Here's a shot from Melbourne Age webcams Weathers holding was a blustery night.
Here's what it was like on the Internet.
Special Events:
The Northern Light search engine has a page set up with the top 30 events around the world. These are mainly text pages set up by the organizers of 2000 events in various cities.
Another site worth a look is at Yahoo.
Bored check out www.mtv.com the Bunker Cam you'll need quicktime4. If you'd like to listen to other US stations search here. A lot of cities around the world celebrate first night, you'll find information here, some of it dated but perhaps your going to one of these events and want to know more. By now you've heard 1999 more times than you'd care to, if radio stations would follow suit
Note:: Many of these Web sites experience heavy traffic and may be difficult to view or listen to at peak times. Tune in 5 minutes before midnight for video or webcams. Radio stations about 10 to 15 minutes before 12. If you access the Internet with a modem, these sites also may load slowly. Please be patient and keep trying. We've tested these links with a 28.8, and 56k modem. We've also tested with high speed broadband.
1000 ITC
At this point try the webcast network websites. They are: www.abcnews.com, www.cnn.com, (CNN is providing the best video in the US) from the UK try these: www.sky.co.uk/news/Millennium/index.htm or www.bbc.co.uk/millennium/. I hope
they don't stop to ask for pledges at this webcast from PBS. The joint NBC news and Microsoft cable network has live video here. Another site that's going to provide wall to wall coverage is ITN in London( lots of great stuff live
from the UK.now). (some PBS stations in the
US carry their newscasts) Check with the first webcaster broadcast.com.
Tonga says they're going to be first with a webcast. You'll need to go into to this site to find the live webcast event. First light arrives here at 17:45 UTC.
1020 UTC
Not sure what to make of this but give it a try. It's on Pitt Island. Daylight should be here 40 minutes before it gets to mainland New Zealand.
1100 UTC
This is supposed to be a live streaming event, its in Gisborne, New Zealand. First daylight in the year 2000 at this site. [it's a webcam} Check back later in the day, as you'll see this site at Midnight local time.
http://www.morefm.com/ More FM in Wellington, New Zealand. A "Best Mix" station, mainly music.
http://www.fijivillage.com/radio/viti.htm Try this link for more stations from Fiji. Stations were not webcasting, jingles and sweepers plus the top ten in Real Audio. If you're a stamp collector you'll like this site. This is a USA site that will be webcasting events from New Zealand with shoutcast,. using mp3.
1200 UTC
Now it's local midnight in Vanuatu, in the South Pacific,. and on Russia's Pacific Coast. No webcasts are available at this time, try the major news networks.
Perhaps you'd like to practice for New Years in your time zone:
AULD LANG SYNE
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!
Chorus.-For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
And surely ye'll be your pint stowp!
And surely I'll be mine!
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
Chorus.-
We twa hae run about the braes,
And pou'd the gowans fine;
But we've wander'd mony a weary fit,
Sin' auld lang syne.
Chorus.-
We twa hae paidl'd in the burn,
Frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar'd.
Sin' auld lang syne.
Chorus.-
And there's a hand, my trusty fere!
And gie's a hand o' thine!
And we'll tak' a right gude willie-waught,
For auld lang syne.
Chorus.-
Right click your mouse and you can save this file to your computer.( highlight it first)
1300 UTC
http://www.naufm.com.pg/tunein.htm Papua New Guinea, when I tried this site it had reached capacity.
It's a New Year in Vladivostok listen in. Working but took a long time to download
A good site for Aussie FM's is http://203.61.139.28/ Another great multi-resource site from the national broadcaster ABC, including TV, Radio and Webcams. Webcam link here was very slow..
Meanwhile, one of the first countries to shift into the next millennium reported no Y2K glitches and claimed record numbers of surfers were on the Internet visiting its official Y2K Web site. The Australian government claimed on Saturday that its Y2K Web site had set a world record for the number of people accessing it. Senator Ian Cambell, coordinating countrywide checks on the Y2K bug from a control center in Canberra, told reporters the official Web site had taken three million hits in the seven hours to 1:00 a.m. local time, according to a Reuters report.
For Melbourne try Fox FM, in Sydney click on 2day FM from the above Aussie FM link Fine party going on this station.
Triple M Stations are also available in both cities from that link.
Two firework shows in Sydney tonight: on at 9pm local time and then at Midnight.
Here's a shot from Melbourne Age webcams Weathers holding was a blustery night.
