at work and can't listen to sirius because of signal or firewall issues? try this.

korsjs

Welcome To SatelliteGuys
Original poster
Supporting Founder
Jan 25, 2004
7,583
0
Land O Lakes, FL
for a while i have been able to use my sportser at work. i could get two bars and sometimes three at work and i sit no where close to a window. however, with the summer rain coming, my signal has been getting worse and worse. the only time it will come in good is on a good clear day. i usually listen to howard stern in the morning and since he now has his feed online, it gave me an idea.

i can not access sirius' website at work due to it being blocked by the firewall. i got an idea that i could record it at home and then burn it to cd and bring it to work the next day. if i could only access my computer at home while at work i could get the file and listen to it the same day. i can't install anything on the computer at work so i can't ftp or anything like that or i can't use remote desktop either. this is what i did.

i found a program that i can send an email from my gmail account ( i can get gmail at work). i send a command line and it tells my computer at work to send me a file. my computer at home will then email the file to my gmail account. i tested this out with normal 128 quality recordings but gmail would not accept the file due to its size. so what i did is set up six timers in the internet recording program that i am using. i have it set up to record from 6 - 7 (named file 1), 7 - 8 (named file 2), and so forth up to 12pm. i wind up with six files names 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. as soon as the first hour is up, i can send an email to retrieve file 1. each hour i go in and send an email and it will send me a file. i had to use a low mono 16bit setting and the hour file comes out to be around 7.5mb. gmail takes that no problem.

please note, i could not get gmail to work as the pop server for this program. i have domains through 1and1 and set up an email through my own domain and it works no problem. once you see the program, most of the computer people will be able to figure it out if i could. very easy once i figured out gmail would not work with it. someone might be able to figure it out.

here is what you need.

an internet recording program with timers. i used this one. http://www.highcriteria.com/ someone in the pub suggested it. works great. costs about twenty bucks if you want to buy, but i guess anyone with timers will work if you can find a good free one.

this program to send the files to you. http://www.download.com/RemoteByMail/3000-2085_4-10511933.html?tag=lst-0-3 it is free

let me know if anyone needs help.
 
i should add that before i go to work. i log into sirius and set it for the channel i want and turn on the remote file program.
 
actually, it is pretty easy. if i figured it out, then i know most anyone on this board could get it to work.

the only problem i can see is sometimes the connection to the stream will stop everyonce and a while. other than that, it has worked like a charm.
 
my problem is that i can't really stream anything from work.

does it cost minutes on your phone to stream it? not that familiar with the phones.

to me this was a simple solution that cost 20 bucks, the price to register the internet recorder. i have used it all week and it has not failed me.

i really like the remote mail thing. i think it is very useful. i don't think a lot of people know about it.
 
If you have unlimited data ($19.99 on Cingular) then you should be OK. On Cingular I think the 6682 is the only one that can do Orb - not sure but the 2125 and the 8125 Windows smartphones might be able to do it too. If you are on Sprint and have a Samsung A900, A920, or one of the Sanyo MM phones you should be able to do it too. Just make sure you have the unlimited data package or you will be paying ALOT to use it. The audio quality from what I have heard is really pretty good too. If you live in an EVDO area and have Sprint or Verizon (not sure which phones) this would be a pretty good option. Cingular - it would probably work OK on EDGE data network (pretty much everywhere). T-Mobile, not worth the effort due to slow GPRS data network. Nextel - forget it completely!!
 
I suggested the High Criteria Total Recorder; glad you liked it. It is such a simple breeze to D/L, setup and use.

1. Get a 2nd used Sirius and hardwire it into the PC's line-in and record that way with Total Recorder; no more drops and much cleaner.

Even the Sirius.com streamer has been losing connections a lot lately, but this direct connect option will not.



2. At work, try the Yahoo Widget Sirius player; it should use port 80 which will not normally be blocked at work.

http://widgets.yahoo.com/

http://widgets.yahoo.com/gallery/view.php?widget=38478
 
Last edited:
Something else you could try - an extra high gain antenna. This one
is made by Terk and is designed for marine use. You could probably find an inconspicuous place for it in your cubicle at work though.
 
That widget is just a front end for the streaming application. Unfortunately korsjs can't listen to a live stream at work. I have a different problem - I can listen to a live stream but I can't install applications on my computer at work. Result is the same as far as Sirius is concerned.

Live365 is a fairly decent alternative though. I can also listen to the streams from Yahoo! Broadcast, but I have to enter my password again every time a song ends. It gets kind of annoying.
 
Have faith, I believe there is a possible solution in the works for many. We should hear more details during the Christmas in August new products showing for Sirius. XM does the same thing in August as well.
 
***

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 1, Members: 0, Guests: 1)

Who Read This Thread (Total Members: 1)

Latest posts