80s Airwaves - Music, Media & More

As a follow up to last months post about the history of our online radio station, I wanted to post something about why we decided upon 80s music as the core format. Having been a serious music fan for over 20 years before creating the station, my collection of LPs, CDs, DVDs and tapes ran the gamut from 50’s rockabilly to the most current of rock bands (White Stripes and Drive By Truckers being at the top of my current faves list). Despite having an appreciation for almost all genres of music, it seems that I spent most of my time actually defending 80s music among other music aficionados and many baby-boomers (and sometimes both), who felt great music ended with Woodstock.

Most of the “80s music sucks” arguments are shallow at best with references to synth-pop bands that claimed heavy rotation on MTV and the influx of so much of the sappy pap from the hit music charts of the times. The reality is that one of the greatest things about 80s music, and what we tried to capture on 80s Airwaves, was the truly vast variety of music that was released during that time. There was an amazing 12 year period of music from the late 70s through the end of the 80s that I don’t believe has ever been matched simply in terms of musical variety.

During the late 70’s, as the glitter of glam began to fade and super-groups like Journey, Boston, Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac and others began to sell out stadiums, punk was taking hold both in the US and the UK. In the later part of the 70’s we saw crucial releases from The Ramones, The Clash, The Sex Pistols and The Saints. With heavy reggae influences, the Clash paved the way for a second-coming of Ska music from the likes of the Specials, the Beat, the Selecter, Madness and more. With an endless barrage of New Wave bands that hit with the new 80s decade, there also came a counter-force from New York taking on the name No-Wave who used analog guitar noise to counter the computer synths and electronic drums. Speaking of electronic music we can’t forget the likes of Kraftwerk, Can, the Residents, Jean Michel Jarre and Vangellis, while on the industrial side we had the early beats from Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire and Leather Nun. With all these cheap electronics, samplers and tapes loops, its not surprising that we saw the rise of house music in Chicago by the close of the decade as well as the great Factory bands like Joy Division, New Order, A Certain Ratio and OMD.

Of course while all this “new” music was being created using new instruments built from new technologies, “old” genres like Jazz continued to push through in the 80’s including key players like Miles Davis, Sun Ra and cross-over success for Herbie Hancock. Reggae also continued to make progress in the 80s, despite the loss of legend Bob Marley at the start of the decade (May 1981) while one of his sons, Ziggy Marley, helped to conclude the decade and bring some much needed positive vibrations to reggae music that saw increasingly violent lyrics. Not wanting to ignore R&B and soul, I’ll just mention Rick James who was the essence of 80’s excess.

And obviously, rock music didn’t actually stop in the 80s. Artists that represented the core of rock and roll during the 70’s, saw numerous critically acclaimed releases during the 80’s from the likes of Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, the Who, ZZ Top, Aerosmith, Bob Dylan and solo releases from each of the fab four. Of course 80’s rock and roll wasn’t just coming from the veterans since many highly influential rock bands like Guns n Roses, Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins all saw their first releases happen toward the end of the 80s. And taking rock and roll, one step beyond, heavy metal somehow morphed into hair metal bringing music and madness from bands like Poison, Motley Crue, Bon Jovi, Whitesnake and dozens more like them.

One of the most debated 80’s music influences from the decade was rap and hip-hop. From Run DMC and Public Enemy to Grand Master Flash and the Beastie Boys, rap music has a huge impact on the entire world.

Ultimately, the 80’s produced dozens of bands that not only claimed the 80s as their own, but have continued to make critical contributions to the current state of music and set new records for concert attendance as their following has grows over decades. This 80’s veterans include U2, the Police, Van Halen, Elvis Costello, The Pretenders, John Mellencamp, REM, Madonna, Devo, Blondie, The Cure, B52’s and many, many more.

So the next time someone tells you how bad the music from the 80s was, ask them which genre and then point them to this little history lesson!

-pjc

With my recent fascination (addiction) to Twitter, there has been a surge in traffic to 80sAirwaves.com. Okay, maybe not a surge, but SOME traffic - most of whom we will presume had never really heard of 80sAirwaves before my recent Twitter postings (Tweets). So here, in a virtual nutshell, is the story behind 80s Airwaves, the online radio station and this months four year anniversary of my blog.

