FM Radio Streaming on Network

You can now enjoy FM radio while on your desktop using a Winamp player. Let’s find out how. You first need to set up an FM streaming server on a LAN. For this you need three things a Shoutcast streaming server, a Shoutcast source DSP plug-in and, of course, an FM radio. 

Setup



Take an FM radio and tune it to your favorite FM station. Then connect it to your sound card’s (Mic/Line-in) input socket using a loop back cable. This cable has male connectors at both ends.

    STEP

ONE    

Install Shoutcast streaming server on your machine from this month’s PCQ Extreme CD. After installation, you will find Shoutcast under Start>Programs. To start Shoutcast, click on Start>



Programs> SHOUTcastDNAS> SHOUTcast DNAS(GUI). 

    STEP

TWO    

Install Shoutcast source DSP plug-in from the PCQ Essential CD. After installing the plug-in, launch your Winamp player and right click on the Winamp window. This will open a drop down menu. From here select Option>preferences. A preferences window will come up. Here select DSP/Effect under the plug-in section. Also, on the right window panel, select NullSoft SHOUTcast Source DSP plug-in and click configure button given below the panel window.

    STEP

THREE    

Now, a SHOUTcast source window will open. Click on Input tab and select Sound Card Input from the Input Configuration section. Next, set the Input Settings to 22050Hz mono, you can set this according to your requirement. Now go down and set Mic input to Microphone or line-in setup, both work fine. We opted for Microphone. Then click Lock button to finalize the settings.

    STEP

FOUR    

From the same window, click on Encoder tab and set the Encoder Type to MP3 Encoder, and Encoder Settings to 24kbps, 22050kHz, mono. Next, select the Output tab. Here you can set the output stream for different network bandwidths. In the same tab, you need to give the IP address and port number for your streaming server under Output Configuration. Also, you will find a connect button at the startup option of this tab; tick this option. This will start encoding the MIC/line-in source when you start Winanp. Now restart

Winamp. 

Client configuration



After all this is done, open Winamp or Windows media player on the client’s machine. Here, type the location of your streaming server i.e. URL http://:. It will take few secs to buffer the stream, and for the audio to play. Now the clients can enjoy FM music on their

desktop.

Sanjay Majumder