Acoustic Research IR200 Feed Radio

My new Acoustic Research Infinite Radio 200 works well on my feeds. It's not perfect, but I can let it stream my scanner audio while I use my laptop or desktop for real computing without the two purposes clashing with each other.

Pros:

• Stand-alone, no computer needed to listen to streams
• Saves 6 preset stations in buttons across the top
• Excellent audio quality
• Wired or WiFi connections
• Versatile: receives live streams, audio files stored on mp3tunes or USB thumb drives, music from Slacker, AM and FM radio

Cons:

• Displays channel tags as soon as the scanner sends them, but the audio is still delayed by about 2 minutes, so the tags make no sense
• Even the latest firmware is a little clunky
• Some menus are not as helpful as they might be

RCA/Acoustic Research/Audiovox seem to be working on improving the operation of this tabletop Internet radio so I am confident that these and other complaints will be addressed.

So if you want a neat way to listen to my feeds and the thousands of other Internet radio stations, this is a pretty cool way to listen to them.

Mixer Board tags, talkgroups trimmed

I received my Acoustic Research Infinite Radio 200 today. Once I got it programmed, cycled the power to get it to do something useful, I found that it receives my streaming scanner feeds just fine. It has great audio, by the way.

It also shows the channel tags as the scanner receives them, rather than as they are played 60-120 seconds later out the radio's speaker. While there is nothing I can do about that, I can trim the length of the alpha tags so that they don't need scroll so much on the 18-character display screen.

Also, since this is Spring Break month here in Fort Lauderdale and the FtL cops have special details for Spring Breakers, I am locking out some of the chatty talkgroups that are not directly of interest. These include Broward Fire South and North dispatch talkgroups, which cover Davie, Hallandale, and other jurisdictions outside the area of focus for now. On the other hand, I have added Fort Lauderdale police district 2 which covers the popular downtown nightlife district along SW 2nd Street on either side of the FEC tracks. I will change things back next month after the dust settles.

It just keeps getting better and better, don't it?!