How to Listen to GKOL
Radio GKOL is a music station run with Shoutcast software. What this means is the show is taken from the DJ's computer, streamed to a central server, and then sent via an internet connection to your computer. The "listen.pls" files that you get from clicking on the listen buttons in the left sidebar are your computer's way of knowing where to look for our stream.
If GKOL doesn't start automatically for you, see where you computer downloaded that "listen.pls" file and drag it into your playlist on your favorite music player. Make sure you're connected to the internet and not behind any firewalls preventing the internet connection. Then just hit play like you would a normal music file, and you should connect to GKOL!
How to Listen using iTunes
When you click on the buttons to the left, you should get an option to either save the "listen.pls" file or to open it. Either open it using your iTunes player, or else save it somewhere you can find it (like your desktop), then open iTunes and click "File" then "Add File to Library". Find that "listen.pls" file and load it.
How to Listen using WinAmp
Follow the same instructions as above for using iTunes, except if you saved the file go to "Play" then "File" and load the "listen.pls" file from wherever you saved it.
How to Listen using Windows Media Player
This one gets a little trickier. First, open up a simple text editor (like Notepad) and type in the following:
<?wpl version="1.0"?>Note that the http:// address will change if we change our servers.
<smil>
<head>
<title>GKOL</title>
</head>
<body>
<seq>
<media src="50.22.217.113:22782"/ >
</seq>
</body>
</smil>
Save the file as "GKOL.wpl" and then open Windows Media Player and click "File" then "Open" and load that .wpl file (or just double-click the .wpl file and tell it to open in WMP).
How to Check if GKOL is Online
Sadly, GKOL is not a 24/7 radio station. There are a few ways that you can check to see if we're online, though!
Our Homepage!
Our homepage now comes with super-awesome script capability to tell you when a DJ is online. However, for some reason some DJs have broadcasters which break our script, so sometimes it acts a little funny. When in doubt, try one of the other options.
Chatbot!
The easiest way is to send a message to chatbot. For full radio information, type in "/msg chatbot radio gkol"; for shorter information, type in "/msg chatbot dj gkol". Thanks to Fnord7 for the awesome GKOL chatbot feature and putting up with us messing up so many times.
Firefox Plug-In!
There is also a Firefox plug-in, originally created for RKOL by Grinder, who has generously agreed to let us utilize his feature for the GKOL servers. It creates an icon in the lower right corner of your screen showing GKOL information. Just go to his instructional webpage to download the plug-in, then do the following steps to set-up GKOL instead of RKOL:
- Right click on the radio icon to open the "options dialog box".
- Where is says "URL with Port Number" insert "http://50.22.217.113:22782".
- Under "User menu" and "Web Site" feel free to set some of your favorite RKOL or GKOL links (like this website!)
There are some features which will still be specific to RKOL - things like the schedule information or the links to the DJ's wiki pages - but for the most part, you will have GKOL information as part of the feature. Thanks for letting us appropriate this, Grinder!