Tycho-Hours

Scott Hansen a.k.a. Tycho has been a staple on our station since its inception. We are thrilled that he's doing a US and Int'l tour this year, but sad that he won't be making it to our neck of the woods in Colorado. But get out and show him some deserved support and listen for tracks from his latest releases (including this one) on 95.5 FM mountianchill.com.

Also, check his performance on KCRW/MBE this past week.

Tycho
"Hours" (mp3)
from "Dive (Radio Edit)"
(Ghostly International)

Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Drive Time in the 2010s (Part 4)

Listening to mountainchill in your car, SUV, or truck.

If you've read our previous posts, you probably have mountainchill streaming through your smartphone. You have a whole list of favorite Internet stations saved to your favorites. Now all you need to do is figure out how to play Internet radio in your car.

While there are many ways to use your smartphone as an Internet car radio, here is the method that I have used.

Step #1) I got Mountain Chill playing through my Droid smartphone (See previous post).

Step #2) I purchased and installed this Motorola MotoRokr T505 Bluetooth Speaker Phone which includes an FM transmitter.

Step #3) I turned Bluetooth "on" on my Droid phone and powered up the MotoRokr. With a click of a button on my Droid phone I paired the phone to the Motorokr. On Adroid 2.2, pairing is managed under "Preferences:Wireless & Networks:Bluetooth Settings."

Step #4) I pressed the FM button on the MotoRockr and the MotoRockr searched for and found a quiet FM frequency. It then announced where to tune my FM radio. I pressed play on the xiialive application and I was listening to mountainchill.com.

Step #5) If you enjoy listening to mountainchill in your car, please become a member and help support us.

Next time I got into the car and turned on the Rokr, the pairing took place automatically. I just hit the FM button on the Rokr and tuned to the correct frequency. Now...miles and miles (or km and km) of happy driving.

Done! Happy listening.

Drive Time in the 2010s (Part 3)

So here we go, time to tune in to "Mountain Chill" Internet radio on your smartphone.

Step #1: Download an "all-in-one" Internet radio tuner application. Pick one that is appropriate for your particular smartphone. Some stations offer specialized tuners that will tune to their streams only, but that is like downloading a browser that only goes to one website. Forget that. Instead, try any of the SHOUTcast partner applications that are made for your particular phone. These applications use Shoutcast's tuning service and give you "search" access to the 40,000+ stations that list on Shoutcast. (Most also allow you to enter unlisted stations via their broadacast IP address). We have a few recommended tuners listed on our mobile site as well.

We are always testing and supporting mountainchill.com on the Android OS with the xiialive application on the Verizon network. We are big fans of Android on Verizon mainly because we've found that Verizon's rural coverage is better than other carriers and we want to be able to listen in the mountains.

Note that we have NO non-roaming AT&T service here in Ouray, CO and we cannot test the iPhone applications here at our studios. So, I'm afraid that we can't answer questions about iPhone compatibility.


Step #2: Search for "Mountain Chill" using the application search menu and click on Mountain Chill in the search result to begin streaming. It is that easy, really.

-or-

If you want to do it another way, browse on over to mountainchill.com/mobile with your browser and click on ((Listen)). Click on any of the server addresses shown to launch the stream.

Step #3: Save "Mountain Chill" to your favorites. On xiaalive click on "history." When you see Mountain Chill in your history, click and hold to get a menu that includes "add to favorites." Next time around click on Favorites and launch from there.

Note that occasionally, our stream address will change. If the stream doesn't launch from your favorites list, go back to Step #1 and search for "mountain chill."


Happy listening. Next time we'll talk about listening in the car.

Drive Time in the 2010s (Part 2)

As listeners to mountainchill.com are probably aware, the digital age has redefined the radio medium in many ways. Here is a list of many of the current US delivery methods that are considered mobile/automobile "radio" and some of their advantages and disadvantages. There are a plethora of non-US options as well, and maybe we'll cover those at a later date.

*AM/FM analog radio. Now often referred to as "terrestrial radio." These stations broadcast with a power of hundreds to hundreds of thousands of watts and generally cover a metro region. FM sound quality within the local broadcast area is generally excellent, often comparable or better than 256 kb/s digital audio in my opinion. Since the audio is analog, it does not suffer from digital compression artifacts. Advertising and news can be targeted toward a local audience.

* Satellite radio - In the US, this service is known as SDARS and is delivered by XM and Sirius Satellite Radio. These services offer hundreds of specialty channels and rebroadcasts of some major market AM/FM stations as well. Signals are delivered from satellites at about about 22,223 miles (35,764 km) above Earth to special portable and in-car receivers. Satellite radio receivers are included in many US vehicles, including many rental fleets. Satellite radio is subscriber supported and, unfortunately, has suffered from low subscriber numbers.

