Monitoring Your Stream's Live Feed

It makes little sense to establish a good quality stream, if it isn't consistent and reliable. Despite our very best efforts, stuff will happen. — Is My Feed Working... or NOT?

Staying Online — Restoring Service Quickly

As 'providers', we're concerned with three factors:

Audio In — Present, proper level, clean, 2 channels.
    Example Audio Issues and solutions —→ STREAM QUALITY

Encoder Active — Level and Settings as appropriate.

Server Connection — Mount Point active and online.

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The Simple Way is, of course, Eyes'n'Ears on NOAAWeather Radio Org.

Although several PWS team members audit the site consistently for quality and offline streams, we cannot monitor and update every minute 24/7 — And Neither Can ANY Provider!

Simple Way Number Two is: Babysit the devices that are doing the work.

— But haven't we better things to do???

Simple Way Number Three

A pair of very friendly utilities that can help us with 'stream status'.. on, off, low volume, eg.

Both have very low CPU and Memory usage, and very minimal Bandwidth.

Both appear to be cross platform, (Win, Linux, etc) and both work extremely well.

Both can send an alert email — One for Audio issues — One for "NO Server" event.

Both can send a "restored" email — One for Audio restored — One for "Server" Now Up.

Both will run minimized in system tray.

Unfortunately, as this is written, we've not found a 'freebie' that will do both...



The Audio Babysitter

"Silence Detector" installed on the device that receives the audio signal input.

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The Pira CZ Silence Detector will watch for silence on the input.
It can be set so a 'low' volume input is signaled as 'silence'.
Its response time to a 'failure' is configured in settings.

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Once triggered, if configured, it sends an email:

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Approximately one minute after the audio issue is resolved, it will clear the "silence" alert... ...and follow up with a 'resolved' email if set to do so.. files update



Server Mount Point Monitor

MediaMon can be installed on virtually any WIN, MAC, LINUX device.

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Can monitor multiple servers.
Uses virtually no CPU or Bandwith.
Checks the server several times a minute,
Mount Point/Server USER ID and PASSWORD are required for each server being checked.
Supports: Shoutcast v1.9.x; Shoutcast v2; Icecast v2 (standard and KH builds)
It WILL not work with Broadwave, e.g.

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Once triggered, it can send an Alert Email: files update

When restored, it can send a notification: files update


These two utilities can help resolve two frequent issues:
The un-noticed loss of Audio, or connection to mount point.

They do NOT report poor signal, low or excessive Encoder volume settings, or aliasing, etc.

"Silence Detector" website: "Pira CZ Silence Detector"   Support Forum
or you can download from us: (Windows; Linux:Wine) Silence Detector

"mediaMON" is no longer maintained at "Broadcast Widgets"
DOWNLOAD the archive package from us:  WINDOWS  MAC   LINUX
Linux requires Requires GTK2+. If running on 64bit versions, the 32bit libraries MUST be installed.

...and remember:  — Excepting a fault in a NWR transmitter —  
Quality and Reliability is the responsibility of each provider.
A daily, quick, online check of your stream will prevent many 'dead' or 'disabled' feeds.