LTR Parody’s

The Taxi Garage which is home to London Taxi Radio has been undergoing a refurbishment over the last couple of months which meant that the office where the main computer was housed had no internet or electricity (not very good for a computer running a Radio Station).

Whilst these works were going on we moved the Radio Station onto a Windows VPS Server that we rented from a company in London, we had trialled a small VPS server with them during the month before the planned refurb of the office but decided we needed more space and power to run the station.

For the first month we had a couple of teething problems that we quickly sorted and then when the second month came along the station was running lovely on its new VPS home, so much so that we were considering leaving it there as the connection speeds were a lot faster and obviously data centres have UPS backup in case of power failures which meant the station would be more stable on a VPS in the data centre. Also the power consumption that a computer uses could be offset against the of renting the VPS.

The VPS server that we rented is nothing to do with our radio servers that we rent as they are rented from a different company who we are extremely happy with and who has and is giving us fantastic service at a really great price.

So everything was running really well so you can imagine my surprise when on Wednesday i received an email stating that the company who rented us the VPS server were to be ceasing that service from midnight on 19th June, yes the same day even though the email was dated 18th June I never received it until the 19th!

Luckily the refurb of the office at the Taxi Garage was completed on the 17th and I had re-installed the radio station computer and switched it on just in case of an emergency!

So hastily while sitting at the Oak eating my dinner i had to log onto the VPS and deactivate the Radio Station software and then log onto the station computer at the garage and reactivate the software and switch the station over which all went very well and the station was back up and running.

There was just one problem!!! I had forgotten to plug in the external hard drive which is where all of the shows and music is stored Doh!

So for a few hours all London Taxi Radio was playing was one Jingle followed by another Jingle until it found some old shows and aired them.

So now we are back to normal and running at full power and a normal schedule will resume from 7:00am on Sunday 23rd June.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused our listeners but this was totally beyond our control and had the VPS company given us a little more notice we could have planned the switch over to be a lot smoother.

Thank You for bearing with us, London Taxi Radio is a new radio station and we are learning all the time.

Please take a minute to participate in our survey about London Taxi Radio

Click here to take survey

Well it’s been just over 7 months since I originally had the idea that we needed a Radio Station specially for the Taxi Trade.

We are now at a point where we actually have something that is worth listening to rather than just having a music rotation program playing just music and jingles.

We are now airing some very good pre recorded shows from some of the best names in the business and some Live shows from both Taxi drivers and some very good presenters from outside of the trade.

Over the next couple of weeks we will also be adding some pre recorded shows from Taxi drivers who have already started to record shows for us.

We also now have our remote show scripts and programming working which essentially means that if you are a driver who is interested in doing a radio show you will now be able to do it from the comfort of your own home, we can set you up with all the software needed to enable you to achieve this. If you do not want to do a show from home you can of course come into the studio Monday to Thursday during office hours and do your show with our help.

We also want more people from within the trade to get involved with London Taxi Radio doing shows either Live or pre recorded, we will give you all the help and advice needed to get you up and running and doing your own show on LTR.

It’s been a long time and a hell of a lot of hard work to get London Taxi Radio to where it is now and we now need you the trade to get involved. We have various organisations within the trade who have expressed and interest in doing shows on LTR and this will kick off very soon with Johnathon from the UCG coming into the studio to join Mark Taylor in the Afternoon every Wednesday which will hopefully build up to him doing his own show on LTR.

We are really excited that we have got to where we are now and do hope that everyone in our trade will Tune In and embrace LTR as we feel it could be a very expressive medium for our trade. We have a lot of passionate people within our trade and the spoken word is often expressed in a far better way than that of the written word.

If you are interested in doing a show on LTR then please take a look at our schedule, please don’t be put off if the time that you would like to do your show is already taken as we are very flexible with our pre recorded shows and we can easily move them around to accommodate Taxi Drivers who after all is what LTR is all about.

For those who want to do pre recoded shows or Live shows we can supply you with all the LTR Jingles and also get some personalised ones made up for you and your show.

So please get in touch if you are interested, please send an email to admin@londontaxiradio.co.uk or send us a Tweet @londontaxiradio or put a message on our Facebook page http://facebook.com/LondonTaxiRadio or send us a message on Skype, our username is londontaxiradio

We do hope that you enjoy the new sound of London Taxi Radio and please keep checking back is we are constantly working on continually improving the station for the benefit of the Taxi Trade

We have ordered our London Taxi Radio Apps for both iPhone and Android which  are being developed as we speak.

