Easier said than done. That doesn't mean you can't do it.  Anyone who wants to learn can do it for free.  This procedure should be enough to get you started.

This is a brief tutuorial that describes how to setup your own internet radio station from your home PC.  You can use a large server, or make your own PC a server.  There are large servers available for free from www.Listen2myRadio.com.  Running your own server is much more complicated.

This is just a basic procedure that assumes you have good computer skills.  Broadcasting your own stream is kind-of a computer-geek thing to do, and you are going to need a powerful PC (most that play URU are powerful), but there is no reason why everybody cannot learn to do it.  Ignore the quotes when entering info from this procedure.  GOOD LUCK!

First things first: If you are using your own PC as a server, then you will need to have control over any routers and/or firewalls between you and the internet.  This can be kinda complicated for someone not familiar with such things.  Try the rest of this procedure first, but if it just will not work, then check your router's User Manual (usually on the CD) for instructions on "DMZ", "Port Forwarding", "Services" or "Application Access".  You will need to allow ports 8000 & 8001 thru the firewall/router.    Some cable & DSL modems have a “hidden” or built-in router.  You may not even know it is there.  If your PC's IP address starts with 192.168.xxx.xxx, then you are behind a router.  If you are using a remote server, the router is not an issue.

On the PC you will need three programs.  They are Winamp, The ShoutCast Server (unless you are using a remote), and the Winamp Source Plugin for ShoutCast.  Winamp is a very powerful and flexible media player.  It is made by NullSoft who also makes ShoutCast.

There is a lot of help to be had on www.ShoutCast.com and www.Winamp.com for setting up the server and the source plugin.  Once you get all three installed, you will need to configure them.  I cannot describe everything step by step here, so you will need to read the instructions on the website(s).  I will describe the basic setup for the Server and the Plugin.

The "Server" (ShoutCast DNAS thingy) is only needed if you want to use your own PC as a server.  It has an "Edit Config" button in it's top menu that opens the configuration file.  You need to read this entire file and understand how to edit it.  You will want to change the "MaxUser=", the "Password=" and the "TitleFormat=" entries.  TitleFormat should be whatever you want to appear on the listener's player.  Including "%s" in this value will pass the track information along to the listener's player.  Use this: "TitleFormat=UruTunes.com | %s".  You would change UruTunes.com to the "name" of your station.

The Winamp Plugin has 4 tabs at the top.  You will want to make changes to two of them (Output & Encoder).  There are multiple "Outputs" and "Encoders" but we'll only be using #1.  On the Output tab, there are two buttons midway down called "Connection" & "Yellowpages".  Connection tells the plugin about your Server (DNAS thingy), the Yellowpages tells your Server about your broadcast so it can pass the info to the listener's player.  Press "Connection" and enter the password you set in the Server config file (or the one for your remote server along with the address).  Everything else stays the same. Check the boxes marked "Connect on startup" and "Automatic Reconnection...".  Press "Yellowpages" and enter the name of your current playlist (what type of broadcast you are doing right now) under "Description".  You can enter a URL for your broadcast to show a link on your info page.  This can be whatever you like.  We'd like you to put "http://www.UruTunes.com" (no quotes).  Just make sure it has the "http://" or it will not work.

Some key things to remember are:

The PORT setting for both the Server and Source Plugin must be the same (8000 by default is fine, so no changes are needed).  Remote servers typically use a different port and you will get it from the remote server's administrator.

If you are Self Serving, then your Source bitrate will dictate how many listeners you can serve.  For example (my setup): I have standard Cable internet at 7 mbps downstream and 512 kbps upstream (only upstream counts).  Simple division shows that if I stream at 24 kpbs, I can fit just over 20 users.  So, I set my ShoutCast Server to a limit of 20 users.  I use the lowest quality [24kpbs ~ 22,050khz ~ Mono] setting to maximize users.  My investigations have shown that it still sounds pretty good even on a high-end sound system.  If more people are listening than your bandwidth can handle, the listeners will hear skipping in the stream.  If you have a remote server, the number of listeners is usally fixed regardless of the bitrate.

Don't forget to tell the Admin what your broadcast URL is.  It will look something like this: "http://yourip#orhostname.com:8000/".  You can get a cool, free "Dynamic Hostname" from www.DynDNS.org that will always point to your IP address even if it changes.  This is great for home users with dynamic IPs.  To be listed on UruTunes, you MUST have a host name that does not change.

A note about using a remote server (not using the DNAS Thingy).  If you have a remote server to use, then you don't need the DNAS Thingy. You just need Winamp and the plugin. Under the Connection Button on the YellowPages tab, you put in the address, port and password for the remote server instead of "localhost", etc.  When setting your encoder, you should use whatever maximum bitrate the remote server can handle. Our Community Server can do 128kbps Stereo and still handle 50 listeners. This is near-CD Quality and is best. If you have a DSL or other slow internet connection, you may need to reduce that to 64kbps Stereo to keep it from skipping.