June 2014

Stream down music….. updated!

When the stream hardware at this end is taken down for maintenance, the server that is in some far off distant land, heck knows where, that’s between here and the Shoutcast server detects the loss of stream and automatically fills in with an mp3 file that the GB3OA team have uploaded.

This used to contain one piece of music and an announcement, which kept going around in a loop of a few minutes until the stream became active again. Now this has been lengthened with more ‘interval’ music and announcements to make it more entertaining.

Although it’s unlikely you’ll catch the stream down and this Stream Down segment,  if you do try to guess the music used as ‘interval’ music – there’s a certifcate in it for the listener who does guess one piece! And also a special unwanted item from one of the team’s shack as it’s a difficult thing to catch. A hint: the first and third music are from a film. We doubt you’ll guess the second piece.

Stream down music….. updated! Read More »

Blackpool….. covered!

Those amateurs visiting or living in Blackpool will be interested to know that we’ve now heard that Blackpool is just about fully covered by OA. This is after receiving useful information on signal levels from OA around and about the town….

Ian 2E0EDX emailed to say:

I have been accessing the Southport repeater for a few days now with the intention of trying out IRLP in the coming weeks ahead. I have also worked Ronnie M3KDO on a couple of occasions.

On looking at the repeater website it makes mention to contacting you with regards to the repeater coverage. I can definately say that I receive the repeater 56 report with no white noise from most parts of Blackpool while /M. I can also receive the repeater from north Blackpool in the Thornton Cleveleys area again while /M at a 53 report.

Hope this helps and I look forward to using the repeater more often in 2014.

Thanks to Ian for that. It would be interesting in the future to find out who the first two holiday visitors are to have a QSO from the end of the pier Southport, to the end of one of the piers Blackpool, via OA! There’ll be a Certificate in it for them both! Please post your interesting QSOs via OA to David G4TUP, Head of Quirky and Unusual QSOs Via OA – david (at) norris (dot) org

Blackpool….. covered! Read More »

Shoutcast problems

Apologies to those who regularly listen to the GB3OA Shoutcast stream – those in Canada, the US, Norway and Brazil as well as other far off exotic territories. Our Shoutcast server has had an extended problem which was only finally resolved yesterday.

We can confirm now that the server is now fully up to spec and can only apologise for the protracted delay in resolving the issue.

As always the GB3OA stream can be listened to by pointing your VLC player to: http://184.154.43.106:8080

Shoutcast problems Read More »