Recent changes at Radio Meltdown

We like to  think we keep on making RADIO MELTDOWN a great place to visit, to tune in and to have fun with!   Recently, we’ve made some changes we hope will enhance everyone’s enjoyment of the experience.

"We can dance if we want to . . . ."

Mercury, our erstwhile and plucky major domo bot has long been able to take requests in the IRC channels that sponsor us and convey them to the live DJ, and this has been fun for all.  Now Mercury has joined the Twitterverse!  He has his own Twitter nickname - @RMRequests -  and he’s busily tweeting out all the selections played on Radio Meltdown’s stream.  We decided to give him his own Twitter account so that the Radio Meltdown timeline wouldn’t just be a long string of #NowPlaying posts;  we wanted the Radio Meltdown account  to be used for announcements, schedules and things of note for our friends and fans. 

Radio Meltdown: DJ`Twisted`Chaos is #NowPlaying Blackmore's Night - Castles And Dreams
— Mercury (@RMRequests) February 15, 2013

 Additionally, Mercury  will now also take requests via Twitter, and you don’t have to follow him to do so.  Just send him a little message, such as “@RMRequests !request Artist – Song Title” and any of our live DJs will get that message and play your song for you.  You can even add a little dedication note following the request if you desire, but start the message with the format indicated; you are, after all, dealing with a bot!

@rmrequests !Request The Pixies - Where Is My Mind (dedicated to my good friend Belle)
— Jason aka dj cubbie (@djcubbie) February 9, 2013

While presently the !Request function only works with our live DJs, we are working on implementing it for Mercury's autodj function as well, so that you can always hear your favorite tunes on Radio Meltdown!  We are also working on a web page request function for those that don’t have Twitter accounts.  Stay tuned to Radio Meltdown and this blog for announcements.

Speaking of our stream, we recently upgraded our speed from the initial 64 kbs to a beautifully clear 96 kbs, and we hope you enjoy the difference.  Many of our regular listeners have commented approvingly upon the change and we are glad they like it.  We think you will, too.  The website players also get the new higher speed stream.

In response to requests from some of our listeners around the world, we’ve added two auxiliary streams to our station.  The first is a stream for those who need a low-speed connection to Radio Meltdown because of bandwidth issues, either dial-up or shared connections or even for some mobile phones.  This stream is broadcasting at 32 kbs, and while that is not as high as our normal stream, it still sounds great!  And the lower bandwidth demand makes it a good choice when that is an issue.

The second auxiliary stream came about because some of our listeners reported difficulty connecting to our regular stream.   So we set up a secondary stream at 96 kbs to act as a kind of relay for those who can’t connect to us at our usual RadioMeltdown.org  domain addresses or the IP for the stream itself.  Both the dial-up and this secondary full speed stream are slightly lagged behind the main stream, but not seriously so.

Both streams have web pages with Flash players tuned to their respective streams, but you may load the stream addresses into your favorite media player and connect directly.  Unfortunately, at the present time, the individual song data is unavailable.

To connect to our Dial-up stream:

Listen to the stream directly:     http://184.173.187.9:9057

Web Page with Flash player:     http://RadioMeltdown.listen2myradio.com

To connect to the auxiliary full-speed stream:

Listen to the stream directly:     http://78.129.234.99:23526

Web Page with Flash player:     http://radiomeltdown2.listen2myradio.com

As always, RADIO MELTDOWN thanks you all for your support and hopes you’ll keep tuning in as we continue to make the station a fun place to be!

And tell your friends!