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Internet Stream cutting off

M

mike847

Hi,

There's another thread in this forum that caught my eye, but it has drifted off topic a tad.

I run a webstream and I also have this problem.

My stream is on a server and then it goes to a streaming server run by another company.

Apparently, my computer is the one at fault because when I check the log my stream is interrupted every 7200 seconds. Other people listening to my stream can stay logged in for days and hours at a time, so it ain't the server, or the streaming service.

I am not a technical person, so I have no idea where to start looking. I tried the forums run by the company whose computer I own, but the person helping me 1.) doesn't understand my question, or 2) is taking the long way into getting an answer.

I am open for suggestions.

Thank you.

Mike
 
I feel your pain. Took me 7 yrs fighting with my ISP in the town where I live. They tried to tell me when I admitted I ran an Internet Radio station that my station was taking way too much bandwidth and my modem would be put on quarantine. They done this after first telling me a barrel type picture tube TV (I didn't hook up the the cable mind you was the culprit). I JUMPED out of my chair and told the guy he needed to go back to school and learn something about Radio and electronics and after that come back and re apply for employment. Too often these cable companies hire anyone off the street and they don't know a Degital cable box form a cable box that simply converts the analog channels to channel two or three or channel 4. That being said I then was told I was using too much data What??? 128K upstream to a server (elsewhere) is too much data? I asked them and made a statement "If 128K is too much for your ghetto system to handle I'd hate to see what happens if someone tries to stream Netflix or something with some real bandwidth. I then demanded a supervisor get back with me. We went round and round with this for 7 yrs of bandwidth hell from this redneck cable provider. Finally I showed the so called tech I could stream my Radio with a Verizon Prepaid Hotspot for 24 hrs at $90 for 10 GB data and not ever have so much as a blip of drop out. I told him if a $50 hotspot which was about the cheapest 4G hotspot you could buy could do better than your system for my Radio station I'd ask for donations from my listeners and stick with that instead of dealing with incompetence and total guess work by your wanna be tech's who really know little to nothing about basic Radio transition let alone Networking routing. Turns out after 7 yrs I finally found a tech who knew what he was doing. Turns out the cable was not properly grounded to the power line's neutral or common ground. Plus the cable was not properly shielded and the RF was leaking in from outside sources into the cable which was not shielded correctly due to a faulty amplifier on the pole. After 7 yrs of pure T hell we finally can say its fixed after I threw numerous fits and got nowhere.

The moral of the story is to petition the FCC to make it a requirement that everyone who installs cable, builds a Cable TV system should have on them at all times a General class or extra class amateur Radio license and be able to show it in order to be employed at any cable or Satellite TV provider. Stuff like this will ruin the entire system and no customer should ever have to go through the agony I had to go through for 7 yrs of my Internet Radio broadcasting. No one should have to pay $400-600/Mo for decent uninterrupted Internet through a cellular hotspot because of folks who know not what they are doing. Good Luck because you too may be in the same boat. Buy a Verizon prepaid 4G LTE Hotspot at either Verizon, Radio Shack, Best Buy or Walmart and $90 worth of data which gives you 10 GB and see if your Radio station improves. If it does you need to prove it to the tech and raise the roof till you get it cleared. chances are your dealing with a leak on your cable TV system. You could also use a police scanner and drive alongside your cable lines looking for the birdie signal. Sometimes its right around 107.9, 106.5 or 102.5 MHZ or simply scan for cable TV audio from 144-174 Mhz. If you hear TV channels like TNT, TBS you'll know where the leaks are and log them then call the cable company and tell them where you found the leak. You could also get an amateur Radio operator to call the FCC and try to get your cable company in trouble for RF interference to radio services in those frequencies. Sometimes getting the FCC involved is the best way. The part 15 rules state that if their signal is leaking more than 250 micro volts per 3 meters they are in violation. So if they have a cable station coming in on one of these frequencies and it goes more than 200 ft you can get them in serious trouble. It is well worth the road trip or walk around your neighborhood believe me. Then your Internet will be interference FREE. You could even get a nice reward check from uncle Sam for reporting interference which too its a win for you.

Good Luck hope this helps you.
 
Wow!!! You've certainly gone through some bad times. I gave up on cable quite a few years ago. I switched to the phone company. The great thing is after complaining about being on hold for such a long time and putting up with the announcements and dull music I got a tech that really knew what he was talking about and said that for an extra fee I could use a special "800" number for service that didn't have the dull music and announcements. (I especially hated the announcement that said I could solve my problem online. HELLO!!! My internet is out. How can I work online to solve the problem!)

Having the signal and software on a server is much better than using a computer here at home. Uploading the music to the server using Filezilla went better than I expected. I thought it would take a week to upload about 2000 tracks. It was only a few hours.

The streamer had a hiccup today, but otherwise it's been smooth sailing.

I've given up on trying to find out why my computer disconnects me every two hours from my webstream. I'll just live with it.

I'm sorry to gloat about my fortune (not money wise, though) with Internet Radio. I've had the bad luck already several years ago and I don't repeat those mistakes.

Now, if I could just find out if Sound Exchange is going to allow us Small Broadcasters to exist next year I'll be even happier. ;-)

Thanks for your help.

Mike
 
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