Welcome to 'Transmitting to Earth'. I'm Charssun and I'll be your host. This blog and podcast is a byproduct of VoyagerRadio.com and is intended to provide the most timely information about this Internet radio station. It is also intended to be a fun and accessible electronic journal with commentary focusing on Internet radio, podcasting and webcasting issues and technologies, music, and some of my other interests. I also offer personal perspective about being an Internet radio broadcaster (and podcaster).
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Happy Halloween, everyone! Tonight Voyager will be presenting a live webcast, as we do every Thursday, for 3 hours beginning at 7 p.m. Pacific Time (10 p.m. Eastern, 03 Universal). Tonight's webcast will have a special Halloween flavor. Don't fret if you only have a Dialup Internet connection--tonight's webcast (and every Voyager webcast) is presented at a low enough bitrate for Dialup Internet users! In fact, it's optimized for Dialup Internet users!
So tune in by clicking the following link at 03 Universal Time: http://www.live365.com/stations/34212 Watch out for hitchhiking ghosts! Russian cosmonauts (do they still call themselves cosmonauts?) are on course to dock with the International Space Station. I say they should hijack the fuckin' thing. Why not? I mean, we're not doing anything with it anyway, are we? It's a friggin' Motel 6 in space. Hell, it's not even that--it only accomodates a handful, or half a handful, of visitors, making it more like a cheap Hollywood motel room that you rent for an hour to do your business.
Join me tomorrow night for another live webcast presented by me, your host and curator of Voyager, the Internet Radio station Transmitting to Earth http://www.VoyagerRadio.com Some of you may be surprised to find out that I don't know squat about Space. That's right, your friend and curator of Voyager, the space-themed Internet Radio broadcast and news source, doesn't know the first thing about astronomy, astrophysics, or ass-backward theories of Quantum Mechanics. You wanna know what Dark Matter is? So do I; let me know if you find out. What's Star 687 to the umpteenth declination? Beats me. I don't know Sirius from curious.
Seriously, though, I am absolutely fascinated with astronomy, space exploration, and all things space-related. It's not my only interest, nor my biggest. I simply find myself more curious about what's out there than what's down here sometimes. I may not know as much as the astrophysics or archaeoastronomers do, but my interest is certainly on par with the best of 'em. So I chose Voyager's theme to be one of space exploration. And why not? I did work at the Griffith Observatory, after all. (Check out my friend Greg's website for recent photos of the Observatory's renovation.) Monday: Tune in tonight for another entertaining transmission of Radio Gnome's Flying Teapot Theater. Show begins at 7 p.m. Pacific, 10 p.m. Eastern (03 Universal Time), and will last for 3 hours. Flying Teapot Theater webcasts at 56k for Broadband Internet connections at the following link:
http://www.live365.com/stations/zotzz?play and simulcasts at 24k for Dialup Internet users at the following link: http://www.live365.com/stations/34212?play Tune in to Radio Gnome's show if you're into Progressive Rock, and even if you're not! The question I'm asking myself now is "Why?" Why do I do this webcasting thing? Nobody's listening. I mean, nobody's listening right now, when I'm live. That's when I most like to have listeners. It's currently 8:34 p.m. Pacific Time. That's 11:34 p.m. for you Eastcoasters. And as I like to say, in order to accomodate the world, it's 03:34 Universal Time. That way all of you can tune in, now that you know what time it is. I'm here webcasting live, as I do every week at the same time. Okay, so it's only my second weekly webcast, so maybe it's not fair to be expecting listeners already. So here it is: I'll be here (at VoyagerRadio.com) every Thursday night at 7 p.m. Pacific Time, 10 p.m. Eastern (02 Universal), webcasting live to the world. I'm not exactly certain what I'll be webcasting, and maybe that's the problem--we like consistency, perhaps--but I will always, always make it interesting.
The other problem may be that I'm webcasting in Broadband this week. My usual webcast is a Dialup webcast. Folks tuning in using a modem aren't able to listen to this live weekly show. The reason I'm doing it is because I want this music to be heard at the best possible quality. Plus, I've been considering switching over to a permanent, 24-hour Broadband webcast. I've been webcasting at a Dialup bitrate since the beginning of the year, and although I have listeners from time to time, most Internet Radio listeners are Broadband Internet users. That's too bad--I think Dialup Internet users would be surprised by what they can hear using their painfully slow connections. They may not be able to surf the net very well at the same time as they are listening to Internet Radio, but then again, if they're just reading blogs while they're listening to my Internet Radio station, they may be able to hear my broadcast at the same time. Blogs don't take much bandwidth. That's why I've build my website without all the bells and whistles that usually slow down Dialup Internet users. Even if you can't surf the net well while listening to Internet Radio, you can always just listen. You know--tune in, kick back, and let your ears do the sensin'. Ladies and Gentlemen,
Voyager will be unable to simulcast RadioGnome's Flying Teapot Theater this Monday, October 21st. Unfortunately, Harold, the Curator of Voyager, and Voyager's human contact, has a duty to perform which outways the importance of the webcast. Only a few things could possibly do that, and this is one of those. The simulcast, which normally airs from 02 to 05 Universal Time (10 p.m. to 1 a.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Pacific), will return next week. Although the simulcast is aired for Dialup Internet users, the show will go on for those of you with a Broadband Internet connection. So check it out at RadioGnome.com! Or tune in Monday night at the following link: RadioGnome Well, that was a success. Thanks to anyone who stopped by to listen to my first live Broadband webcast. Check out my website for more information about my impending decision to either go all-out Broadband or to stay at a 24k bitrate. We won't get too technical here, in this blog, but for those of you who are interested, I'm filling you in.
