identical feeds are not permitted.

In either case, there is no notification given to existing feed providers who may have similar content, by RR or otherwise. There is no requirement that someone looking to start a new similar feed needs to notify the other feed provider(s), either before or after the second feed goes live.

It's a nice thought, however with the sheer amount of feeds being hosted, and the fact that many of them come and go after just a week or so, it's not really practical. Better that the local feed providers take a look at the counties they are hosting feeds in every once in a while to see if any new feeds have started up. They can then work with each other to either avoid unnecessary duplication, or to possibly duplicate high-priority frequencies/talkgroups to provide some redundancy should one feed go down for whatever reason.

 

[K3HY]

Similar feeds are permitted by the RR TOS. Exactly identical feeds are not permitted.

In either case, there is no notification given to existing feed providers who may have similar content, by RR or otherwise. There is no requirement that someone looking to start a new similar feed needs to notify the other feed provider(s), either before or after the second feed goes live.

It's a nice thought, however with the sheer amount of feeds being hosted, and the fact that many of them come and go after just a week or so, it's not really practical. Better that the local feed providers take a look at the counties they are hosting feeds in every once in a while to see if any new feeds have started up. They can then work with each other to either avoid unnecessary duplication, or to possibly duplicate high-priority frequencies/talkgroups to provide some redundancy should one feed go down for whatever reason.

Thank you for that.
I think that answers the OP questions as well.
There is a nice civil air feed website, that has some duplicating, very similar.

 

[webstar22]

Well if you don't understand that there are server resources being used for sending audio over the net, then there is nothing I can say that YOU would understand.

Regardless, you have no exclusivity on the content.

Well I was tempted to tell you off but the post right after yours did a good enough job showing how you YOU don't understand how things work.

 

[K3HY]

Well I was tempted to tell you off but the post right after yours did a good enough job showing how you YOU don't understand how things work.

Good for you,.
You showed me. LOL
Now you can dry those tears and stop crying about somebody duplicating the feed.

 

[GTR8000]

Good for you,.
You showed me. LOL
Now you can dry those tears and stop crying about somebody duplicating the feed.

To be fair, he was not the OP and he never "cried" about anything. I'm not quite sure why you jumped on him for posting correct information in response to your incorrect information. A little humility is probably in order here. :wink:

 

[mjbjr]

I think it is great, the more feeds the better! It would be great to have a feed for every freq in my area then I could quit scanning and do some monitoring!

Im lucky that where i live,i provide the Police and another guy provides the sheriff.He was doing both and once i got mine i contacted him and he was nice enough to separate feeds.

 

[ipfd320]

like said in post #2-i believe it is better to have 1 feed on a set freq-I for 1 who does alot of on-line listening cant deal with feed providers loading the hell out of there scanners especially when there is a good job working and then no delay and then it goes to another freq and locks on them...what im getting at is you lost important txmissions on the job that intrests you...(ie>fire main stay on main or main and ops) (not 15 fds on 1 feed)...just my point of view

 

[thagewood]

Wichita Metro Area Sheriff, Fire, EMS, and HWP Live Scanner Audio Feed
The Wichita–Winfield Combined Statistical Area is made up of five counties in south central Kansas.
The statistical area includes one metropolitan area and one micropolitan area. Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) Wichita (Butler, Harvey, Sedgwick, and Sumner counties)

 

[eaf1956]

Content

Im lucky that where i live,i provide the Police and another guy provides the sheriff.He was doing both and once i got mine i contacted him and he was nice enough to separate feeds.

I use to provide 2 feeds but others have stepped up so I cut down to just one. There is a similar feed to my Evansville PD feed, but it doesn't bother me a bit. He does a good job and I think people will listen to whichever they like the best. Also, when I have to do some maintenance on my computer, I know that his feed is available for people to listen to when mine is offline.

 

[eaf1956]

Feed

like said in post #2-i believe it is better to have 1 feed on a set freq-I for 1 who does alot of on-line listening cant deal with feed providers loading the hell out of there scanners especially when there is a good job working and then no delay and then it goes to another freq and locks on them...what im getting at is you lost important txmissions on the job that intrests you...(ie>fire main stay on main or main and ops) (not 15 fds on 1 feed)...just my point of view

This is the main reason I went from a wide-area type feed to a local area feed. It is much easier to follow a transmission with fewer things scanned. So my feed covers mostly the county in which I live along with the State Police.

 

[canav844]

It's too bad that there isn't more details offered in the descriptions of either feed, as to determine exactly what frequencies/talkgroups each feed is monitoring to compare them; when you use generic language a lot can look the same but not actually be the same.

You should include information here such as specific frequencies and talkgroups that are being monitored and what equipment is being used to provide the feed.

And after that, hey a little competition isn't a slap in the face, it's motivator to improve, or a license to make the feed what you want it to be. Before living where digital was the way of life, I put up 2 agency specific feeds, that let me key in on exactly what I wanted to hear when I wanted to hear it, anywhere I had internet access; there was a feed for the same area that covered both of my feeds and about 6 other agencies across 3 services, and had no ID tags attached, so you had to really pay attention to the breaks and half conversations to figure out what you where listening to, it had more chatter so it often out ranked my feeds in terms of overall listeners, but it made it much easier for myself and others in the area to listen to those specific agencies. Plus I was friends with the guy that provided the mixed feed, and we both liked being able to use the premium user archive and programming software features, and seeing the chart of how many people are listening when (I think it would be cool for those stats to be public with all the feeds)

 

[jasonpeoria911]

I havn't listened to the feed, but if his description is true, then he is scanning the whole metro area, not just Sedgewick County like the other PD/Sheriff & Highway Patrol feed.

Technically, it's not a bad idea to have 2 feeds of the same agency as good reception plays a role as well as technical issues like a power outage, internet outage, etc. Always good to have a backup.

Jason

 

[tipster67]

I just listened briefly and found that the Feed is broadcasting TAC Channels. At approx 2:30pm, dispatcher came on the Tell officers that they won't be using TAC-10 channel anymore for the incident on Broadway. And for all officers to return to their normal dispatch channel. So he won't last long.