At the height of my music buying frenzy (age 18-24), during the late 80s and very early 90s, I had already been a club DJ at a few places in the Northwest Chicago suburbs and up into the tiny tourist town of Lake Geneva Wisconsin, as well as a radio DJ working the night shift (9pm-12am) at WCBR 92.7 (The Bear!) in Arlington Heights, IL. Whether I was dropping two bills on used vinyl at a record store, attending record swap meets in Chicago (always a great source for bootlegs) or taking stacks of promotional CDs back to my hovel, always in the back of my mind there existed a dream to have my own radio station unlike any other. I wanted to mix up a wide variety of music with short bits of media into a stream that was both entertaining and informational.

After more than a decade of acquiring music and music media of all sorts and owning a library of thousands of albums, CDs, videos, etc. I was diagnosed with cancer in 2001. While it wasn’t major - nothing that eight weeks of radiation couldn’t cure - it was enough to make me realize how quickly my life could change. My wife, Aimee, and I started to talk about the things we wanted to do and of course, my dream of a radio station was at the top of that list. So in late 2002 we actually started to prepare and figure out what would be needed to actually stream a radio station online 24/7. While I have always been into computers, since my first Vic-20, I was never really into Windows machines, so my solutions for broadcasting always involved Apple Macintosh. In late 2003 or early 2004 I hit upon the combination of RogueAmoeba’s Nicecast and MegaSeg DJ software (with SOME automation features) and all systems were go.

A wide culmination of events lead up to the 80s Airwaves launch party on April 30, 2004 culminating with a countdown and the launch of the station at midnight (May 1, 2004), among aout 50+ family, friends, neighbors and strangers - the strangers were just curious about all the odd people dressed like it was the 80’s. The online radio station, 80s Airwaves was now a reality and was broadcasting “live from a bonus room over the garage”. This wasn’t just a cute marketing tagline - it was the reality. Plus any marketing budget we had was pretty much blown on the party - we did very little promotion of 80sAirwaves.com online or off and simply expected the word of mouth about our great station to carry us. And, for the most part, it did…

Using the Shoutcast directory of online broadcasters as our barometer, we were pleased to announce after our first 30 days on the “air” that we had hit #1303 and climbed into the top 20% of nearly 7,000 broadcasters (now, four years later there are more than 23,000). Within about eight months of our launch we had reached the top 10% of broadcasters and while we struggled with that position, our listener base continued to grow month after month. And while all this success sounds great, the reality is that as online radio stations grow, they require more bandwidth (a serious expense) and need to pay more royalties (just as serious).

In the early part of 2005, things started to get shakey with the company I had been working for over 11 years. The writing was on the wall and I knew I had to get serious about finding a new gig while keeping my current one and running a growing radio station. On the one year anniversary of our little station, May 1, 2005, we had an average of 500 people tuning in each day. The success was bittersweet as I understood it would be impossible for us to keep the station going financially and still get serious about finding a new career, especially since we both wanted to move east. Throughout the Spring and Summer of 2005 the radio station became less of a priority: we added less music, we sent out fewer newsletters and, less response to requests and, not surprisingly, our station ratings decliened with our dedication. In early October 2005, I posted a notice on this blog letting our listeners know about our decision to pull the plug. What was missing from that post was a primary concern about getting a new job which I couldn’t communicate since everyone at my office was aware of the station and some were fulltime listeners. So Friday, October 21, 2005 was the last broadcast day for 80s Airwaves and our final song was “This is Goodbye” by the Characters. Less than six months later, after dedicating ourselves totally to a new location and a new job, I had a new position and a few months after that we had moved out of the house with the “bonus room over the garage” and 80s Airwaves, the online radio station, was history.

There are several morales to this story, but I’ll get to those in a part two in a few days…

-pjc

Last night it occurred to me that while I’ve had a Twitter account for several weeks now, I haven’t really understood the power of it until now. Until last night I had been experimenting with Twitter talking about such navel gazing issues like where we were going to eat, concerts we were going to or just general life ponderings. Like a blog, but smaller - 140 characters to be exact.

CONTENT is king. In order to get the attention of others, you need to be talking/reporting/pointing at something more important than wondering who I might be related to. What if I started to Twitter about 80’s related events, news and images? And if that works, what would prevent us from providing URLs to some 80’s related podcasts and audio files? Hmmmm?

I guess we’ll see what happens next!

In the meantime, if you haven’t already, sign up for a Twitter account and feel free to follow along on this little experiment! Search Twitter for “80sAirwaves” - be sure to capitalize the “A”.