1330 UTC It's New Years in South Australia, click on SA-FM. OK, the songs leading up til midnight are going to be Mambo #5 (Lou Bega) then 1999. (listen and see if I'm right) They did and followed with a nice produced package and a New Years Song.
1400 UTC
http://www.radiopacific.com/k57/ Guam, Talk Station.. Web page working fine but Real audio not responding, in Washington DC, but in New Jersey, this was heard: an interview with US General about
state of local Y2K compliance, gossip about other local Generals
being interviewed, countdown to local midnight, into CBS News right
after top-of-hour (Brandi-NJ)
1500 UTC
http://www.beachfm.co.jp/B_live/index.html Beach FM Jazz station in Japan 
Tokyo at
Midnight from the Rose Bridge.
http://www.mbc.co.kr/ MBS in Korea audio and video FM station very low key air talent. Had a live event running that was tough to get to.
http://www.sbs.co.kr/ SBS Webvision in Korea FM station playing music with ... Lots of re-buffering.
http://www.kbs.co.kr/onair/kbsonair.htm KBS Korea Tough to connect, lots of re-buffering. Live with a Parade in Korea.(thanks to Tom Sundstrom for the info) KBS TV 2 had a New Years Rockin" eve kind of show. Radio stations were very tough to get because of net congestion. The KBS 1 and 2 TV
broadcast streams were recordable.
Recording what you hear:
Most of the station's I have encountered have not been record able with Real Player Plus. The main reason for this is copyright. Windows Media content is not recordable at all. This year we will be field testing Voquette's system for recording streaming media using low tech analog cassettes. ( Delayed as my computer uses usb keyboard and this system requires a keyboard port to connect with.)The RCA Lyra player does record G2 but only if the content is created from within Real Jukebox. G2 streams that are webcast will not work with the Lyra. Pete Costello who runs one of the best information sites on shortwave radio suggests you try. (Didn't have time to download or use)
Update: Voquette is spotty when it works. Lyra now supports Real and Microsoft formats. You still can't record anything other than cd's you rip.
1600 UTC
http://www.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/radshows/dzmm/dzmmlive/ Philippines Real Audio Not Working here, but give it a try anyway.
http://www.abs-cbn.com/dwrr/ Philippines Radio Real Audio 3 is in use here. Live DJ with party sfx.
http://english.cri.com.cn/ English Service of China Radio International Link to Real Audio Dead Or try this FM station in Beijing. JOYFM was the soundtrack to the CNN Video of the Fireworks show in Bejing, you could hear the fireworks burst overhead.
http://www.rthk.org.hk/rthk/live.cgi Radio-TV Hong Kong , China RTHK 3 playing the artist before the New Year . Are you tired of this song yet?
http://www.asiaconnect.com.my/rtm-net/live/ Radio-TV Malaysia Lots of stations to choose from. And none of them work. Bandwidth is the issue here.
http://rcslive.singnet.com.sg/ The Singapore Live Radio Network Class FM 95, playing Barry White..must be fans of Ali McBeal.. The Pizza Hut buffet commercial sounded great...all you can eat for 20 Singapore dollars.
http://rtrfm.iinet.net.au/ Perth., Western Australia Dance track that made it to a live countdown under a freaky spoken word. Live clock on website was a nice touch with local time..not my computers clock time.
http://www.icrt.com.tw/_fr1.asp Various Stations in Taiwan Webcam with live shot of air studio and talent. This site was not available because of net congestion.
1700 UTC
http://www.intercast.loxinfo.co.th/index.asp Various stations in Thailand Listened to Radio No Problem, nicely produced countdown brought us to the year 2000, about a minute behind CNN's live video.
1800 UTC
http://www.lanka.net/comdex/asialive/tnl.html Sri Lanka Thanks to a tip from Tom Sundstrom (www.trsc.com) this station's audio is using Real 3 I was able to record it with Real Player Plus last year but not this year. No more streams to serve. The other station in this county that has a website is not webcasting.
The apple city Almaty, Kazakhstan try here.(sometimes the server is down it appears that in the overnight hours the servers are shut down) This site had lots of traffic but you could hear the New Year Countdown. This is an FM station at 104.7 which I helped put on the air in 1991, they still owe me for my help. Another station with an on demand broadcast is here. Ralph Brandi found this site with wonderfully cheesy music.
