How to Make an Internet Radio Station?

It’s a little easier to create your own radio station on the Internet than to open a broadcast. However, first, try to decide what you want to do, that is, decide the direction of your channel:

news;
political;
music;
historical and regional research;
tourist;
something else - may be completely unexpected.

Important! Of course, there is no such thing as a channel to broadcast one thing - music programs are full of short news, political programs - music sounds, and in local history or travel you can do anything. There’s music from this or that country or era playing, reading the news, talking about problems - and so on.

The face of the Internet channel

Based on the plan, an Internet page will be created. This is the business card of your radio station. Here's how to create it:

Find a simple, effective, and memorable address.
Order hosting.
Build an engine - you also need a PHP and SQL database.

Important! It is better to create a channel, not on your own server, but to subscribe to hosting. This guarantees good permeability. The number of listeners, in turn, depends on it. To determine how many people can listen to you at one time, divide the bandwidth by the quality of the broadcast.

The best option for creating your own radio station is a virtual server. It has many advantages:

static IP address;
high-speed connection;
you don't need a state-of-the-art computer with a powerful processor and large RAM.

Configuring the operating system

The radio server can run both Windows and Linux. It doesn't really matter. Each operating system has its own advantages. For example, there are more programs under Windows, including audio programs.

But Linux is cheaper and offers better protection against viruses or hackers.

Broadcaster

This is the main part of the radio station. It provides a combination of audio streams. Most owners use two programs when planning to create a radio station on the Internet:

IceCast2;
ShoutCast.

Important! Their abilities are about the same, so in this case, you only have to focus on your own taste. Both are accompanied by documents - albeit in English.

For a radio station to be active, the transmission must be set:

specify stream names;
specify parameters;
define switching rules;
set the security level (usually FireWall);
select the check box to make an exception for the port where the transmission is in progress.

Broadcast sound

The server can therefore be found with the software installed, the interface is complete. Now you have to do the most important thing you actually tried, which is to put the sound in the air.

There are three ways to submit it:

relay;
automatic transmission function;
straight, he is live, ether.

Relay

The relay is actually the "delivery point". This section accepts the radio station's ready-made links and directs them to the users, i.e. those who have joined the channel.

Important! With such a point, you can arrange a broadcast on a local network, for example, by capturing ready-made programs. This is a very convenient thing, even if you submit some of your programs, you will not be able to fulfill them. When the "windows" appear, you can print your broadcast by transmitting it to other radio stations.

The relay is good to make your own radio station and in other cases:

if you have a weak server;
if leaders change frequently.

Automatic transmission and direct transmission

There are a few programs that can accomplish this task. The choice depends on the operating system.

Option 1

If you have Windows, the following programs are right for you:

With Winamp Shoutcast plugin;
Radio boss;
SamBroadcaster.

Option 2

The best radio programs for Linux for your own radio stations are:

PHP cart
PulseAudio.