Due to the limited bandwidth/throughput of the satellite and the large number of channels, satellite radio channels are highly compressed with bit rates as low as as 32-48 kbps whereas Internet radio bit rates are typically 128 kbps.

Listen carefully to satellite radio and you will soon become annoyed with the low quality and high level of compression artifacts. Most critical listeners will agree that a clear FM radio signal offers much higher fidelity.

* HD radio - HD radio is iBiquity's trademark for it's in-band-on channel method which allows AM/FM stations to broadcast multiple channels of digital audio, literally on-top of their analog signal.

HD radio supports one channel at 300 kbps or that channel may be subdivided into several lower bit rate channels. Since the FCC requires that the analog signal be rebroadcast in digital form, subsidiary channels are left which a much lower sub-divided bit rate, as low as 12 or 5 kbps.

HD radio is delivered free to the listener, however a special HD radio is required and consumer uptake has been low. Also, the broadcast radius of HD radio is often significantly less than conventional AM/FM radio. Nonetheless many broadcasters have developed an array of specialty programming for their HD channels including NPR stations, Clear Channel and CBS Radio.


* Internet Radio - With the widespread rollout of third generation (3G) wireless service in the US and Long Term Evolution (LTE) on the horizon, the real revolution in the Internet today is wireless access through smartphones such as the iPhone and those running the Android operating system.

3G networks have finally reached a level where it is possible to reliably stream audio at 128 kbp/s and, in many cases, higher rates. Smartphone listeners now have acces to not hundreds, but tens of thousands of streaming radio stations, including many AM, FM, HD, and satellite stations that provide a secondary Internet stream.

Another upside is that as smartphones become ubiquitous, no additional receiving equipment is required. One downside is that an adapter of some sort is usually required to listen over car speakers. Another downside is that there are a gazillion different listening applications. In the next installments, we'll cover those details and simplify the whole process of listening in the car.

Drive time radio in the 2010s (Part 1)

If you are a regular Interent radio listener, you are probably aware of the seemingly endless array of desktop radio listening options. You are probably also aware that as the Internet has grown and matured, it has transformed the very idea of what radio is. As the visionary Marshall McLuhan stated in 1964, "the medium is the message."

One "message" of the Internet radio medium is that high quality speciality programming has a chance of finding a sustainable audience, due to the sheer volume of potential listeners that are available. The thought that a specialty station like ours would be capable of drawing an audience the size of a small market AM or FM station was inconceivable a decade ago.

That said, one thing I loved about AM/FM radio as a kid was that each station I listened to was an expert at creating its own vibe through live DJ's, DJ selected music, news about the artists and concert info, etc. I loved picking up on that vibe as I rode to and from school as a kid or did my daily commute as an adult. But as Internet radio has come into its own and as AM/FM radio has moved into its senior years, it seems as if everywhere I turn, a computer is picking the music from some focus group driven algorithm. AM/FM radio DJs seem (and often are) just prerecorded. Nothing seems live!

At mountainchill.com we don't yet have the resources to have DJ's live 24/7, but we do often pop into our studio for a live set and we *do* pick the music in our playlist by hand. Spread the word and help us build our audience and I'm sure you'll be hearing even more live DJs.

As the Interent has matured it's content may increasingly be accessed through cell phones and other wireless devices. Yes, your cell phone *is* a radio in the most conventional sense of a wireless receiver and transmitter. And as an Internet radio receiver it can outperform other digital radio formats such as HD radio and satellite radio in several ways. (We'll examine that aspect later). But for now, we invite you to listen to us on your mobile phone, and, in the next few articles I'll outline how I listen in the car on my Android phone via our mobile page. The page loads automatically on most mobile phones. Stay tuned.

Mountain Chill on Droid

Great news. If you are a Verizon Wireless subscriber, you can now stream MountainChill on your Motorola Droid phone.

Just go to the Market and download/install droidlive. The light version is free. On our mobile home page (loads automatically on your Droid browser), click on ((listen)), the press "Play." That's it.

UPDATE: You can also find us on TuneWiki. Just search for "mountain chill" on the Shoutcast menu. We prefer the TuneWiki interface, but TuneWiki will not launch directly from our webpage. You must search for mountain chill.

Local listeners, since Verizon Wireless is the primary wireless provider within Ouray County, you will appreciate the opportunity to listen while out and about.

Windows Mobile

If trying to listen to Mountain Chill on Windows Mobile, the Windows Media Launch button will probably not work.
Thanks to Jerry Robertson for figuring out how to listen on Windows Mobile!

"What one needs to do is go to http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA032810/ to download the FREE GSPlayer. Install it on the Windows Mobile Device. Then go to the Listen page on the Mountainchill site. Click on the Shoutcast Player link. Save the PLS file to the Windows Mobile Device. Open GSPlayer and find the PLS file. Then enjoy."