detour BLUES

II’d like to apologize to all of my listeners for my absence from the station these past few weeks. I have a few health issues… I am a diabetic and am on dialysis, along with a few other issues. I’ve had a few problems lately and that has been the reason for my absence, but beginning on Monday, July 26, 2010, I will be back broadcasting th e show Blues You Can Use, from 1-5pm eastern. I’ll be taking you requests and dedications as well and I’ve got some great new tunes for you as well!

The detour network will be upgrading the server today. We will be down for a few hours starting at 1:30pm on Saturday, July 10th. detour MUSIC, detour TALK, and detour BLUES will be down for a few hours during this upgrade. Please check back for any additional updates.

Field Day is an annual amateur radio exercise, widely sponsored by IARU regions and member organizations, encouraging emergency communications preparedness among amateur radio operators. In the United States, it is typically the largest single emergency preparedness exercise in the country, with over 30,000 operators participating each year.

Since the first ARRL Field Day in 1933, radio amateurs throughout North America have practiced the rapid deployment of radio communications equipment in environments ranging from operations under tents in remote areas to operations inside Emergency Operations Centers (EOCs). Operations using emergency and alternative power sources are highly encouraged, since electricity and other public infrastructures are often among the first to fail during a natural disaster or severe weather.

To determine the effectiveness of the exercise and of each participant’s operations, there is an integrated contesting component, and many clubs also engage in concurrent leisure activities (camping out, cookouts, etc.). Operations typically last a continuous twenty-four hours, requiring scheduled relief operators to keep stations on the air. Additional contest points are awarded for experimenting with unusual modes, making contacts via satellite, and involving youth in the activity.

Field Day is held annually the fourth full weekend in June (June 26-27 in 2010). During the month of June, detour BLUES will be including PSAs during broadcasts in an effort to allow our listeners the opportunity to become aware of Amateur Radio and how to become involved!

The Williamsburg Area Amateur Radio Club, of which I am a member, uses an area on the Chicahominy River at the end of Brickyard Road off Old Forge Rd, near Toano, Virginia.   The club will once again venture out the ends of the earth for it’s Field Day exercise. This site is a favorite for the members as it has shelter, power, bathrooms and fewer creepy-crawly things to contend with. Chair-person, Dave W9NNK is the man to contact if you have anything to offer or need any information about this exciting event.

Thanks,

John – KJ4PQH

Broadcasting Studio

We use only one computer (AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core Processor BE-2300 1.90GHz, RAM 5.00, HDD 250GB) for our music, advertising, playback programs, our station’s jingles and signatures, etc. Our computer uses SAM Broadcaster 4.2.2 software produced by the SpacialAudio Solutions, LLC Company. All the sound is in the MP3 format and currently with constant data flow of 64 kbit/s. A decision was made to reduce the bitrate of the station from 128 to 64kbits/s.The reason behind lowering the bitrate is to allow those at work, on cell phones,  and other places where high speed internet is not readily available, the opportunity the listen to detour BLUES.

As far as our supplemental devices are concerned, we use CD players, MD players, cassette players, a record player, and a Roland VSR-880 digital multi-track recorder.

Our web camera lets you see what our hosts are doing in our broadcasting studio. If you wish to see them, click here.

So, the thought has come up here at detour BLUES concerning whether you, our listeners, like the idea of having a live broadcast where you can make requests or dedications and interact with the announcer (I’m talking about the Blues You Can Use show, heard M-F 1-5pm eastern)… or whether you would prefer the station to run automatically… selecting the songs to be played with no input from you. Your thoughts, comments, and suggestions would be deeply appreciated in this matter.

Songs normally play one hour from the time the request was placed (due to DMCA regulations), however if there are many requests lined up in our queue your request might take longer to play.

You can listen to detour BLUES on the go with various mobile devices providing you have a 3G capable phone and a suitable DATA plan with your cellular carrier.

Below are the devices we currently support:

iPhone & Windows Mobile

Check out Iterum2

It’s an advanced mobile radio player for the iPhone / iPhone 3G / iPhone 3GS and Windows Mobile phones.

It’s easy to use, fully supports detour BLUES and also provides features like song titles and cover arts for each song. You can grab it now from the iTunes store.

Or from the Windows Mobile Marketplace.

Nokia phones

The newer Nokia phones are internet radio capable (N60 and above)! Simply go to http://www.nokia.com/internetradio and download the internet radio software. Install it on your Nokia device using the Nokia PC suite and you are done. You can now listen to Internet Radio (including detour BLUES) on your mobile phone.

A decision has been made to reduce the bitrate of the station from 128 to 64. The broadcast is still in stereo and most listeners will not even be able to distinguish the difference. Overall the reason behind lowering the bitrate is to allow those at work, on cell phones , and other places where high speed internet is not readily available the opportunity the listen to detour BLUES.