2014 was a year of many changes for my
family. I have accepted a pastorate in Anthony, New Mexico and am
learning to lead and pastor a church again. Your prayers are
gratefully requested and received. My relationship to streaming of
Radio has also been altered a little too. In Houston, my previous
town, we had Infinity cable and a pretty good net speed for
streaming. In Anthony, we could not get Infinity's relative Time
Warner cable due to the fact we live on a more non residential
street. We also had Century link available in the community. They had
a good price, but they do “cap” or limit the amount of data you
can use monthly. If you go over the limit, they charge a bit more.
Finally my son found a provider called Megaweb that allowed for a
flat fee all you can get net service. The speed is not that great,
but fine for radio streaming. Video streaming can be a little rough
at times. This system consist of a small antenna that communicates
with an internet node on a local water tower. This is a set up used
in a lot of rural situations. We have managed to use a small Belkin
router to supply this signal to a Roku, home computer, several
phones, tablet, and two church computers. With this in mind I have
managed to put up a few Of Faith and Radio blogs this year.
Lately I have come to believe a ROKU
is still a great option for streaming radio and video. In the early
days of streaming radio and video you had to have a computer handy.
My computer is a great place to work but its not to great to watch
movies and that puts speakers in a fixed place to listen to radio.
Later, internet radios arrived. I could at least listen to a fairly
large amount of stations in the comfort of the bed room or where ever
I wanted to set it up. This is when I started writing this blog
mainly in regards faith and radio streaming. You can still pick up a
good amount of teaching and music stations on an internet radio. If
you look at previous blog post I have given you many stations to
listen to. I also have found some stations have moved into streaming,
others have changed the way they stream and some may have simply gone
dark. (Old radio phrase for going off the air.) Stand alone internet
radios are still available. Most are portable. All must use a wifi
signal.
A good while ago I purchased my one
and only Roku and discovered a cheap streamer for Radio and some good
video. A person of faith needs to understand that one has pretty good
access to a variety of programming with this small box. This is the
kinda of device that you can watch movies from subscription services
like Netflix or see movies with ads for free. The box can access
adult material but you can control what channels you put on the box.
I think its safe for family use, should be monitored with teens and
a little to much for kids. The Roku is a favorite of “cord cutters”
who chose not to use satellite or cable tv. A lot of these folks just
have internet and broadcast television.
I have become a fan of this little
box. (Most are 60 dollars or cheaper if you get the stick version) As
a believer I have access to several free music services like Pandora.
I can program some of those stations to play non stop Christian
music. I am listening to my Petra station on Pandora as I write this.
Many Christian radio stations have there own Roku channels. Klove,
KLTY, AirOne and few others come to mind. A huge amount of videos
make there broadcast and podcast available too. Some also use the
device to stream services live to shut ins or displaced members. Also
the Roku has several good internet broadcasting channels that allow a
consumer to listen to a numerous amount of Christian teaching and
music. Tune In and IheartRadio come to mind, but there are plenty
more. Like any internet connected device, the gate keeper needs to
be responsible for watch channels they have on there system.
In the history of streaming the first
adopters have been faith based. Faith based groups are less profit
driven and willing to use new media to reach audiences. Lately I have
been looking at various religious television broadcasters on the Roku
scene. I have shied away from some religious Television broadcaster
in the past because in the old days most Television broadcaster where
highly Charismatic and “Seed based” guys like Oral Roberts. Now
there where exceptions like Billy Graham or local churches who have
fine local broadcast. Graham does have a small Roku channel. As I
explored the the system I found the most impressive religious Roku
channel is run by CBN, They offer news, a lot of talk and the CBN
show with Pat Robertson. They also offer several music channels and a
lot of material in a on demand setting. TBN also stream all of their
stations. When multi-casting came to broadcast TV the TBN folks
responded by creating a host of channels in addition to the TBN
channel. They have channels in Arabic, Spanish, Russian and a few
other channels. They also have a pretty good youth channel called
JUCE. They also offer a pretty huge section of on demand stuff from
their website. GOD TV also has a channel. It has their various live
streams available. This religious broadcaster took off in Europe and
is quite charismatic, but is a great place to view the growth of
charismatics around the world. Day Star also has a channel and has
its feed available. I have also found two fairly conservative
stations. One is the His Channel. While most of the others I have
listed have a terrestrial television network behind them, His Channel
does not. They are into end times prophecy a lot. They also play
great ministries from the Calvary Chapel spectrum, and other
conservative bible teachers. They simply try to get their signal on
lots of devices. They do on demand programming and a live feed like a
television station. The station that I think is most appealing to me
as a Southern Baptist and all that entails is the NRB channel. This
station started on Directv many years ago, apparently has some
affiliates on broadcast television and a Roku channel. If you have a
favorite ministry that uses television you can probably find it on
the web or on a Roku. With this Roku you can sit comfortably and
allow the Lord to speak to you.