-pjc

Yes - we still miss 80s Airwaves too - the radio station, not this website.

It’s clear from the traffic patterns to this website that many people are coming back to check in on occasion. We appreciate that - truly. We still talk about 80s Airwaves and our many listeners frequently. If money were no object, we would open a small studio and launch 80s Airwaves again in a New York minute. The weird thing about this whole online radio game is that the more successful you become the more expensive things become (mostly bandwidth & ASCAP/BMI Fees). We signed up for this of course, and did our best for nearly 18 months, but unlike most other business that become more profitable with greater success, online radio seems to be the opposite.

We would still like to hear from those few who are hoping to see us return or just looking to keep tabs. My Twitter account, LinkedIn link and email is below. Let us know what’s up with you and what’s you’re listening to now. And, if 80sAirwaves were to come back, what would like to see changed? No promises, but it is something that seems to come up frequently with us, now that life seems to be catching a grove here on the East coast and the bonus room over the garage is long gone. In the meantime, we hope all is well with you and yours.

Patrick on Twitter
Patrick on LinkedIn
Email Direct

Congrats to Martin Hennessy and his new wife - Aimee and I wish you the best Martin and sincerely appreciate all that you did every week from Day ONE to make 80sAirwaves.com great by delivering the 80s Nuts Update so professionally and consistently.

-pjc

PS: If by some strange chance there are some New Englanders reading this that are attending the Blondie show at the Cape Cod Melody Tent in June, get in touch - let’s meet up for dinner prior to the show! Aimee scored us 10th row tickets when the show went on sale last week. Also seriously considering heading down to the Jersey shore to see the Dramarama reunion show next month. And a Jack Johnson live performance this Summer is an absolute - it’s just a matter of where.

PSS: What the hell is up with the new Meatloaf commercial for Cingular?
Damn - that is just sad.

I sent this message today to someone who’s been a friend of mine for over 25 years. Thought I had better post it up for my own benefit as well.

Hey,

All these years its been wrong.

Books, TV shows, magazines and self-help tapes all focusing on our net worth and saving for retirement and “how much will we need” and how much are we putting away. Are you contributing the maximum to your 401k and what about your Roth IRA? This morning I realized it’s all bullshit.

If you get hit by a truck tomorrow and you are laid up in a hospital for two months or cancer returns and I spend the next dozen weeks doing radiation and chemo, net worth and savings are as good as gone. What matters - what should matter MOST, is residual or recurring income that is not tied to our daily work activities.

Why is it that we know about this concept, but we don’t focus on it? If someone owns a home, free and clear (unlikely), and lets say its worth $300k and that is almost their entire net worth, what happens when something goes wrong. And its never a matter of IF, but when - the older we get the better the odds. So then what? You sell your house in order to pay medical bills, cover food expenses, taxes, etc.? “Hello Mr. Homeless! I have a nice trailer I can rent you for the next 20 years, make yourself comfortable.”

We need a new measuring stick - a new metric. Net worth is nearly as useless as measuring success by what kind of car you drive (or lease!). What we need to really track is HOW MUCH INCOME ARRIVES EACH MONTH THAT IS NOT TIED TO OUR DAILY WORK EFFORTS? Given the current state of the real estate industry, foreclosures and low interest rates, why aren’t we collecting income producing properties like baseball cards? Given my 20+ years experience in franchising and creating successful business concepts (both retail and online), why aren’t we launching a new pilot concept every six months? Why don’t we know venture capitalist by first name and reputation?

What are we waiting for? A truck? Cancer? Why don’t we know more about limited partnerships? Are we afraid - is this about fear? We should own interests in car washes, laundromats, vacation condos with rental programs and other local businesses - something, anything that provides some level of income each and every month. Fucking gum ball machines would be a start! And yes, some investments will fail, but we will learn from those and move on. We were supposed to be retired by now, remember?

The point is that we need to start today and begin measuring this recurring income stream each month from now until the end.

Are you in?

-pjc

—
We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear—fear of war,fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer.
-HST (2003)

[INSERT TYPICAL UNAPOLOGETIC APOLOGY HERE FOR LACK OF POSTING]

What a crazy year.

After working for the same group of companies for nearly 20 years, in the past 18+ months since we moved to CT, I’ve been employed with THREE different companies. The most recent one I just started at the beginning of December and it seems to be a good fit so far, but I’m not as naive as I was 18 months ago either. Not to mention this uncertainty has caused us to start our own search engine optimization firm for small companies.

