The HowSound podcast on how to make radio documentaries is especially good for beginners. Joe's archives are all online at his website.

• How Do I Create An Online Radio Station

Start out by planning your new radio station. Ask yourself questions such as, 'What will I play?'

How Do I Create An Online Radio Station

And 'What size audience do I expect?' Radio formats come in music or talk, each with its ups and downs. Talk radio requires a microphone and some idea of what you will talk about, but there are far less legal concerns associated with it than music.

Do not plan for playing music to which you do not have rights, permission, or licensing to play. Some streaming services pay royalties for you, as part of your service through them, although they may not be appropriate for streaming directly from your website. As for audience size, be aware that as it grows, the stream will become more costly to run. If you do not already have Winamp on your computer, download and install it. ShoutCast, a popular tool for streaming audio on the Web, requires Winamp and a special plug-in to broadcast.

Once Winamp is installed, grab the ShoutCast DSP plug-in from the ShoutCast website. Close Winamp if it is already running, and then start the installer for the plug-in. Start Winamp and hit 'Ctrl+P' to bring up the Preferences menu. Choose 'DSP/Effect' under 'Plugins' and configure the ShoutCast plug-in with your stream information. Log in to your WordPress admin dashboard. To change WordPress from a blog into a CMS with a static front page, click 'Pages' on the right-hand menu and add a new page. Name the new page 'Blog' and then go to 'Settings' on the right-hand menu.

From there, go to 'Reading' and set WordPress to use a static front page. Use the automatically created 'About' page for the front page and 'Blog' for the blog page. Now, your site can have a blog, but it will not be the first page visitors see when surfing to your website. Go to 'Plugins' on the right-hand menu and click 'add plugin.' Search for 'shoutcast' and look at the list of plug-ins for streaming radio on your website. Install 'Shout Stream' and activate.

Click on 'Settings' and go to 'Shout Stream' for that plug-in's settings page. Fill in the form with information about your radio stream so that the widget can connect to it.

Go to 'Appearance' and then 'Widgets' to click and drag the 'Shout Stream' widget into your sidebar. Now when you visit your site, you will see a radio player in your sidebar. Click on it and play!