Streaming Music On My BlackJack

[ifonline]

I thought I'd give streaming music a try, but I didn't want to use the streaming XM Satelite Radio stuff (I don't want to pay another subscription fee). So, I went to Radio Locator (http://www.radio-locator.com/) and searched for my local stations. I found my favorite station 92.9 Dave FM (http://www.929dave.fm) and copied down the link to their feed.

I then opened Internet Explorer on the BlackJack, entered the URL for the feed, and poof! Media Player was running and was playing the stream to my local radio station. The sound is great, considering that this is streaming over a cell connection and is playing through the built-in speaker (headphones should be here soon). Playing over the built-in speaker, it sounds like a small bedside radio. I'll post up when my headphones arrive and make a comparison.

I love this stuff, and it's free, asside from the cell phone plan fee and the cell phone data fee and the universal service charges and the tax and the... but hey, no subscription fee!

[NTElvin]

Thanks for the great tip! I tried it and it worked for me as well. The only problem I'm facing is that when I click on the link for stations at RL I get a download error message. It's not automatically opening the stations in WM. In order for it to work I have to manually enter the URL. Anyone know why it's trying to download "asx" extensions as opposed to opening them up in WM? Do I have to create an association between "asx" files and WM?

Other than that it works great! Thanks!

[ifonline]

Yeah, I found that out as well. I also tried re-opening the stream from within Media Player, and it failed. I went back to Internet Explorer and reloaded the link, and all was well. Strange, but it's not that big an inconvenience, I suppose.

[NTElvin]

True, the bad thing would be if this didn't work at all. The links are always in the playlist so I can always just go back to them. I was just hoping I could create a couple of Favorites in IE and just click on them from there.

Thanks again!

[chris_in_ca]

This is a great tip.. I used the radio locater to find a local public radio station and after scanning their site for the 'streaming link' in Windows Media format found my Windows Media Player application buffering and when playing the streaming audio.

I ended up navigating away from the IE on my phone and was reading email and the streaming audio kept playing. Clearly the Windows Media Player was running in the background and continuing the stream.

Quite nice -- except for the fact that I couldn't find out how to get back to Windows Media Player. I scanned the directory structure and looked through the start menu application and became quite frustrated. Finally I had to assign the right-key (under the scroll wheel) 'hold' option in Options/Buttons to Windows Media then held down that key, up popped windows media player and I could stop the stream.

Here is my question -- is there some obvious way to open up Windows Media Player directly? I suppose I could open up another song or some media that triggers the Windows Media Player to load but that seems awfully cumbersome..

Any ideas?

[ifonline]

Here is my question -- is there some obvious way to open up Windows Media Player directly? I suppose I could open up another song or some media that triggers the Windows Media Player to load but that seems awfully cumbersome..

Any ideas?

Yes. Assuming you are using a Samsung BlackJack, starting from the Home screen:

1. Press START
2. Press 5 or select CINGULAR MUSIC

WMP should be the first program in the list.

If you have a different device, the shortcut is there somewhere, you just might have to hunt for it.