MilAir feed is now up, making progress on improvements

Ever since I started posting military air activity, people have been asking for a way they could listen in on line.  About a week ago, I started a fund-raising campaign, with one of the goals being to get a feed up that people can listen to. Six of you jumped right in and contributed, and I'm happy to announce the feed is now online on LiveATC.net (search for KBOS).

A few items of interest about the feed. First, there may be long periods of silence. This is normal, because the frequencies covered aren't always in use. Secondly, there are still some improvements in the works. Right now the feed is hooked up to my only digital scanner, which I don't like having tied up that way. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up a used base scanner in the $100 range to use to provide the feed. There's also more interference and worse reception in the room with the desktop I'm using for the feed, so I'll be picking up some supplied to move the antenna away from the computer and closer to the window, and a UHF RF filter to help keep the noise level down (about another $100). I've already got a brand new desktop to host the feed on, I'm just waiting for a new monitor so I can hook it up. I'm guessing the newer/better sound card that's in there will help things out a little, too.

The ability for everyone to listen in isn't the only improvement the new setup brings. It also means I have a local recording of the traffic, which I've been using cuts of to add audio to the Facebook page posts. It also means that things are monitored essentially 24/7, as opposed to before, when it was about four hours a day five days a week. Having the audio available has also motivated me to start doing daily logs of the military activity.

Besides the $200 mentioned above, I still have about $700 worth of upgrades that need to be made. Please, if you enjoy the live stream (and it will only get better!), or if you've ever thought to yourself "I'm glad all this is free to me, even if I'd gladly pay a small amount for it", or "I'd like to buy that AlertNewEngland guy a beer", consider making a small contribution. It will go a long way towards increasing everyone's enjoyment!