Dear Google Answers:
  I recently moved from Boston to northern New Jersey, close to New
York City.  I also work in Northern New Jersey.  There is a favorite
radio station that I used to listed to in Boston and I want to know if
there is any way that I can pick this station up in northern New
Jersey.  The stations website, www.weei.com, used to stream their
audio broadcasts, but has stopped doing so for over a year now.  My
workplace is approximately 215 miles from Boston, and my home is
approximately 220 miles from Boston.  This station, WEEI 850 AM, also
simulcasts its broadcasts with WEEI 103.7 FM in Providence, Rhode
Island.  Providence is approximately 185 miles from where I work and
190 miles from where I live.  If I could pick up the Providence
station (which is a very powerful signal), that would be just as good.
 The station also simulcasts its broadcasts with WVEI 1440 AM in
Worcester, MA, which is a much weaker signal, but since Worcester is
only 185 miles from both my home and my workplace, if I could somehow
pick up that signal here, that would also be just as good.  Is there
any website out there that lets you listen to any radio station in the
world including WEEI 850 AM in Boston?  That too would satisfy my
request.  Is there a special type of radio that can pick up station
signals that are 200 miles away?  Is there a special type of antenna
that can be attached to a regualar radio that can pick up stations
that are 200 miles away?  Is there any other device other than a radio
or the internet (if radio and internet are both incapable of picking
up the WEEI signal from New Jersey) that can pick up a radio station's
signal 200 miles away?  Please let me know if this can be done, and
where I can go to buy such a radio, antenna, or other device.  An
additional problem is that New York has a very powerful radio station
signal, 880 AM, that could interfere with 850 AM.  If I could pick up
850 AM on a special type of radio or antenna, how can it do so without
interference from 880 AM in New York?  Any answer that can
successfully allow me to listen to WEEI 850 AM from New Jersey through
any medium ASAP would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

Without acutally doing any reading, you can get your radio station off
the air in one of two ways:

1) FM is line of sight.  Get a directional (Yagi) antenna (like a TV
antenna) way up on a pole so that antenna can 'see' the broadcast
tower.  Then hook that antenna to your radio.  The GE Super Radio is
really good for this.

2) AM, at night at least, will 'bounce' off the atmosphere, and you
may be able to tune in if you have a very selective radio that can
reject the stronger adjacent station.  Again, the GE Super Radio works
well for this.

Over the internet, you can set up your own 'webcast' if you have a
friend with a broadband connection back in the reception area.  Set up
a PC with "Shoutcast" or another streaming audio server, and use it to
broadcase the audio from the radio station, as fed into the sound
card.  This will require quite a bit of technical work, as well as an
always-on connection back in Boston.

Just a couple of thoughts.  Perhaps another researcher can check the
FCC databases to find the power output, tower location and height of
the FM towers, and calculate how tall of a tower you would need in New
Jersey to get the line of site reception.

If your AM receiver has a ferrite bar type antenna, try moving it
around. This type antenna is more directional than the usual all-metal
whip antenna.
These are two off-the shelf products I know of:
Select-A-Tenna selectatenna.com
Terk AM Advantage terk.com

Hello,

I have an answer for you. I too worked in boston and know that you can
create a private stream to listen to WEEI. You would need to have
someone in the area to have a spare PC (a very old one will do) and a
radio that has a earphone connector. Use an open source/freeware
software like shoutcast (www.shoutcast.com) I have done this so that I
can listen to the very same station in Northern Vermont. You can
connect to my stream but will have to send along your email address to
me through this post. It was quite helpful during the World Series
run.

A little addition to what I said:

