GB3OA available via Internet streaming.

On test now is a stream feeder of the output of GB3OA to Shoutcast, which means that GB3OA can now be listened to worldwide by anyone!

On your smartphone browser, tablet or PC go to www.shoutcast.com and type GB3OA into the search bar. Then click the play icon at the bottom of the page and advance the volume control. If no QSO is in progress you’ll hear a chuffing sound, set the volume so that it can just be heard (note that iPads and iPhones need to use the TuneIn app as the Safari browser cannot play Shoutcast streams).

Listening to this feed you’ll hear all that GB3OA outputs, including IRLP and Echolink contacts. Note that there is a delay of up to one minute – this cannot be changed as Shoutcast has a 1MB buffer.

How has this all been created? The output of a Baofeng UV-3R HT is fed into a 50p-sized USB soundcard which is plugged into a Raspberry Pi. Two programs are used in the Pi – ALSAMIXER sets the outgoing audio level and DARKICE converts this audio into 32k bps MP3 audio and sends it to the Shoutcast server as data. With all this going on the load on the Pi CPU is only 13%.

Also, DARKICE has been compiled with the MP3 LAME encoder which processes the audio. Sometimes the audio via Shoutcast may sound better than direct through your own rig!

At present this is all on test, so expect short breaks in the feed…. and another feature to this is being worked on, watch out for this news soon!

For some, this link may work as a direct way of playing the stream provided the appropriate default programmes have been set up.

*Edit* Since this post, a separate page is now available giving further information on the stream and how to receive it. Click here to see it.

Best 73s, Philip G8XVV, David G4TUP and Mark G4EID.

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