We will let you know as soon as they are available in the Apps Store and Google Play.

Finally TuneIn have updated our stream details, we apologise to our listeners for any inconvenience that this disruption has caused.

We now have 6 streams running through TuneIn Radio so you can choose which one you would like to listen to according to your mobile data plan and listening requirements.

TuneIn is a great app it’s just a pity that their support seems to be somewhat lacking, we were made aware that we were not the only station who were having problems updating our details with TuneIn.

Thankfully everything is back to normal now and you can once again Tune In and listen to the New Voice of the London Taxi Trade, London Taxi Radio.

We are still going ahead with developing our own app which will make the station more accessible for drivers but we are undecided between native apps and a HTML5 Web App, with native apps you have to build one for each device whereas with a HTML5 Web App it should theoretically be cross device compatible, the pros for native apps is that they are easier to download and install but the cons are the costs of developing an app for each device and should the need for updating arise then the cost is multiple whereas with a HTML5 Web App its just one update. We hope to have something available before our launch date on Monday 4th March 2013.

Also don’t forget that you can also Tune In to London Taxi Radio via the web player that we installed which will play in the background please click here Web Player

Thank you for your patience and cooperation while we sorted the problem with TuneIn Radio

Finally TuneIn Radio have responded to our update request and have updated our stream information so we are pleased to inform you that you can once again Tune In to London Taxi Radio using TuneIn Radio App.

It seems as though TuneIn Radio have lost the plot at the moment as they are not answering any emails and it seems that we are not the only station who are having problems with TuneIn. Currently if you tune to London Taxi Radio via TuneIn Radio you will hear a station that has absolutely nothing to do with us whatsoever.

TuneIn are not answering emails from stations or from users of the app, we are not sure if they are in some sort of trouble but there does not seem to be any life at TuneIn.

This has prompted us to start looking at alternative ways for our mobile listeners to tune in to London Taxi Radio and some of the options on the table are native apps or a HTMLS Web App.

If you want to listen to London Taxi Radio we have set up a temporary player that should work across all devices as it is not flash based please just point your web browser at http://londontaxiradio.co.uk/mobile

We hope to have this problem with TuneIn Radio resolved as soon as they start communicating with people again.

Would you like to start your own Radio Station?

Would you like your own branded content and regional topical shows?

During the setting up of London Taxi Radio we have gained a wealth of knowledge on how to set up and run an internet radio station as easily as a two way radio.

We could supply you with a complete package including your own Radio Server, Shoutcast or Icecast, your own Radio Automation software a lot of which can be had for free.

We can help to get your station listed on all the major internet radio station directories.

We can provide you with your own station imaging and branding either through our own in house production studio or via our radio imaging company.

We can also provide you with syndicated radio shows for when you have no live programming.

We can also submit your licensing application if you want to run the station in your own right, or you could become part of Taxi Radio and just produce your own regional local news, chat and talk shows between our main broadcast programs.

Our package would include the following:

Radio Servers
Radio Automation Software
Generic Radio Jingles
Station Imaging
Website

It does not have to be as expensive as you think and can be started for just a few pounds per month.

If you are interested in either getting involved with Taxi Radio (London) or running your own Taxi based Radio Station then please get in touch admin [@] londontaxiradio.co.uk

We have quickly put together a mobile radio player that will work on all devices

Please click on the link below and save it to your home screen

Mobile Radio Player

If you save to your home screen that will add a little icon.

The player will continue to play in the background

To create a custom URL feed from our servers is quite simple

Just open TuneIn Radio > Go to your Favourites > Scroll to the bottom > Add new custom URL

Then add the following details

For 128Kbps MP3 Stereo please add the URL below

http://s1.londontaxiradio.co.uk:7770

For 64Kbps MP3 Stereo please add the URL below

http://s1.londontaxiradio.co.uk:7854

For 24Kbps AAC+ Stereo please add the URL below

http://s1.londontaxiradio.co.uk:7856

For 12Kbps AAC+ Mono please add the URL below

http://s1.londontaxiradio.co.uk:7858

For 64Kbps MP3 Stereo Mobile optimised stream please add the URL below

http://s2.londontaxiradio.co.uk:7600/stream

For 24Kbps MP3 Stereo Mobile optimised stream please add the URL below

http://s2.londontaxiradio.co.uk:7601/stream

Then save the custom URL to your favourites as you would with any other station by pressing the little heart shape in the top right hand corner of the screen.

