ScannerCast ROCKS!

ScannerCast is the perfect encoder utility for anyone wanting to stream scanner audio to the Internet. It is written by Peter, K1PGV and does exactly what a scanner feed needs.

First, if you plan to (or already) stream through RadioReference.com then once your feed is configured there, ScannerCast can automatically pull down your feed parameters and set it up locally for you.

If you send up your own wild feed through a Shoutcast or Icecast server the standard fields allow you to name the feed and create a fixed tag.

If you want to send your scanner's channel name to the feed, it does that directly off your computer's serial port, no hassle. ScannerCast currently knows how to parse data from Uniden 396T and 996T scanners as well as GRE PSR-500 and PSR-600 (which are OEM to Radio Shack as PRO-106 and PRO-197 lines).

In a pinch ScannerCast can act as the audio server itself, sending out packets directly from your own computer to as many listeners as tune in up to the limit that you configure in the software.

You must install MicroSoft .NET Framework versions 2, 3, or 3.5 to perform the behind-the-scenes work for ScannerCast, but this is used by many other packages as well these days.

The audio encoding is fixed at 16 kilobits/second bit rate and 22.050 KHz sample rate. This is an uncommon combination for music streams, the purpose for which most stream encoders are designed, but it's fine for communications-quality audio.

If you want to employ introductory and fallback messages in your feed, the recordings must match the format of the stream. I have found that the DOS command line utility LAME.EXE converts just about any audio file format to anything, so look for that.

Oh, the best part about ScannerCast is that it is FREE! No cost to set up your own scanner feed with this encoder.