VHF to Internet Audio

BeardyGit

Hey all,

Hoping for a pointer in the right direction. I'm looking into a possible enhancement to the way Irish Mountain Rescue teams operate their radio comms during operations.

I need to identify a solution to allow me relay a VHF audio broadcast to the internet via a secure streaming server of some sort. The idea would be to allow resources who can't necessarily attend the incident to monitor comms from their home etc.

Ideally, I'd like to have a static internet streaming gateway, accessible to multiple users who could broadcast the traffic they're listening to.

The nature of the broadcast would require a secured audio stream - Not something open to any and all who stumble upon the gateway.

Happy to hear from anyone who knows of a suitable solution or who can propose something we could investigate further.

Ta,

Gil

watty

For Windows or Linux
VLC

For Windows
Windows Media Encoder

Also "Unreal Server"

If you have a sound card connected to radio or scanner earphone out, all these solutions are free.

You can setup a firewall/router to only allow connections from specific public IP on the Port Forwarding.

You need decent broadband with enough capacity for bitrate of stream x number of users.

You can use "Unreal Media Server" at a hosting centre and have it read a single UDP stream from home or Mobile location and then it is what the users connect to (you can set it that the Unreal Clients need user name and password).

That solution would even work with suitable MP3 streaming (64kbps mono) from a remote site via EDGE, 3G or HSDPA modem (not "3"s service as they proxy, other services may not allow the port access for ANY server service).

Two way satellite terminal on a Trailer can be deployed in less than 20mins and give 128k up link (upload) to your hosted "unreal server" that allows any number of logged in users..

Echo Link, Skype, MSN, Gizmo, Blueface or SIP generally and IRLP are not appropriate for what you want though all of those can be made to do it.

Fixed bitrate iLBC codec is best and G.729 next best if going the SIP route (not recommended)

Tactical

Isn't there a crowd called aran or aren or something similar already doing this?

watty

AREN (Amateur Radio Emergency Network) is mostly in Cork/Waterford area, though technically nationwide. They use APRS (70Mhz & 144.800MHz), HF and VHF-FM on 145MHz, but not Internet streaming. Similar idea to Raynet in UK.

BeardyGit

Thanks Watty,

Unreal looks to tick all the boxes.

Ta,

Gil