http://stream.jazzfm.com:8432/

Getting the station on air on Monday night was an incredible moment… and to hear Sarah Ward on air again with that particular blend of music was something very special – driving home later that night listening to Late Lounge on DAB in London was also a weird experience – the planning, creativity and hard work of so many people has come together and, although you may think I’m biased – I think it sounds great.

One thing I wasn’t prepared for – no-one can agree on the meaning of Jazz!  I think I’ll leave that to the programme team…

Over the next few weeks, once things are stable and we’ve ironed out any of the little glitches, we’re going to start looking at the technology behind this great station and what else it can deliver for you… and we’ll start the thoughts and discussions here.  We’re making embryonic use of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr – we’ve got people working on last.fm for you as well and a host of other ways in which we can develop a great station with our listeners.

We’re working on the glitches with the player – just to say we’re aware of issues with that page itself and our developer is working on it.

Our online audience is growing daily – it’s great to be able to see the real stats rather than putting our fingers in the air and relying on someone filling in a little book.  Whether you’re listening on Sky, DAB or online – the programme team would welcome your comments on the output to team@jazzfm.com.

Look out – our appearance on the Freesat EPG is imminent – watch press for details!  As I’ve said before, anyone with half an eye for the detail can probably add it themselves to any FTA receiver – but we like EPGs.  And Freesat is a particularly exciting platform, I feel.

OK – with that great Zero 7 track ringing in my ears, I feel it may be time to catch a moment’s sleep.

So, 4 days to go…  can’t wait, so looking forward to actually hearing this thing!

For those of you who haven’t yet noticed, we’ve got test audio up on Sky channel 0202 right now.  A minor hiccup with the EPG data on Monday morning – that’s what you get when you get a channel from another radio station that’s relaunching that day.

For the curious, the plan with DAB is that the audio will switch over on the North West, West Midlands & London DAB services during the day on Monday although you will find the station identification doesn’t change.  Glasgow and Wales & West will switch at 7pm along with the name change on all multiplexes.

Online stuff – we’re not averse to providing a higher bitrate AAC or AAC+ stream.  I may put one up tomorrow or on Friday as a test to sound out opinion.  I have to say, although it is FM radio and is further compromised by an APT-X codec link and MPEG satellite downlink, we currently supply our TLRC network late night programme from York using AAC encoding at just 80kbps – and increasing that to 128kbps didn’t produce any noticeable benefit on tests.  Granted we are doing the online stream with AAC+ rather than AAC and there are other variables involved – but I can’t hear a 128kbps stream sounding *twice* as good as 64kbps.  And there is only a fairly vocal minority shouting loudly at present…

But – just to clear up the argument – we’re not worried about the cost of the bandwidth (to us) or the server loads, or the link loads or anything – I’m under no financial restriction on providing this service.  However, salient points have been made by others regarding the cost to the end user.  A 64k stream will work more effectively on a 3G mobile than 128k for example.  Further, there are probably more broadband users than we think that have capped download packages.  Therefore, if we’re to provide 128k, we will continue to provide lower bandwidth options to allow as many people as possible to enjoy the service.  A 32k AAC+ service for dialup users may still appear!

I should say the health warnings on the stream “uptime” remain in place until Monday – it might well come up and down a bit in the next day or so as we get things like backups in place and check power management & backup routing options.

Hope you’re enjoying the tests.  There’s a particular section with Miles Davis, Anita Baker and Bill Withers tracks in close proximity that I’m not yet tired of hearing…

We’ll be launching on Sky (channel 0202), DAB and online on Monday, 6th October at 7pm.

We will be broadcasting on the following DAB multiplexes:

London: CE Digital Block 12C (replaces Real Radio at 128kbps)
South Wales & Severn Estuary: MXR Digital Block 12C (replaces Smooth Radio at 128kbps)
West Midlands: MXR Digital Block 12A (replaces Real Radio at 128kbps)
North-West: MXR Digital Block 12C (replaces Real Radio at 128kbps)
Glasgow: Score Digital Block 11D (replaces jazzfm.com at 128kbps)

Online at jazzfm.com.

We will be available on the Freesat EPG from late October.  Clever folk with a screwdriver may be able to find us on a FTA satellite receiver beforehand…

So – here you go.  Usual health warning – if it goes down, you can’t find it, you haven’t got the software to play it – we’re not a live service yet!  Our official launch is October 6th at 7pm – but thought you’d like to listen in to what we’re up to at the mo…

Windows Media: http://tlrc.as34763.net/live.asx?station=jazz1

Shoutcast aacPlus stream: http://stream.jazzfm.com:8000/listen.pls

So, hoping to get this pre-launch ‘test’ URL out to you in the next day or so; once we’ve done all our final checks and put in our backup links and redundant equipment.  You’ll understand, I’m sure.

People keeping asking about the Sky thing – again, once we’ve got absolutely all our ducks in order, we’ll crank that up too.  It won’t be this week but it will be before the official launch… watch this space.  There’s also a small chance we may start earlier than 6th October on the DAB muxes – but no promises, mind.  Things are cooking back here.

Someone asked on another post whether it would all be voicetracked and I wondered if that really mattered.  Sitting here listening to this audio – effectively a non-stop bunch of bits of music in a row – you kind of think “what’s special about that”?  I can do that on my iPod.  But for me, the magic of radio and in particular the stations which have behind them hugely professional programmers – is that feeling of divesting your listening pleasure to the “idea” – call it what you will – the brand, the club.  Being part of a bunch of people in the same community, listening to the same thing at the same time and hearing the presenter enthuse about that music.  There’s no presenter on the music I’m listening to right now but Mike put it all together – you can feel his passion for the music in the selections.  You get a feeling that someone apart from you absolutely cared about putting that stuff together.

And I can say for certain, we all do.  Putting this stuff together has given us an interesting tangent from the day job of looking after local radio services across the UK.  We care a lot about that as well – sometimes you listen to a bit of great local radio and get the same feeling – but we’ve all been really excited by this great new thing.  And I think that excitement will come through in the programmes you hear whether live or voicetracked.