Chinese Radio + VLC

One thing that is going for Chinese learners who live in the Bay Area is the possibility to listen to radio broadcasts in Mandarin.  KSQQ 96.1 is *mostly* broadcast in Mandarin (except on weekends and from 2:00 to 4:00 PM weekdays when it is in Portuguese) This station's format is mostly talk which is perfect for learners.  Many of the shows are topical (so today sadly there was a lot of discussion about Robin Williams.)  And there is also news, weather, traffic and financial market reporting.  I am not entirely sure what the listening area is for the station but it definitely comes in all around the SiliconValley just fine.  And if you are not in your car (Nowadays, who has any radio at home but a clock radio?)  it is also streaming (either iTunes or VLC should be able to open this link) on the internet.
So that is cool; you can listen to mandarin news/talk while doing chores around the house.  But here's the thing, at least if your mandarin is as lame as mine, a lot of the time, you are going hear a lot that you do not understand.  And I often hear some word over and over and wonder what it means but find that just from the tones/pinyin but no context it is hard to look up a word on your own. And when that happens you wish that you had a native speaker handy to help translate. :-)
Now for the cool geeky bit that you might not know: Using VLC you can record the audio stream while you listen to it!  This way you can possibly send the audio to your tutor/buddy to give you that little bit of help.
Anyway here is how to record the stream using VLC: first, from the File menu select "Streaming/Exporting Wizard...". Now just work through the screens as follow.
(Hmmm, so today, 8/13, I began having problems doing transcoding using VLC (on my macbook).  I do not yet know what is going on though it seems to be a VLC transcoding bug.
One thing that I have tried with some success is using a different URL for the KSQQ stream: http://192.240.97.69:9299. Sigh, anyway, until further notice, when using this technique, your mileage may vary.)