You can create your own stream by getting a low end PC connected to an
always on internet connection. Maybe you have a friend that lives in
the area? Download shoutcast from www.shoutcast.com. You will need
their console mode application and their plugin DSC to winamp. You can
download winamp at www.winamp.com
 Follow the instructions for installing the plugin and console
application. I would also recommend a program remote viewing program
like PCAnywhere or VNC. The shoutcast application needs to be
restarted from time to time.
  The only issue that I see with using a home connection is that its
IP address will change from time to time. You could write a VBS script
to look up its IP address and email you the new IP address when it
changes. Some ISPs block some ports but you can specify the on the
shoutcast console program and should be able to get through most ISP
firewalls.
  Make sure if you are behind a firewall or a router that you create a
DMZ to the PC so that any calls to the IP will be routed to the PC.
  The only other issue is that MLB and WEEI stream baseball games on
M-L-B.com and you should not listen to games through this stream then.
I would recommend buying the annual stream from M-L-B.com so that you
would not violate any aseball rules.
  After you are set up, you can stream your station by connecting to
the IP thusly http://<your_IP_Address>:8000/listen.pls. The stream can
be set at the lowest settings I have mine at 24kbps at 22khz mono.
This is perfectly fine and
great sound quality and is not taxing of most connections. I have had
friends in Saudi arabia (no lie) listen to the stream to catch up on
BOston happenings.
     Its a shame that WEEI's parent E n t e r c o m  is so unwilling
to allow them to stream. They decided this for all their stations -
eventhough they were concerned with just financial liabilities in
relation to the FCC decision about streaming music.

Good luck...

Thank you very much, weei-answers!  I have been waiting for such a ong
time to hear WEEI again, and it looks like I might be able to.  I was
just wondering: If I were to download shoutcast and follow its
instructions, what would my contact in Boston have to do?  Would they
need to hook up a radio to their computer?  Stupid question: If my
contact in Boston would have a DSL connection (which is always
connected), could this audio stream be done with the computer turned
off?  What other steps would have to be followed by my contact in
Boston for this to work?  My e-mail address is: brightoner1@yahoo.com.
 Thank you very much for offering to let me connect to your stream. 
Ideally, I would like my own stream so as not to overburden you, but
for the time being, this will do, as I try to work out the logistics
of an audio stream.  If only I would have heard from someone like you
before the World Series run.  Thank you very much again for your
reply!

The World Series run was great. My brother and friends really enjoyed
having the stream up and running for that. I am replying to you here
so others may learn what to do. I will separate my directions into two
parts, the server and the client. This is like the transmitter and the
receiver.

The Server (the transmitter):

What you need:
 - old PC 
 - radio with a headphone/earphone out connection
 - 1/8 inch jack to a 1/8th inch jack 6ft cable 
 - always on internet connection.
 - shoutcast DSP (http://www.shoutcast.com/download/serve.phtml)
  - winamp http://www.winamp.com
  - shoutcast/winamp plugin (http://www.shoutcast.com/download/broadcast.phtml)
 - winVNC (http://www.realvnc.com/download.html)

All the above are free ...

You must connect the radio tuned to your radio station and connect the
1/8 to 1/8 cable to the "mic" or line in connection on the sound card
of your PC. This PC must be located so that it can receive your
station (W E E I). The PC must always be on to stream this connection.
Sometimes an old laptop works nice too, because it is quite small and
doesn't make alot of noise.
  The VNC product is a remote control program (there are better
programs out ther but this is free) You will need to set it up in
server mode. you will need to use this when there is something wrong
with your stream and you need to get on your transmitting computer. It
is better not to bug the person who is hooking you up all the time,so
you can fix things yourself.
Winamp is who created this whole setup and the product works whrough
the winamp program. The shoutcast winamp plugin is run on the
transmitting computer and converts your radio input into a digital
signal and then sends it to the Shoutcast server program.
 The shoutcast server, receives the stream from the winamp/shoutcast
plugin and then allows other computers to receive its signal. You will
need the computers IP address to connect to it via another computer.
As I said before, if this computer is behind a firewall or router, you
should create a DMZ to allow it to run. You can follow the routers
manual to figure out how to do this.

The Client/receiver:

You need to have:
 - computer (of course)
 - vnc (app mode)
 - real player or winamp

very simple part here. You just need vnc if somthing is not working
and you need to connect to the server computer. otherwise use
realplayer or winamp to listen to your stream.

what would be nice here is that you should document what you have done
and let others know how to do this. I think I am one of the only
people doing this on a prirat basis, but I think that it would get
some stations (especially talk radio stations to stream their
stations)

BTW: you may find a simpler way to do this, I have seen a coupe of
other products out there. I will email you personally and we can
converse more about
what you need to to.

I hope I answered all your questions as well. But just to review, the
radio and PC would have to be on all the time for this to work.


Merry Xmas,
- W E E I  A N S W E R S