You are then good to go and do not need to rely on TuneIn Radio updating their links

Due to the server move in early January we needed to update the server links with TuneIn Radio which we duly did just over 1 week ago, normally it only takes them a day of two to update things from their end but it looks as though they have not updated the radio server details so London taxi Radio is now not available via TuneIn Radio App for the time being.

You can however tune in and listen via the website or by pointing your browser to one of the following links

Server 1

Server 2

Server 3

We hope that the links in TuneIn Radio will be back up and working very soon.

We apologise for any inconvenience but unfortunately once again this is out of our control.

We are currently trialling a new News Service from a company called Feature Story News (FSN)

If this News service is stable and reliable we make add this as an ongoing feature of London Taxi Radio.

Please let us know what you think.

We are currently trialling a couple of new stream technologies.

We are now running 3 streams that are optimised for any mobile device and will play in any modern mobile telephone web browser.

This brings our total streams at present up to 7.

We also now have unlimited user slot on all of our streams so no one should ever get locked out.

We now have the capability of easily having over 25,000 listeners at the same time.

We will keep you informed of the progress on these new streams.

Our launch date has now been confirmed as Monday 4th March 2013.

The day will kick off at 10:00am and have a full day of shows for your listening pleasure so please tune in and get involved, this station is about you the London Taxi Drivers.

We will be having a phone in hour during the day and we will be giving away a few prizes to some lucky listeners.

So put the date in your diary and don’t forget to tune in.

We are offering all new advertisers 2 months free advertising on London Taxi Radio, that’s right, 2 months free.

All you need to do is send us your voice advert in mp3 format and we will broadcast it for you free of charge for 2 months from today.

There are no guarantees as to how often your advert will be aired but it will be heard at least once per day.

If you do not have an advert we can make one for you in house for £20 or we can have one made for you through our radio imaging company for £50.

This offer will expire on 4th April 2013 so get in quick and let the taxi trade know about your company.

We are now ready to start training DJs/Presenters in the use of the equipment that we have in the studio so if you are interested in getting involved with London Taxi Radio and and doing a show or two then please get in touch and we can arrange a time for you to come in and have a play with the system.

If you are one of those who prefer to do a show from the comfort of your own home then we also have something that you may be interested in, we can supply you with all the software that you need to broadcast to our servers from the comfort of your own home. So if this is something that you would be interested in doing then also please get in touch. You can either come into the studio and we can set the software up for you or one of us can meet you in town out one of the cabbies favourite watering holes and set up your laptop for you. The software that we have runs in Windows but can also be run on a Mac if you have Windows installed in a virtual box.

We will supply you with all the London taxi Radio Jingles and also the software and effects to make your own personalised Jingles.

So if you have ever wanted to have a go at radio presenting or being a DJ then please get in touch now, we will be training people and installing software throughout February for drivers who are interested.

It looks as though we once again may have to delay our Launch Date due to the fact that PPL have yet to confirm our license or send through our license certificate.

This is a setback that is beyond our control, our PRS license is in place and has been effective since 1st January 2013 but we still await PPL to confirm everything even though we filled in the application is December and filed all the paperwork at the beginning of January.

It now looks as though we may have to reschedule our launch for Monday 4th March 2013 which will be 2 months behind our original planned launch date.

We apologise for this but it is totally beyond our control.

We are currently going through the process of moving our Radio Servers to a new Hosting provider, there are a few reasons for this move.

1. More reliable support from the new host

2. More reliable streams from the new host

3. Cost

4. Real UK based servers, our previous hosting company led us to believe that their servers were UK based when in fact they are based in Southern France!

So if you have our radio stream bookmarked then please visit the website and update your bookmark, the new streams have already been added to the website, the old stream will work until 1st February when they will no longer work.

For those who listen via TuneIn Radio, the server links within TuneIn should be updated sometime during the coming week and you should not notice any downtime at all.

