The End? - 10/1/09

It's been 4 years since lost80s.com first started playing all of your favorite 80's music. There's been many up's and down's. For the past 2 years, many of you have helped me stay on the air by donating to the station. The biggest contribution has come from a friend who is now in Iraq that has been providing all the listener slots I need on a server he has been providing for free. It's the only way I've been able to stick around and grow. We all know that times are tough and I've been told that Rob can no longer keep paying the $115 dollars a month to keep the server going. Things have changed in my home as well. My wife lost her job and I was lucky enough to find a job to allow us to keep a roof over our heads. This has taken away from the time that I can spend on the station and the reduction in income means that there is no way that I can afford to start paying the extra $115 a month to keep lost80s going. The server could be going down as soon as October 15th 2009, or it is possible that the server provider might allow me a couple more months to try and come up with a way to keep the server. I didn't want to wait till the last minute to make an announcement, so I am letting you know now. I can't come up with any way that I could pay $115 for the server and $70 for the licensing fees to loudcity. $185 a month is more than I can realistically expect to receive in donations. I either need a corporate sponsor, or I need an angel that would be willing to donate listener slots in the way of bandwidth. I am totally capable of handling all the computer system administration required to keep the station on the air if you have a server to donate, or if you already have one setup and can provide listener slots for the lost80s stream, that would be great too. Barring some yet unseen miracle, it looks like this might be the end for lost80s.com....at least until if or when things change. If you have any ideas or can lend a hand, please feel free to contact me.

For those of you that have donated in the past to help me keep the station on the air, I am not oblivious to the fact that it would be unfair for me to just disappear after you have so generously provided support. So here is what I'm going to do....If you have donated to lost80s in 2009 and would like to continue listening to the station if and when our streaming server is taken away, send me an email to let me know that you'd still like to be able to tune in. Also if you are a personal friend of mine either by real life aquaintance or we've become email friends by virtue of meeting through lost80s, just contact me and let me know you are still interested in listening to the station. I will take all the requests I receive and make the stream available on a protected username/password basis for as many people and for as long as I can. That's the best I can come up with for now.

This is a sad day for me. lost80s was a very personal project for me. It's something I always wanted to do. If I do end up having to say good-bye for now, I hope it's not forever. I cherish the friends I've made as a direct result of the station and I hope you all keep in touch. My biggest thanks to all of you for listening.....James

New Broadcast PC - 7/26/09

After installing the new sound-processing technology for our stream, it became apparent that the old PC that I have been using for station automation was just not able to do the job anymore. So today I went out and purchased a new dual core PC to replace the old one. I put it in service tonight at 11:00 PM Central time. There was a short outage during the switch-over and I apologize for that, but it was un-avoidable. The old PC was maxing out at 100% cpu usage and causing all sorts of problems and outages. The new PC cost $650 which I paid for myself. Any donations to help cover the expense would be greatly appreciated. Just use the "Make A Donation" form to the right if you would like to help. August is almost here which means it's almost time that our monthly licensing and streaming fees come due. It cost only $70 a month and any amount that you can donate to keep lost80s broadcasting your favorite 80's music 24x7 and commercial free will be very helpful. Thanks for your support.

More Improvements - 7/8/09

Lost80s now sounds even better at 80k than some stations broadcasting at even higher bitrates, thanks to additional sound processing technology added today. Give it a try, I think you're going to like what you hear. Higher bitrates cost more and I've been struggling to come up with a solution to improve the station sound without incurring extra monthly expenses. Although AAC+ sounds better at lower bitrates, it requires specific media players to listen. After providing an AAC+ stream for some time and still having most listeners choose the MP3 option, I decided to drop the AAC+ stream and concentrate on providing the highest quality MP3 stream I could afford here at lost80s. I couldn't be happier with the results. The new 80k MP3 stream now has a more rich, full and BIGGER sound. Just listen!

July Donations

Thanks to a surplus of donations last month, we are fully funded for July. Many thanks to Pam Adams, Dana Stolk, and our newest Club 15 members, Matthew Zarazua and Elden Lindamood. These people are personally responsible for keeping lost80s on the air. I really appreciate your support and I will continue working hard to keep lost80s "Your home of the 80s"....

Michael Jackson Tribute - 6/26/09

Friday, June 26th, 2009, lost80s.com will be paying tribute to Michael Jackson. Once an hour, starting at 7 am Central Time U.S., at the top of the hour, we'll be playing some of Jackson's biggest hits and including some interviews that we could find. The DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) limits the number of songs we can play by the same artist within a certain time frame, so we'll play the most we're allowed by law. The "King of Pop" may be gone, but his music lives on. Please join us.

Michael Jackson Dead - 6/25/09

According to the webpage www.tmz.com, Michael Jackson died today at age 50. Michael suffered a cardiac arrest earlier this afternoon at his Holmby Hills home and paramedics were unable to revive him.

