Technical Help FAQs

The information on this page is meant to address common technical questions we receive from our listeners. Guided by your questions, we will add more information to this page.

Please review the following categories to see if the information helps address your particular question.

• Recognizing the correct audio file type
• Players that are known to work with Ancient Faith Radio
• Performance / Sound Quality
• Firewalls
• Receiving Ancient Faith Radio on your home radios

Recognizing the correct audio file type

Ancient Faith Radio streams on both the *.PLS and WMA file type. In order to listen to us automatically on your computer, you need:
1. an audio player that can recognize the *.PLS format or WMS file
2. have your PC configured to associate this file type to that audio player

When both conditions are met, clicking on one of the three Ancient Faith Radio buttons underneath the "Listen Now" script will automatically launch your audio player and automatically start playing the Ancient Faith Radio streaming audio.

There are numerous ways to associate a specific audio player to the *.PLS file type -- if it is not already associated. Here is one technique, using Windows XP as an example.

Right click on the LISTEN button and choose “Save Target As”
Pick a location on your PC to store the file “Listen.pls”. Your desktop will do fine.
Right click on the file “Listen.pls” and choose “Open With”
Then pick “Choose Program”, and pick your favorite audio player
5. Make sure you check the box to “Always use this application to open this file type”, so this becomes a one-time procedure

Players that are known to work with Ancient Faith Radio

The following are technical notes on selected Audio players that work with Ancient Faith Radio.

iTunes -- http://www.apple.com/itunes/

WinAmp -- http://winamp.com/

Windows Media Player (WMP) -- Ancient Faith Radio now is available for the popular Windows Media Player. Many listeners tell us that they are now able to enjoy the station at work because most firewalls do not block the WMP files.

Stream URLs

For High bandwidth connections enter: http://s2.viastreaming.net:7140/listen.pls

For Dial-up connections enter: http://s2.viastreaming.net:7080/listen.pls

If you're using Window Media Player, enter:

mms://wma2.viastreaming.net/ancientfaithradio

Performance / Sound Quality

If you experience any poor playback quality, such as skipping or scratching noises, there are many possible causes that could be explored. Some of these reasons could be: heavy internet traffic, your internet connection is not fast enough, your player is using a connection speed setting that is mismatched to your actual connected internet speed, your player needs a larger buffering size, or there is a problem with your player and sound card match (or the sound card settings).

Since all media players handle these configuration settings differently, this is a hard subject to address in a small space such as this. Our suggestion is to always start by checking that your connection speed is set correctly within your media player’s configuration. Using RealPlayer as an example: Go to Tools => Preferences => Category => Connection => Test Button => Perform the Test. Once the test completes click on the Update button to configure RealPlayer with your actual connected internet speed. In general, the best setting will be one speed lower than actual speed. Again, using RealPlayer as the example, RealPlayer will often default to the DSL-T1 speed setting, but if you are on DSL at home you will get better performance if RealPlayer is set for the slower DSL 768 setting, as it more closely matches actual DSL speeds.

Firewalls

Firewalls are used as a security feature to prevent unauthorized network traffic on a local network. If you are trying to listen to Ancient Faith Radio from a corporate computer, you will need to know if the network infrastructure of your corporation allows streaming media files through its firewall. Sometimes this type of media is completely blocked. In that case you will not be able listen to Ancient Faith Radio. If this seems to be the case, please check with your local network or firewall administrator to see it they will allow our streaming audio through the firewall. Often corporate policies will allow this and the administrator will make this change for you. If they can not do this due to corporate policy, or for some technical reason such as local network capacity concerns, you will need to listen to Ancient Faith Radio from another computer, such as your home computer.

If this is allowed on your corporate computer, you will need the firewall configuration information your corporate network administrator provides. This may include: proxy names, transport settings, and port settings. Your network administrator should be able to instruct you how to enter into your media player.

If you are using a personal firewall in your home, you will need to configure that firewall to allow streaming media to pass through. Please consult the manufacturer of your firewall if you are unsure of how to grant this access.

Receiving Ancient Faith Radio on your home radios

Several of our listeners are benefiting from a little FM transmitter device that can make Ancient Faith Radio available on normal radios in your home. By plugging this device into the audio output of your computer (usually your headphone jack), this clever unit broadcasts at very low power on an unused frequency that you select. The range is not unlimited but it seems to work well when used on the same floor of the house or in apartments and smaller homes. We have tested two units, one less expensive than the other. The cheaper one works just as well as the more expensive one. It is found at http://arkon.com and is called the Sound Feeder (SF150c). It was $24.95 the last we checked.

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