This should be common sense but a lot of people don't seem to learn. Okay if you live outside the US these things may not be the norm but for the rest of us if you don't know these things you probably shouldn't be in the hobby unless you're still in the learning stage.
MUSIC: Some people still don't know how to get music to play on their shows. For the pirate you don't have to give a shit about rights or paying. So why do you care? You don't have to. Get out every last one of your Mom/Dads records and keep them avail. That's a joke really though. If you run a music station you need real music. Get on LAST.FM They have more music that is avail. then you could dream of. Check youtube.com also. Even though they are a video site the audio can be reasonable. Find material that sounds good to the ears. Even comedy bits that at first seem only to be a visual thing you can close your eyes to and see if it's still funny and if so air it.
LOCAL LIBRARY: Why the hell are so many people that are pirates not involved with the very things much like themselves and believe in the same things as they? Your library is probably the thing that got you into pirate radio if you're like me. They provide the books on electronics, RF design, ARRL stuff, and much more. Did you not think they also provide music? It's not only what they provide either. That is so 1985 if you're still checking out material from YOUR library. Today there is interlibrary loans, libraries connected town to town w/i your branch. I sure hope my librariens don't read this, but I check out CDs from other libraries up to a few 100 miles away and they send them to me for free. It doesn't cost a penny on my part, and all I do is copy the tracks to my computers media in MP3 format for later airing.
There is a ton of online material. I love listening to SW pirates but most of them are playing old school stuff. Sure classic music is good, records are wonderful but do you really think that AM bandwidth is going to give way to your medium of choice. We aren't talking FM here. If we were then I would be yelling at you to get the best deviation quality possible and play those old records because you can hear the quality. But AM is good "enough".
I am going to get hate mail over that last bit. I just can't believe people who are into this hobby don't reach out more for material to play. Where I live I have picked up a few pirates on FM and they were playing stuff that sounded like shit. MP3s that sounded compressed to shit. I have heard a few SW pirates who just didn't get it when it came to modulation quality. I hate to say it but the only pirate I have catched so far who had good audio worth listening to was MAC. That kid knows how to modulate lol.
AM doesn't have to sound bad. It's just the stations today. Just because it's mono doesn't mean shit. If you play good music, have good EQing over your modulation quirks and two ears you can do it.
Most of all get rid of those negative modulation peaks, use HIGH level modulation much like the high level THC you are smoking. Tubes VS solid state doesn't matter much in the end product imho.
YT is phenominal. I find I'm using t more and more for getting both vids and music than a few years ago. YT has full length movies and obscure TV shows also. I disscovered "Thread's" and "The War Game" here - and since bought the DVD (PAL format of course) of threads via the UK Amazon.
I used this gem for downloading Music (YT has full albums - I like the old stuff never played on radio - 1970 Genesis "Nersery Crymes" and Country Joe and the Fish albums. Cold War Era rockabilly (Terisa Brewer) is like (also all over YT).
for vids I used this gem (still hoping to get into LPTV - If Berkely does not deliver, I'fe found PCS offers an equivalent for the same 650 bucks (and its looks more professional too - Cybermax 10 watter VHF-high band)
......................noticed your mention of winamp - ya great program, but does not support "Gapless" playback (at least the 2.XX versions (only verson series I liked) - but I found another that does and has a Winamp Skin too. It my current favorite mp3 playback software (it support most old winmap plugins so stuff I used to used like the software limiter "Tom's Compressor" may work (I've been "down" for 3+ yrs due to old station PC now gone)
For cassettes you'll need ebay and look for ION Tape 2 PC Dual Cassette Deck USB Archiver Analog to Digital Recorder
With one of those cannons, you can successfully convert any vinyl record or cassettes tape into digital, PC files for over the air or online usage both. Just like ripping a cd works, you can separate the tracks automatically or set to manual. With the free software but the hardware is nothing too expensive but it I s not free though.
Holy Bible verse about charity
Acts 20:35 - Acts 20:35: It is more blessed to give than to receive.
the ION's must be loaded with the artist and track titles as well as the album name in some cases, after transferring them into digital recordings, they were meant to be used to preserve most of the 20th century audio, for usage with today's devices and airwaves.
However, they are not cheap like I mentioned I paid about $110-$150 US for mine back in 2009 on amazon. but I only have 1940's and some 1950's and 1960's music that I found. Edit besides a big Cd collection.
They were sealed Readers Digest Cassettes my family had stored away in some cabinet; I found them and recorded them in and transferred them to FLAC/MP4 recordings. but like I said you need to manually type in the artist and the song titles for your station to reach max potential while using them over the internet,
or sometimes you if you got the correct equipment, you can actually get your display on FM radio but only some FM radios can read FM/AM/Shortwave metadata
No i did not steal anything, I had permission, they belonged to my long-deceased grandmother's mother. They belong to me now.
Holy Bible verse about charity
Acts 20:35 - Acts 20:35: It is more blessed to give than to receive.
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