Coming Soon, iPhone & Android Apps, we are currently looking at a range of developers for Apps, we are hoping to have both Apps available very soon, these Apps are able to run in the background whilst you use other Apps on your device

London Taxi Radio would like to wish all its listeners and supporters a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Come and join us at London Taxi Radio for one of our last Test Broadcast of the year before we launch in the New Year.

All Request Monday night hosted by Supercabby

Send you requests in via Twitter @londontaxiradio or email: studio@londontaxiradio.co.uk

This will be the second to last All Request Monday Night of 2012 with the last one being on Christmas Eve

So get involved with the Radio Station specially for London Taxi Drivers

We have finalised the Official Launch Date for London Taxi Radio as Monday 4th February 2013.

We will be training prospective DJs and Presenters in the use of the software and equipment throughout January 2013.

DJs and Presenters will be able to broadcast on London Taxi Radio either from the comfort of their own home using their own PC/Laptop or they will be able to come into one of our studios and broadcast their show from there.

We also have a few DJs who will be sending in pre recorded speciality shows for scheduling into out broadcast system.

From our studio we will also be able to host chat shows where people can call in and chat live on air with the presenter.

Get Taxi have kindly offered to sponsor our license fees for which we are extremely grateful.

We are looking forward to you tuning in and giving us a listen.

PLAN INSURANCE 0800 542 2869 ‘ learn how to get cheap uber insurance online and more for your automotive issues.

DRIVERTAX 020 8529 2600 drivertax.co.uk

WEDDING TAXIS 020 8304 6645 weddingtaxis.co.uk

(To listen to the full show including the music please use the Mixcloud player, for just the chat please use the player at the top of the page)

Issues Discussed this week

Taxi Age Limits, the reduction in age Limits for London Taxis from 15 years down to 12 years.

Email: admin@cabchatshow.uk
Tel: 020 8144 8294
Whatsapp: 07743 161656
http://cabchat.london

We have now added a 128Kbps MP3 stream which we are testing at the moment prior to our launch on 3rd January 2013.

You can listen to the stream by clicking on the Tune In links in the menu on the right of the page.

Our port 80 stream will also be up and running before our launch day.

We are currently in the process of building a studio in a location where are prospective DJs/Presenters can come in and do their shows.

We are buying equipment suitable for the studio and have ordered the DSL/Broadband connection for the studio in preperation for our January 2013 launch.

The studio will include digital PCs with digital playout software, jingle software and probably CD facilities as well. There will also be a studio mixer, studio microphone and also Skype and Twitter facilities although most presenters would probably prefer to bring along their own laptop as that would have all their own email/twitter accounts installed.

DJs/Presenters will also be able to bring along their own music in either CD format or on their own external hard drive that can be plugged into one of the digital playout systems that we intend to have installed, of they will be able to select tracks from the vast collection that will be installed on our studio system.

Od should they have their own digital playout system that they prefer you use we can patch their laptop into the studio mixer for live broadcast.

This is a really exciting time for London Taxi Radio and for the London taxi Trade and may go someway towards raising the moral of the trade and counter the current problems that our trade is facing.

We have provisionally set a full launch date for Sunday 2nd January 2013 when we hope we will have enough presenters to offer a fuller schedule.

We had no option but to revise our original launch date prediction due to the problems that we have encountered with internet connections, we hope that by our provisional launch date we should have new connections in place and better resilience.

We have learnt quite a lot over the past couple of weeks and one of the main things is that you need a good connection to the internet to run a radio station and the one we have been using has been letting us down quite badly, we really need to find a company that offers better services, like eatelbusiness.com.

We have taken steps to rectify this situation but when dealing with communications companies these things take time as they are never in a rush to get something installed for you.

We are having 2 new broadband connections installed in 2 different locations, we will run 2 seperate instances of the broadcast software from these 2 locations which will give us some resilience, we will also have another instance of the broadcast software installed on a machine that will be used as a final backup that can be brought into action should the other 2 connections fail for any reason.

We have now also sorted out how DJs and Presenters can connect into the system from their own homes using their own laptop/PC to do live shows and of course there is also the option for a show to be prerecorded for broadcast at a later date.

We will be sending out an em,ail over the next few days to all of those who expressed an interest in presenting  a show on the station advising them of various free software options that they can use and also hardware options should they wish to get more fully involved.

