“Compost Occurs”-even in Radio….

Give me a minute to explain.

Most large radio stations today don’t even LISTEN to their own product. Their own “sound” and, their own “issues” when they happen. We DO.

For the past few days, there’s been quite a few interruptions in our streaming service AND in the service we provide to Lowell and Eastern Kent County. Unlike some stations, however, we: take responsibility and acknowledge issues, and: We fix them as soon as humanly possible.

In this technologically-driven world, there are many links in a chain. Back when WION began streaming, as owner, I decided I wanted to stream REAL AM STEREO which we always have. We have never had a source for your online listening other than a genuine AM stereo tuner in my office where I’m writing this. The sound leaves that tuner, stops along the way at my recording console, and on to the sound card which encodes the audio to send to you via Live 365 dot com and via a link to Lowell. We chose a live link to Lowell over “industry standard” encoding and decoding because the ‘net that we get in Lowell from Fiber service is less than reliable, and our OWN streaming provides a more steady service.

Now that you’ve seen “behind the curtain” of what we do to bring you streaming, the REASON has always been that AM radio is under the gun by many of you, the consumer who don’t believe it can sound GREAT. So, if that’s you, go to our stream, put on the headphones, your airpods, or whatever you need to have a good quality earpiece and just LISTEN. It’s REAL AM RADIO. EVERY AM station is capable of sounding like this, but the big owners are lazy, and they put “talk” radio on their AM’s, they hit one button for “voice” on their audio processing, and the result is a muddy mix of crappy talk and endless commercials if you listen to I-heart. Sometimes as much as 10 in a row! (or more.)

We don’t do that. We process our AM for the very BEST sound allowed by the FCC, 10khz wide, (FM is 15khz by the way) and, many people can’t tell the difference if not told!It’s a really nice, w-i-d-e sound, that is pleasant to the ear, and never gives you ear fatigue. We want you to listen as long as possible to enjoy WION and to tell others about us.

Getting back to the recent interruptions, a “perfect storm” of issues happened. First of all, Microsoft pushed some windows updates. A very large one, and some others….this takes our Lowell link AND our stream offline when it happens. The larger “server” that handles all this also had patches pushed overnight, and our (volunteer) Streaming and Internet Manager, Scott had to restart an offsite server on Saturday morning, meaning that Lowell was “off the air” from sometime Saturday early until mid afternoon.

Our own streaming system that pushes the signal TOI the server also had multiple Windows patches pending, and took forever to update. Again, interruptions took place. On top of that, some of the updates played havoc with our special sound card used to encode the audio for both our streaming and for Lowell. Today, Monday the 14^th, more issues developed and Scott was able to both “update” some and “roll back” some of the patches to restart the sound card which encodes our great AM stereo audio.

The NEXT part of the “perfect storm” of issues was, our main AM stereo receiver has developed some intermittent issues, but…luckily, in many parts of WION, we have redundancy. Our streaming receiver is one of those places, and we’re streaming beautiful AM stereo again from our backup receiver. It’s as smooth as ever and as nice sounding as you have come to know.

My main point of all this is, It upsets me, as owner and operator of WION as much or MORE than it does you when there is an issue. It’s going to happen in any business that runs 24/7, and certainly RADIO is one of those industries. BUT, unlike many bigger stations, we actually monitor our product and fix things as quickly as we can. The larger chain-owned radio stations are too busy consolidating, firing staff, and controlling things from hundreds of miles away to KNOW when something at the local level needs attention. We, on the other hand, for 22 years have given you OUR VERY BEST even when things don’t go exactly as designed.

Now, on the “downside” of this, we’re also doing this with a mainly volunteer support staff of the BEST engineers in the biz…who do work with WION because they LOVE this station, how it sounds, and the fact we STILL EXIST in “small town America.” I’d like to state for the record that this is NOT EASY. As owner, I’ve literally LIVED with this station for 22 years. It’s not a 9 to 5. It’s a “whenever WION needs burping” we do it. Like a young kid in a family. Whether it’s bad storms, power outages, or the day to day grind of convincing a “Facebook Society” that LOCAL media can do advertising BETTER than a computer at FaceMonster “picking” who sees your post..and remember, POSTS ARE NOT ADVERTISEMENTS. IF YOU DON’T PAY AN ONLINE SITE, they DON’T GUARANTEE AN AUDIENCE!! Plenty of times, even our city events, chamber events, DDA events, and YOUR organizational events get served-up DAYS after they happen to our small staff.

So, to keep LOCAL RADIO going, we work hard on the technology, and the many links in the chain for both our local signals, and our streaming…..and if YOU want to keep it more interesting, get off your duffs if you are part of an organization and SEND US a press release at least a couple weeks ahead of time so we can take pride in talking it up “ On the radio!” If you’ve got time to post on Facebook you’ve got time to send the SAME information to our “contact” page at www.i1430.com. There is NO excuse for not telling your local radio station about your (autumn and) regular events. We’re not searching you down. We have LIVES and we don’t LIVE on Facebook, nor is it possible for any human being unless they sit home 24/7 on the web to follow ALL the pages that think they are better than the next one in telling you what’s happening in your community. It’s time YOU WAKE UP and use the ONE locally owned media that this county still has! We can only care if YOU DO….

So, get on it! Send us info for your fall events. Listen LOCALLY whether it’s on Lowell’s 100.3, FM 92-7 or our very long-distance AM 1430 in your daytime travels…..or online…….and help us keep the CONTENT of your local station…..LOCAL. I can’t guarantee NOT taking political ads as we get nearer November. For years I’ve avoided all that I legally can, but Politician’s money this year will spend as well as Main Street’s money will…..

Want to avoid that? Encourage more local businesses to join us as sponsors. We work harder for our clients than the computers at Facebok-do.