My name is Joel. I have to confess to you that Q107 is mostly a one-man operation, operated by myself. Q107 was born as an outlet for me to express my taste in 80s music. There are a lot of songs that I remember from the 80s that you just can’t hear on the radio anymore. I like to play those songs for you, the 80s music lover. However, I just don’t have the time or the money to devote for operating Q107 any longer.

Q107 has been running for nearly four years now on a budget borne entirely by my personal finances. As everyone is probably aware, the price of practically everything is going up, but wages are not keeping up. The cost of things like electricity, fuel, food, communications, and taxes have all gone up. This weakened economy is definitely impacting the operation of the station. We were offering a syndicated show called ‘Back To The 80s’. It was a professionally produced show that offered a throwback to 80s music and culture. However, the producers of that show were also feeling the pinch of the economy and required more money to carry the show. That was money that just wasn’t in the Q107 budget, so the show had to be discontinued. In addition, our transmitter experienced another catastrophic lightning surge. The money just is not there to repair it. So now we can only offer an online stream.

In addition, my kids are getting older and I feel the need to spend more time with them. Plus, I have devoted much of my spare time to serving God and my church. So, in addition to the money not being there to operate Q107, neither is the time.

What I’m trying to say is that I’ve been contemplating whether to cease the operation of Q107. I’d like to know if you think Q107 is really worth listening to. Q107 seems to have a loyal listenership, but I have long wished for a way to translate that to a small income for upkeep of the station. I’m not asking for the world, just a way to recoup the expenses for operating the station. Please send us your comments using the ‘Contact Us’ link above. Tell me whether losing the variety of 80s music you find on Q107 would impact you. Also tell me whether you would be willing to support Q107 financially. I know these days just about every website you visit is asking for money. You just have to ask yourself if you’d be willing to devote your financial support to keep 80s music alive.

Q107 is proud to say it now uses Wordpress to create its website. We just upgraded the core files to the newest version 2.5. Upgrading wasn’t very difficult. We just had to be sure and backup our existing files to a hard drive and follow the instructions at http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress. Plus, you can always follow the more detailed instructions at http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress_Extended. The instructions tell us to deactivate the existing plugins. We did not do this prior to the upgrade, but still have not experienced any difficulties.

If you’re using Wordpress and haven’t upgraded, now is the time to do it. Wordpress version 2.5 includes many new features and a friendlier user interface.  To quote the fine people at Wordpress the upgrade brings “multi-file uploading, one-click plugin upgrades, built-in galleries, customizable dashboard, media library, and an all-new design that’s easier to use than ever before.”  Upgrading is not difficult if you know how to use FTP.

You are probably surprised to see this new format for our site. We know there’s not a lot of content yet. Just give us some time, and we’ll get some of our old content back. This new site will be a work in progress for the next several months.

For years we had been using Microsoft Front Page to manage our site, but lately it hasn’t been working well for us. In addition, Microsoft quit distributing the software and hosting providers will probably be pulling support for it as well. Now we’re using Wordpress which is free. For the forseeable future we will be using this ‘blog’ type format for our site which is quickly gaining in popularity.

In case you don’t see it, the Listen Live link is to the right.

If you have suggestions for Q107’s new site, please add a comment to this post and we’ll take a look at your request.