Eаѕу fіxеѕ fоr уоur іntеrnеt
Yоu wоn’t еvеn hаvе tо get оut of уоur chair tо try thеѕе ѕоlutіоnѕ. Hеrе’ѕ hоріng one оf thеѕе аррrоасhеѕ does the trісk. Check the eatel business options to get more details.

Rеѕtаrt уоur dеvісе
This mіght sound a bіt tоо оbvіоuѕ, but thе fіrѕt thіng уоu ѕhоuld dо іѕ rеѕtаrt уоur device. It wоn’t wоrk еvеrу tіmе, but іt gіvеѕ thе ореrаtіng ѕуѕtеm a chance tо сlеаr things up аnd try аgаіn in саѕе іt’ѕ frozen, nоt rесоgnіzіng thе network, оr juѕt bеіng unсоореrаtіvе.

Sее іf thеrе’ѕ аn іntеrnеt оutаgе
It соuld bе thаt уоu’rе not the оnlу оnе whоѕе internet is dоwn. Run a ԛuісk ѕеаrсh оn Twіttеr оr Gооglе tо ѕее if аnуоnе еlѕе іn уоur area іѕ rероrtіng іntеrnеt оutаgеѕ or connectivity issues from your рrоvіdеr. Yоu can аlѕо fіnd іnfоrmаtіоn аbоut internet ѕhutdоwnѕ оn thе website Dоwn Detector, оr уоu саn call up your іntеrnеt service provider (ISP) to investigate.

If for some reason you decide to look for a different internet provider, we highly suggest to check the Eatel online options. 

We must apologise for the problems we encountered during SuperCabby’s Request Show tonight, this was caused in the first instance by a Internet Broadband Crash which occurred twice during the start of the show which we believe caused the Shoutcast Stream servers to crash.

The third silence was caused by the Stream Servers going down which left us quiet once again, we will be looking into this and raising questions of the Shoutcast provider who till now has been extremely reliable but we need to look into resilience and will probably add some more streams just incase we encounter this sort of problem again.

It does not look as though we are going to be able to broadcast again tonight so it looks as though our service may be down until the morning.

Rest assured that we are working on this issue and will within the next 2 weeks have more streams available for our loyal listeners.

Thank you for your patience.

The London Taxi Radio Team

We have now converted our 24kbps MP3 stream to aacPlus which gives a lot better sound quality in full stereo.

We have also converted what was our 32kbps MP3 stream and downgraded it to 12kbps aacPlus mono, so for those of you who have a limited data allowance on your phone this is the stream to connect to. Although mono the sound quality is really very good for a stream that uses so little data allowance.

We are hoping to be able to offer more streams very soon. These will include the following:

128kpbs MP3

128kbps aacPlus

64kbps aacPlus

12kbps aacPlus port 80 stream

and a couple of others once we figure out how to operate the Virtual Server…….lol

We are going to experiment with taking calls in the studio using Skype.

If you have a Skype account then please add us as a contact.

Our Skype username is Londontaxiradio

So give us a call in the studio

We are now able to accept SMS messages in the Studio

Just send you text to 07743 161656

We have been experimenting with a new stream called aacPlus which gives superb sound quality over low bit rate streams and I must say that the results are really quite impressive.

The experimental aacPlus stream is running at 24kbps and sounds just as good as the 64kbps MP3 stream that we started out with.

The advantages of using this format is that it uses a lot less of listeners data allowance when they tune in.

We are going to be adding a lot more choice of streams over the next week which should give all listeners a lot of choice as to how they listen and what the quality is when they listen.

We are even considering using a lower bit rate accPlus stream than the one we already have running. We will also be adding a port 80 stream for those whose mobile networks block the 8000 port range to stop users from listening to internet radio stations.

This is an exciting time for London taxi Radio.

London Taxi Radio managed to complete a first ever successful broadcast and it wasn’t really meant to happen!

Basically we were testing the stream with the mixer in line and getting the levels right and we just decided to go live, we must however apologise that the microphone didn’t sound quite right even though it is a very expensive one, so a bit more testing needed there.

We would also like to thank everyone who listened in last night and also for all the very kind compliments that we got.

We are going to give it another go tomorrow night at roughly the same time.