Don't get bored yet! Come back tomorrow, or Monday, when I'm sure I'll have something really interesting posted. Perhaps I'll have something posted here in just a few moments. You never know. Tonight I will be webcasting live at Voyager. Voyager normally webcasts at a 24k bitrate, which in layman's terms means its available to anyone who has a Dialup Internet conneciton. Tonight, however, I'll be webcasting in Broadband in order to test the possibility of broadcasting at a higher bitrate. This, of course, will exclude Dialup listeners.
I'm having difficulty deciding whether to give my webcast a permanent Fidelity Injection or not. Should I broadcast at a lower bitrate, sacrificing higher quality for the potential of being available to more listeners? Or is it time I "throw in the towel", so to speak, and make my webcast available only to those who have Broadband. I've considered taking the middle road, too--making it available to 56k'ers and up (it's currently available to 33k'ers and up). Yet I fear that will serve to only excommunicate most everyone, because the minor leap from 24k to 32k in order to optimize for 56k'ers may prove too high a bitrate for those listeners on the opposite side of the world, unless they have Broadband. This is due to heavy 'net congestion. Boy, this is a boring blog entry. Apple just announced the acquisition of IBM's new processor chip. Some folks will inevitably say this purchase is evidence of Apple's (dis)integration into the PC world. No more "apples and oranges", they'll say, "they're practically the same." Upon examining the technology more closely, however, we see that IBM's technology is quite different from any existing PC technologies and will continue Apple's tradition of establishing the future direction of computer technology. This new chip is a built on a 64-bit architecture, with a 900Mhz bus, and although some will say that most computer users won't have a need for 64-bits, they will. It's just a matter of time. 64-bits may sound overwhelming today--we currently use 32--and the naysayers say it's overkill, but they seem to be forgetting that technology will evolve, and we will eventually need to process larger chunks of data. Just because most people are happy with the computer power we have today doesn't mean we aren't looking forward to more powerful computers tomorrow.
What can we do when they want all our money? The only comfort I have is that I have no money to give. Sure, my little Internet Radio station may go under, but I won't go bankrupt because of it. Heck, I'm already way beyond that! What I'm really sorry to see go, if that should come to be, is a service like Live365, which has enabled folks like me to webcast inexpensively. I wonder how they're going to make it through these difficult times.
We still have 10 more days, however, before the webcasting royalty fees are due! You know what that means? It means it's time to start activitating! It's time to contact your congresspeople and let them know that you think it's unfair for webcasters to have to pay so much! I mean, aren't we helping the recording industry already? Some people actually still buy CD's, you know. In the early part of the twentieth century, a new medium was developing, one that would eventually be called Radio. It took awhile for it to catch on; most people couldn't afford the equipment necessary to "tune in" to this new form of communication. Some folks were lucky enough to have a friend who would share the equipment needed to listen to the radio transmissions; others worked at a business which owned a receiver.
The folks who were lucky enough to listen were curious about this new medium; many more were awed and transformed by their listening experience. Certainly everyone was interested in the new medium once they had heard it or heard of it. A few astute individuals began to regularly transmit news, music, entertainment, and other forms of communication using this technology, and they called their new craft "broadcasting", a term borrowed from an agricultural term meaning "to cast (seeds) widely". Yet the medium, being so young, was not accessible by all, so the medium found itself with a relatively small, yet rapidly growing audience. Still they persisted, taking pleasure in broadcasting to as few as one listener at a time. Some found pleasure in things like searching for broadcasts that originated from far parts of the world. A resident of Salinas, California, was able to hear a transmission which had originated in Australia or New Zealand. After a few years, the price of receivers came down, and more and more listeners were listening to radio. Radio became mainstream, and soon commercial interests transformed radio into a means of advertising. Today, it is illegal to broadcast to far distances from one's home. Nearly 100 years later, we are in a strikingly similiar situation. We have this new medium, and thousands of people are interested in broadcasting from their own homes. Commercial interests want to take this means of communication away from the people and place it in the hands of industry--mainly, advertising, for the recording industry's ultimate goal is to make money, and where else will they collect it but from advertisers? The royalties they demand are unrealistic and will only serve to shut down independent Internet Radio broadcasters, leaving room only for those who can afford the heavy levies, such as corporations, to fill consumers' demands for Internet Radio broadcasts. If these corporations find they cannot collect enough money from consumers to pay for these broadcasts, which is likely the case if the Internet Radio broadcasting model follows the traditional Radio broadcasting model, they will turn to advertisers. Internet Radio, in turn, will be controlled by advertisers, and the result will be much the same as traditional Radio's situation. Consumers will be disappointed, having realized the missed opportunity for a diverse range of independent webcasts that they have been deprived of due to commercial interests' efforts. Does the future sound bleak? Well, there's hope yet, and if you want to discuss this issue, join my discussion group. Besides this blog, a narrative blog called something that happened, and various other projects, I also moderate a discussion forum: Please consider subscribing to engage in a dialogue about all things having to do with Internet radio! |
Send Us Your Music
Artists! Want to be heard on this station? Email your MP3 audio, one file at a time, to our Program Director or mail your CD promo(s) to the following address:
Harold J. JohnsonVoyagerRadio
547 Gayley Avenue #1
Los Angeles, CA 90024 Make certain to let use know whether we may use the audio in our podcast, too!
Download the Podcast
We are officially podcasters now that we have revitalized and reintroduced our downtempo show Tempo of the Down, this time around as a podcast. Now showcasing independent downtempo we've been granted permission to offer for download, Tempo of the Down is our entry into the future of Internet radio.
Head over to our new Podcast area to download the latest session!