1830 UTC
http://www.catmando.com/news/radio-nepal/radionp.htm Radio Nepal, it's not live but it's great fun to listen to, in case your wondering the website's in the US. Newscast was recorded at 9 p.m. local time. Like to hear some music from Nepal, it's now on the site.
http://air.kode.net/live.html All India Radio, live but you'll have to register at the site and set a cookie.
Listening and watching on the net was very different this year. Web Surfers discovered watching city by city using webcams and major sites in New Zealand and Australia became jammed and unreachable. Earthcam's webcast flopped as the site did not handle the onslaught, it appears they were using the Sandpiper Networks (now Digital Island) replication system to bring the content closer to the users, but looks like too many users. This made right clicking webcams in Europe impossible. (saving the photo as you see in this page from Australia and Moscow) From 1500 thru 2100 it was easy to hear webcasts on the Internet. Perth, Live TV from Korea on KBS 1 and 2 were memorable. Watching CNN and listening to Joy FM from Beijing and hearing the fireworks burst over the announcers was amazing. Hearing the excitement in places like Kyrgystan , SA-FM in South Australia and Moscow. Mauritius was the highlight of the day, the countdown followed by Auld Lang Syne in French from a place you've got to have a map to find..as they say in the Mastercard commercial priceless. This years radio stations served up a mix bag of music. You heard as the last song 1999, followed by either Auld Lang Syne, or Lou Bega's Mambo #5. The other favorite was a countdown into Auld Lang Syne. Stations that did live broadcasts were so clear you could hear the fireworks bursting in the background. The nice thing that occurred as we hopped around the world was any y2k computer bugs would have materialized but didnt't. (unless you're using a browser that's telling you it's the year 100 ( Netscape with certain javascripts). Broadband did not have the impact that we'd forecast last year. It's coming but getting ADSL./DSL installed and working has become an issue. Cable modems unfortunately terminate your streaming connect after 10 minutes and don't provide a fast upload speed. Cache technologies as they future mature should make next years listening and viewing a lot better. Jim Cutler, didn't tell us he was the Voice of ABC 2000's radio coverage, which you could hear on ABC radio talk stations like WABC/WLS and WMAL.
This years list of thanks: Radio Netherlands for hosting the main site, Tom Sundstorm, Bryan Clark, Vasilly Strelnikov, The Synch, and product managers at Real and Microsoft for help in assembling this growing list this year.
This year it was harder to find stations, as long established lists of stations had either not updated streaming stations or stations outside the North American region aren't submitting to these lists. Ask Jeves , Northern Light and Google aided in the search for new stations. What is this telling you about the Internet? The amount of pages added every day far outweighs the ability of search engines and humans to find it all. Google as of this update is the current best search engine on the internet.
Update: Three new things have happened to streaming media. Real 8 has a built in video/audio search feature powered by technology created by virage. Virage is video search software, in use at CNN and ABC, also at CSpan.. This year has seen the rise of internet appliances, Kerbango and Sonicbox. Sonicbox has shipped and it's a great product. You can read a review here. Kerbango is taking orders for it's 300$ US product thru www.amazon.com Kerbangos first product is broadband only. No dialup connections are possible. Kerbango and Sonicbox both have created a large database of steaming audio stations. Codecs continue to get better with the latest releases of Real and Microsoft. Apples quicktime can now be streamed by a Real Server, this will improve scalability. Real 8 audio was introduced in late fall. It's a joint development with Sony.
Radio stations of the Past:
These links will take you to stations that won't be broadcasting into the next century.
This well know MTV Russia VJ started his broadcasting career here. If you are in the Washington DC area and see the special programming New Years Eve on UPN20, you may see a familiar face.
Two major market jocks who shall remain nameless used to call this station to hassle the on-air talent. The great 208 may return in Feb 2000. ((It didn't))
Can you name the voice on this real clip?( hint check the WABC site) The call letters WNYW are now Fox 5 in New York, but before that they were Radio New York Worldwide. (this clips have to be download before they stream!, works faster on ISDN or broadband) Still don't know the voice, e-mail me I'll tell you. Radio Netherlands website has an on demand audio feature from media network during October 2000 on WNYW.
254 on the Medium Wave (1178 kHz) was this late night Saturday Feature from Sweden.
Two part downloadable Real Audio features highlights of this show. If you're interested in what ever happened to the host of this show, visit this website.
WABC? WCFL? WLS? old radio station never die at this site.
What's New Years Eve without a little bubbly.