The Country Giant now at 32kbps stereo

This past weekend, I put in a lot of overtime at home as the switch began to move from our
old 8k bitrate to a higher one.


Right after I announced the upgrade, several listeners emailed requests to "please don't go higher than 32k because I'm on dial-up." Live365 says the bulk of their listeners are on broadband. Maybe that small percentage on dial-up is tuned to the Giant!



My original switch ended up with a warbly sound that I found unacceptable. So I tweaked it up to 32k stereo mp3PRO and am quite pleased with our improved sound quality.

Listen to the Country Giant now!

You Know Those Stimulus Checks..

...seemed to trigger a chain of events for us..and that chain ain't been too good!

Marianne and I agreed beforehand that we would just split the stimulus check 50/50. She
had some things she wanted, while I planned to use my half towards the radio station upgrade.
Well, I'm still going to. But on her side..

The stimulus check came on a Monday. Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning, the car ended up with a flat tire. And not just flat. Gouged. Unfixable. Had to be replaced.

Marianne spent her half just on the new tires for the car.

But wait, there's more.

Now whe's having to have some dental work done. The first visit cost $108. And she's
got to go back a couple more times. We had to take money out of savings.

In the meantime..

She never heard back from her interview at the new school. School L. Piddley-poor name for a new school..but maybe they'll get around to naming it something someday.

Her current employer, Chaires Elementary, gave her a letter on the last day of school basically demoting her back to OPS status, with no benefits.

We seem to be stuck in a mudhole we can't get out of.

The house continues to fall apart; we still have not been able to replace the furnace; and,
for all intents and purposes, since we had to take out of savings, we went backwards by at least $500.

I admit that I'm feeling very discouraged. No one wants to hire a former deejay that is old school and can do things like cue vinyl records, produce spots onto a cart, and keep a station on air
literally all day singlehandedly. But I don't understand the computer editing programs like Audacity or some of the other systems in use. I can operate a mean ZaraRadio automation system, though!

That's why I'm putting so much into upgrading the Internet stream. My 1610 signal has too small of a coverage area to be sellable. It just isn't. I'm looking into carrier current and other means of better coverage..but we are sinking in the meantime. Food and gas prices alone are eating us up.

I offered Marianne my half but she didn't take it. I really want this Internet venture to work at least enough to help pay the bills.

You can read more about it at the WJJD website.

Building the "Ultimate" Country Music Station!!

I haven't had much time to post lately, so I thought I'd give you a heads-up on what I'm
working on behind the scenes.

The internet royalty rates have kicked in, which means that all webcasters are now paying more
just to be allowed to broadcast. In my case, it meant paying almost $48 a month for a stream that is considered a "personal," or hobbyist, stream. That basically means that I'm not allowed to sell any ads in it. The provider, however, can - and they do. Roughly every 12 minutes at this point.

I've decided to take what I think is a good product - classic country - and upgrade it to something that will ultimately sound better.

I'm in the process of building the "ultimate" country music station.

Following the previous blog post regarding "lost" songs - I was able to locate a number of songs on that list. One gentleman mailed me a collection of his country music from his radio days. He
did send them on mp3s..I believe there were something like 819 songs in that collection alone.
When added to the collection I originally had, which was increased greatly a few years ago when my friend Erwin O'Conner brought me some country albums - well, I've got no excuse for dead air, do I?

I grew up listening to country music on 1330 AM, which back in the old days, was WMEN. That
was the station of choice for most of my childhood, until WOMA-FM 94.9 came along (which led to the demise of WMEN's country era.) But 1330 played songs that I remember, that I never, ever heard again - until the past few weeks. And I've been LOVING it!

Matter of fact, I received songs I didn't know before - and I'm enjoying them.

This week I have spent hours upon hours producing the mp3 files into CD form so that I can use them during live programs. Of course, the mp3 files will be the default playlist, the one the station plays from when I'm not manually in there doing a live program.

How many songs are there, you ask? I don't know. Out of the cds I've produced this week, there is something like 1500-ish titles spread over about 75 discs. Then I have the 54-disc set I produced earlier; two rooms of vinyl LPs and 45s; the new mp3 collection..I'm not planning to count how many songs there are. Way more than most country stations now will ever play.

My plan is to get the bitrate up..moving from the tin-can sound of 8kbps to something in the FM quality range, like 32k or 56k. I'm also going to come out of "basic' mode broadcasting, except when I need to be in the studio for production or some other programming.

Ultimately, the stream will move to "professional," meaning that all of the ads are placed by me or others helping with the station.

Another move will be the streaming of the MUSIC OF NEW LIFE classic Christian music program, which is syndicated now - but is not streamed. It will stream in real time on Sunday mornings. the same time it airs now.

So, the finished product will be: A renovated Internet stream broadcasting at a higher quality
bitrate with an increased playlist of great country music..all in LIVE mode, in real time. No
voicetracking. And even my old liners are going to be phased out, although the old WJJD jingles are staying.

I'm predicting that it will take me most of the summer to do everything necessary to unveil the new sound - but I'm betting that if you LIKE is now, you'll LOVE us after the changes. because the classic country music is staying right where it is.