How it works in a nut shell

The Radio station / broadcaster generates the radio station feed. This is the signal that contains the radio stations programming. This signal is then sent to a server site via a narrow ( low to medium ) speed connection. At the time of writing this article, In Sloth Radio’s case we are transmitting our feed @ 56.K ( approximately using ½ of the band width of a single DSL connection ) to the server sight.

The server then makes copies of our output signal and sends these output signals to the end connection point like Shout Cast or Ice Cast. Each of these signals in there self is a 56.K connection. So the server ends up holding the load of all the listeners where the station only has the load equivalent of one listener. Now its also important to note that the internet radio station pays a monthly fee to the server, based on the output speed of each connection and total number of users that may be connected to the server at one time.

When a listener connects threw a server like Shout Cast service ( witch operates more like an online directory list of online radio stations ) they connect to one of the open feeds and start to download the broadcast signal. Think of this download as one long continuous file that never ends, until the listener stops listening to the station.

Once the signal gets to the listeners computer the file signal is feed to the listeners choice / default listening software like Windows Media player, Win Amp or Destiny’s Player and so on.

Some new users, think that that system is trying to force a player on them when they connect for the first time, because it starts a download. This is not true. Remember that the broadcast signal is relay one continues download of a relay long file. Once the listeners computer has seen what to do with the file, you will not see the download notice and it will be automatically routed to the default player of your computer. Your computer identifies this connection / file by its dot extension tag. Simply the last letters fallowing the dot after the file name. A common example of this would be a zip file, example: Sloth.zip . The . ZIP at the end tells us it’s a compressed file conation other files in side it and must use the ZIP program to open it.

The file listners download on Sloth Radio Networks Connection to Shout Cast is: PLS . The whole file name is listen.pls . This may be help full if you wish to set our station to use a special media player, just assign the pls extension in windows to the appropriate program. See Windows documentation for more on this.

First time listening tips

Please not that the wording between the many different versions of Windows may vary but the fallowing steps should help you get your computer to start the download of the broadcast signal and rout it to the appropriate media player.

1.) Click on the link to listen to Sloth Radio Network.

2.) A start download dialog box will open.

3). Check the option that says something like: Open this file from its current location….

4). Click OK to start the Download of the broadcast signal.

5). Your default media player should open up and in a few seconds the Sloth Radio Network broadcast should start.

More about assign a media player .

Here is an online coach for assign file type extension

More Help

Contact Sloth Radio Network

Help with Shout Cast

Help with Win Amp

DRS 2006 Webreceiver

Pirate Radio / Destiny media Player