Thanks for listening and please tell your friends

We have decided to add another lower stream at 24Kbps, this is to further preserve drivers data allowance and also not eat up the bandwidth while using other apps.

This new stream should come on line in the early part of this week

We are currently broadcasting at 64kbps which is about the same quality as FM terrestrial radio but most commercial radio stations offer numerous streams to suit their listeners needs.

We would like to offer the same but at present funds prevent us from doing so, we have however added another stream which is 32Kbps which should preserve data allowances on mobile devices and also stream a lot quicker and reconnect quicker when the stream is lost.

You should be able to select which stream you would like to listen to in TuneIn Radio.

Eventually we will add a 128Kbps stream for those listening in on their PCs or internet radios.

We will be adding a stream page to the website in the next few days.

You will also be able to Tune In by just visiting our website soon.

A lot of exciting things are in the pipeline

We are really pleased to announce that we are now listed on TuneIn radio.

TuneIn Radio is available as either the basic version of the app which is free to download and use or the Pro Version which costs under £1 on most devices and offers a few more facilities and also gets rid of those pesky little adverts at the bottom of the screen.

TuneIn is available for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone, Palm and Samsung Bada in the basic version and the Pro version is available on iPhone, Android and Blackberry.

Once you have downloaded the app just search for London Taxi Radio and then save us to your favourites.

The London Taxi Website is now up and running.

We have also fully integrated the site with both our Facebook Page and Twitter account as we feel that Social Media is very important these days. It took a lot of wok, mainly because I ended up with an injury. After a couple of trips to the doctor and a bunch of tests they told me I have an injury in my wrist, and it might be from working a tad too hard. Oh well.

The doctor told me I had to buy oxycodone and take that for a while and rest, but I could only take the medication, I wanted to finish the site and that’s why it’s a bit late. Hopefully you like it! There’s still work to be done but I will be resting my wrist for a few and following up with the doctor before continuing my duties, to be safe. Thanks for understanding.

If you would like to see anything added to our site then please let us know.

Welcome to London Taxi Radio.

Our Test Broadcast Stream is now up and running and being tested by a few working drivers.

We will publish details of this stream when we are sure it is reliable.

Please follow us on Twitter @LondonTaxiRadio

Or visit our Facebook Page www.facebook.com/LondonTaxiRadio

How Startup Investing Rеаllу Wоrkѕ
A fеw реорlе gеt tоgеthеr аnd come up with аn іnnоvаtіvе ѕоlutіоn to a common рrоblеm. Thеу test out their new ѕоlutіоn, іtеrаtе a little, аnd fіnd something thаt works аnd thаt a ѕіzаblе grоuр оf реорlе асtuаllу want tо uѕе.

Inspired, this bаnd of іnnоvаtіvе thinkers dесіdе tо turn thаt early іdеа іntо a соmраnу. But to fulfіll thаt drеаm, thеу’ll need аdvісе from ѕеаѕоnеd entrepreneurs whо hаvе buіlt successful соmраnіеѕ bеfоrе. And money.

Thіѕ іѕ whеrе ѕtаrtuр investors соmе in.

In Sіlісоn Vаllеу and beyond, early-stage ѕtаrtuрѕ can raise vеnturе саріtаl frоm VC fіrmѕ аnd аngеl іnvеѕtоrѕ іn vаrіоuѕ wауѕ (аnd, in reality, thеу hарреn vеrу dіffеrеntlу than іn the theatrical scene аbоvе), check it out here!

We’re going tо еxрlоrе thе dіffеrеnt tуреѕ of еаrlу-ѕtаgе іnvеѕtmеntѕ thаt give рrоmіѕіng ѕtаrtuрѕ the саѕh flоw thеу nееd to ѕtаrt сhuggіng tоwаrd thаt IPO, аnd when іnvеѕtоrѕ аrе lіkеlу tо еnсоuntеr еасh investment type.

Thеrе аrе twо mаіn wауѕ tо іnvеѕt іn еаrlу-ѕtаgе ѕtаrtuрѕ:

investing in a priced equity rоund: investors рurсhаѕе ѕhаrеѕ іn a ѕtаrtuр at a fіxеd price
іnvеѕtіng іn соnvеrtіblе ѕесurіtіеѕ: thе іnvеѕtmеnt amount eventually “converts” into equity (thuѕ thе nаmе)