Andrew (R.S Admin) @ajroach42@retro.social

My blog has moved!

You can find me at http://ajroach42.com

Just met @jpaul and talked about building quality hardware and software as individuals, or small groups leveraging the resources provided by our makerspace to create jobs and de-fang monopolies and oligopolies.

It was a fun conversation, I wonder if anything will come of it.

Nice to meet you Paul.

(I'll do a blog post and an announcement when I get the programming blocks set up, we're on autoDJ right now.)

If you'd like to listen along: https://streaming.live365.com/a74617 is the quick link to the official player and https://api.live365.com/play/a74617.m3u is the m3u (which shouldn't be region locked.)

Cool. The station is up.

As of right now, there are 27 artists, more than 300 tracks, and roughly 20 hours of music.

I have not recorded any bumpers or station IDs yet

(please feel free to submit your own. Use the format "Hi I'm [name] from [thing or place] and this is mountain town radio")

I'm heading to lunch while another big batch of tracks uploads. My goal is to add a little more variety to things before I start promoting it.

I just met with the local soup kitchen about the potential of them using one of the two small kitchens we have at the Makerspace, and one of our meeting rooms as the new soup kitchen.

They're a hyper religious bunch, but otherwise seem reasonable. I'm cautiously optimistic about being able to help some folks.

Alright. Domain is registered. I've signed up for a month of live365. I'm building my library and playlists. I might start broadcasting later today.

Can anyone comment on the owners of the .fm tld?

It's like, Micronesia or something, right? Any reasons I shouldn't register a .fm domain?

Cool. So tomorrow I'll put together a few dozen hours' worth of content, record ten bumpers, and buy a month's subscription.

I'll load up the content, schedule a few programs, and find out what the experience is like as a listener.

If I don't hate it, I'll put a little more effort in to the curation, record some better bumpers, and register a domain name.

(I mean, I gotta figure that out either way. Even with their ads, it's not a Free service.)

I need to hear some of their default ads to decide if I'm willing to put up with them or if I'll pay the extra fee to avoid them.

(And if I'm going to avoid them, I gotta figure out how we'll fund keeping the station on the air.)

I can guarantee an audience from the coffee shop, as this would supplement/replace the stations we use now.

I might be able to convince a few other businesses in town to make us their shop radio as well.

5 shops at 10 hours/day puts us at the limit of the first package, but it also puts our music and advertisements in the ears of ~500 - 1000 people (in a very concentrated geographic area) every day, which means we could probably sell an ad or two to bounce up to the next level.

Several folks suggested live365 which looks like a good option.

Their pricing model is fair, they have a method to opt out of advertisements, and if you choose not to do that it's only 4 minutes of ads per hour.

The base package is limited to 1500 total listener hours per month, but if we're exceeding that I should be able to sell enough ads directly to bump us up to the next level.

So the question:

Do I talk to ASCAP, BMI, or sound exchange? Or all three?

Like, I could make a more interesting radio station than radio paradise or whatever. I could record 30 or 40 bumpers and build a few dozen hours of playlists comprising a mix of 60s garage and psych, jazz, blues, and all the weird indie shit I've been rocking for the last decade.

I'm positive folks would enjoy listening to it.

I don't have time to do it Right, but I could cheat a little with computers.

It can't be That expensive.

Alright.

I'm thinking about broadcasting.

I thinking about music licensing royalty rates for internet radio stations, and internet radio station funding.

I'm coming to believe that I will never actually be able to participate in a real radio station, because the FCC sucks and won't let us have any more, even though we only get like two stations up here.

I'm planning out a streaming video station for original and public domain content, eventually, but a real internet radio station appeals.

It appears I've lost my 2-star tabernacle bootlegs.

Anyone out there got copies they want to hook me up with?