Q1: I am experiencing skips when listening to the streams
 

A1a: Select the correct stream... If you are on a modem, be sure to only select the 24k streams as streams over 56k will skip unless you are on a fast connection such as cable, DSL or 128k ISDN.
 

A1b: If you are selecting the correct bitrate and still experiencing occasional skips, try a different server - one server may have a better path back to you than another.  
 

A1c: Try increasing the buffering in your player. 
WinAmp: In WinAmp use CTRL-P to open the Preferences, and select P)lugins, I)nput and the "Nullsoft MPEG Audio Decoder" and hit the 'configure' button. On the 'streams' tab increase the 'Stream Data Buffer' setting - try 128k or even 256k.  This almost always fixes the odd skip or hiccup.

Q2: I am getting "queue full" or "too many listeners" errors
 

A2: Select another stream and/or server - we have hard limits on the number of listeners per stream, based on our uplink capacity.  Once a stream is full it cannot take any more listeners and will generate the errors you are seeing.  

If anyone is willing to host a ShoutCast relay (Linux or Windows) and can donate some bandwidth to help Radio80s.NET handle more *real* ad-free users, please contact programming@radio80s.net and let us know!

If you have a static IP you can always apply as a registered member - your IP address is logged and you can always connect to the servers, regardless of loads  - you can also listen to the 128kbps streams  - email us: programming@radio80s.net !

Q3: I want you to play my favourite song...

A3: Firstly, see if the song is already in the Radio80s.NET Playlist - if it is you can simply request it from there and it'll be added to the queue.

If you cannot find your favourite New Wave / Early-80s song in the Playlist list then email us with the song title and artist and we'll add it if we have it in our CD/Vinyl collection. 

If you want to upload the song you can do this via FTP to ftp.radio80s.net with the username/password of radio80s/radio80s (use a real ftp client, not your web browser's FTP facility) We will review the song and if we have it in our library we'll encode it and add it to the playlist!!

 

Q4: How can I help Radio80s.NET??

A4a: Donations!   We put all donations directly against our monthly data charges - just use the PayPal icon on our webpage to make a donation.

A4b: Google Ads - click those Google ads - each time you click we generate micro payments

A4c: Relays!  We always need more bandwidth for our growing listener base. It's expensive to provide feeds in this country, so if anyone is willing to host a ShoutCast relay (Linux or Windows) and can donate some bandwidth to help Radio80s.NET handle more *real* ad-free users, please contact programming@radio80s.net and let us know!   

Q5: What gear do you use for Radio80s.NET??

A5: Lots of servers, but Here are two pics of our main gear
We use two servers to provide the Radio80s.NET streams.

     1) The first server is a Compaq ProLiant 1850R with dual P3 600 CPUs, 2GB RAM, two 2DH RAID controllers and four U3 9.1GB disks in a RAID10 duplexed mirror array. This Windows Server 2003 machine runs the radio station software and serves the webpage via IIS 6.0 and ASP. It runs 3 ShoutCast streams for the 3 different bandwidths Radio80s.NET broadcasts on from our main ISP.  It also feeds our secondary server via ShoutCast streams.  It's CPU history averages about 60% usage for both CPU's while running a dual-band ACG/ DSP processor.  This server also shares a network connection to a 6-drive DVD server that can host music for mix-nights and special occasions.

     2) The second server is a Compaq Proliant 1850R with dual P3 550 CPUs and 2GB RAM, a 2DH RAID controller and two U3 18GB disks in a RAID1 mirror. This Windows Server 2003 machine the MP3 storage for the main server, plus it hosts three ShoutCast sessions that stream through our secondary ISP connection. It also provides the 64k & 128k ShoutCast sources for our internal XBOX MediaCentre, hifi's and other 'special events' like the occasional 128k stream for Severed's friends on weekends! 

     3) Both servers are VLAN'ed to a IPcop Linux router which connects them to one of our two DSL connections. In the event of one DSL connection failing for extended periods the Linux router will re-route though the link that is up.
4) All our equipment in our server room (7 Compaq ProLiants, 3 clones and some network gear) is powered through 2 APC 2200RM UPS devices that can run the entire network for about 40 minutes in the event of a power outage. However,  in most cases we will shut down the two Radio80s.NET ShoutCast servers after 5 minutes on battery power to extend the up-time of our client's other essential services.
5) We use two business-grade DSL links to host Radio80s.NET - the first is a 512/512 SHDSL via Netspace.Net.Au and the second is a 24000/1000 ADSL via iiNet.Net.Au

Q6: What is the Radio80s.NET playlist stategy?

A6: Above all, we want to offer a broadcast that covers New Wave to Early 80s - we approximate that to mean '78 to '83 within certain strict post-punk/new-wave/pop genres.

Secondly, we play frequently-requested songs more frequently.  We have certain songs on our playlist that won't ever get played unless requested.  We have lots of tracks that are post-83 and/or outside the "NewWave/Early80s" genres; these songs will be available via the request system, but they won't be auto-queued by the radio station software unless their popularity increases them by requests. 
 
The auto-queuing mechanism is skewed to "New Wave and Early 80s"... and whilst each request increases that song's chance of being played at a later date, no negative weighting happens.   This means what? OK lets see... say a song has a score of 50 - it's probably going to be played once every two or three days... but every time it gets requested it'll increase it's score by 5 - this increases it's chances of being played by 5%-10% per hour per day.    A popular song may get played 4 times per day as it's score is 80 or 90....   SO if you like a song keep requesting it!!!!  By the same token, once it's at 80 or 90 it'll never drop below this point unless we manually drop it's "popularity"   -

This station is part of the AudioRealm network.