Farrah Fawcett also lost her battle with cancer today. She was 62.

Hacker Update - 6/24/09

I would like to apologize for the poor state of our stream during the past 6 days. Lost80s has been under attack by a rather determined hacker (or hackers). Some of the connection problems were due to my efforts to stop them, but I believe I have the situation under control now. I was only looking for the source of some network errors in the beginning. If the offending party had contacted me, I would have happily worked with them to solve the issue, but instead they set up an automated script to connect whenever they were dropped. I don't want to stop anyone from being able to listen, but no one person has the right to cause problems for the hundreds of others trying to enjoy the station. I am sorry for any trouble this has caused. I will be keeping an eye on the situation and will do everything I can to make things better. I'm doing the best that I can. Thanks for hanging in there.

Under Attack - 6/18/09

Major IP address ranges belonging to Deutsche Telekom AG are being blocked thanks to this attack. If you cannot connect from Germany, you will need to contact me in order to be able to listen. After a full day of dealing with this issue, I believe I have figured out the problem. I don't want to publish details because I don't want to encourage further incidents. I'm not 100% sure, but I have blocked 7 IP addresses, all of them from Germany. that I believe to be the source of the sporadic disconnection of all listeners. I don't know for sure if it is intentional or not, but I will be banning these types of connections in an effort to keep the occasional "mass dump" of all lost80s listeners from happening. Services have been restored and I think we are ok for now. If you get disconnected, please just reconnect. I am sorry for the trouble. I don't suppose it would do any good, but if this is an intentional attack..please stop.

RSS Feed

I created a RSS feed for lost80s.com. You can now keep up with all the latest news by subscribing.

ABC Interview - TODAY

Lost80s interview with Martin Fry of the band ABC will be airing TODAY, Tuesday, June 16th at 11:00 am Central Time US. It was a lot of fun and a great honor to speak with Martin.
ABC is coming to the U.S. for the Regeneration Tour June 17 - July 16.
I have created a chatroom if you would like to chat with other ABC fans during the interview.

June Donations

My biggest thanks to Matthew Zarazua, Pam Adams, Tracy Divon, Dana Stolk and Elden Lindamood, who for a second time has become a Club 15 member...THANKS Elden! These folk are personally responsible for keeping lost80s on the air. Everyday that you tune in, it's because of the very generous support of people like Matthew, Pam, Tracy, Dana and Elden. I deeply grateful for all your support and happy to be doing something you guys enjoy everyday. Thanks so much!

AAC+ Support

If you have a AAC+ capable media player...Winamp, VLC, Foobar, most Linux players, etc, check out our new AAC+ stream. It provides incredible sound at an even lower bitrate than the MP3 stream. If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry, just hit the link for MP3.

Important Announcement 5/26

For a couple of weeks I've been warning that the old streaming server would be going away. Well today it did. At the time there were about 13-15 people still using it. I am not off the air. If you had lost80s bookmarked in your favorite audio player and it is now no longer connecting, please hit the "Listen Now" button and relaunch the stream. The new server provides over 5 times the bandwidth and should be more stable than the old. I am looking at improving the sound quality of the current offerings to include a new AAC+ stream that should sound incredible. You will have to use Winamp or install the Orban plugin for Windows Media Player to listen to it, but there will still be a MP3 stream for those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about.

May Donations

I am very happy to announce that we have already received the $70 needed to continue broadcasting another month. One generous donor contributed the whole amount and I just want to say thank you for helping me to keep bringing you all this great commercial free, non-stop 80s music another month. As always I am humbled by your support of lost80s and very greatful to have such great listeners!

Wi-Fi Internet Radio

I found the perfect way to enjoy lost80s. You don't even have to have your computer turned on and it works anywhere you have a wifi connection. The Logitech Squeezebox Boom All-In-One Wi-Fi Internet Radio. It allows you connect to a wireless or wired network and gives you access not only to all of your favorite Internet radio stations like lost80s, but also your personal music collection and other services like Pandora. I love this radio. It sounds incredible and was super easy to set up. Now listening to lost80s is as easy as turning on the radio.

Store Updated

Please stop by our store and check out the new merchandise. A new logo on everything and a great way to support your favorite 80's station!

Corporate Sponsor?

I have an idea for corporate sponsorship that I'd like to propose. My idea is for one company to sponsor the station for a year. I would replace my current sweepers to include your company name. For example - Your home for the 80's - lost80s.com - brought to you by xyz. This would provide a benefit to both your company and the listener. Your company would be the only one mentioned on the station. The listeners would be able to continue enjoying the station without having to listen through long commercial breaks. A lot of listeners come here by searches for "commercial free radio" so I know they don't want to be interrupted by commercials. The benefit to the listener would be that they could continue listening to their favorite 80s music without feeling obligated to donate. I will also work with you to incorporate your company into the lost80s website. I think this would be a win-win situation for everyone and would greatly appreciate your input and/or support.