2007 wasn’t all bad, we still did a lot of great stuff despite being highly uncertain about current or future income. Our back-up plan was basically to sell the house (or attempt to), pack up our stuff and move to North Carolina: if you’re going to be unemployed, you may as well do it where the cost of living is low, the jobs are plentiful and it’s warm the majority of the year. It didn’t actually get to that point; lucky for me as one prospect was winding down another would rear its opportunistically ugly head and I’d go all in. But we still like NC very muchly and hope to spend more time there at some point soon. Maybe someone can find us a little radio studio in a downtown part of Wilmington - like that little station in Gross Pointe Blank, and we can resurrect 80s Airwaves!

And now, two years after the death of the 80s Airwaves, I can reveal an important factor in our decision making: Yes, it was getting expensive to run: after nearly 18 months we had worked our way up to about 500 listeners a day which does occupy a lot of bandwidth. Yes, it was time intensive and required Aimee’s time during the day to handle request and much of my early morning and evening hours. Yes, functionality of the website was being hampered by spammers (which still continues on today with this blog). And yes, there was no money in it - though that was never the focus really. One of the MAJOR contributing factors was that we had to begin to focus our sole efforts at finding a new career for me. Things were changing and getting pretty ugly within that group of companies where I had spent almost my entire working career and I was able to see during the Summer of 2005 that I really needed to move on. As many of you know, finding a new position, especially a new position in a new part of the country is a FULL TIME JOB. It became impossible to treat the 80 Airwaves listeners fairly and still be certain about our financial future at the same time. And something had to give, which is why it isn’t surprising that within six months of pulling the plug on 80s Airwaves, I had a new position on the east coast. The events since have been some bad craziness, but we’ll take that over staying comfortable with a “lifer” position in a failing company in the Midwest any day. Even with the chaos, confusion and some sleepless nights - we wouldn’t change a thing.

Some of the high-points of the year included trips to the cape, beaches in RI, a week-long adventure with some of our old Wisconsin neighbors to North Myrtle Beach, meeting Edge at a charity auction in NYC, being in the audience for a Letterman show (with Will Ferrell), having my 40th birthday at the Waldorf and upstairs at 21, friends and family actually coming east to visit us, lunch at Gordon Ramsey’s restaurant (THE BEST) and of course Aimee crashing her car AGAIN. Avenue Q was just as funny as Spamalot. And for our 10th anniversary in October we did keep our promise, despite the income situation, and spent a week cruising around the Hawaiian islands. We found a couple of places we would love to go back to (Lahaina in Maui being at the top of the list) and we met some very cool people - including two lesbians from Cleavland we zip-lined with on the last island day. In December we killed WAY too many hours with Excite Truck on the Wii (we did beat the platinum level, but didn’t bother going for the mirror option). We also renewed our Key Sunday Cinema Club membership and saw some really amazing pre-release movies, the top of the list was The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Though Juno is excellent as well and will be easier for people to find (see the movie THEN buy the soundtrack)!

The last day of 2007 ended with Aimee and I having dinner and walking out of very fancy (but not really very good) restaurant in New Haven and as she was opening the big doors she started to fall down the steps and grabbed me. She ripped my shirt wide open - we’re talking about a good 12″ rip on the opposite side of the buttons, leaving me bare-chested and very hulk-like on new years eve 2007. While we had talked about going out after, we went home to watch the ball drop as a very sad Dick Clark counted down the end of a pretty treacherous year. We kept the expensive but now useless shirt after taking a black Marks-A-Lot to it and writing “We Survived 2007 (barely)”.

Things are going great in ‘08 with a new job the suits me well and a CEO who seems very appreciative of all the I’m doing. Aimee just returned from a week in Seattle helping her best friend who is going through a divorce and needed to pack-up everything in a week; they did it! Next month we’re destined for Las Vegas for my 41st birthday and a quick trip to see the Grand Canyon - one of my life-long “to-do’s”.

Okay - before I go, I have made a resolution to write more. At least ONE weekly blog post (500-1000 words), but most likely it will not be on this site. It’s my intention to revamp my music DVD review website at some point this month. So bookmark that one if you’re so inclined. I’m also working on a Blu-Ray news/review website, but I haven’t found a name yet that works. Yes, the HD format war that I ranted about previously is now over and Blu-Ray Disc is the victor.
More to come… hopefully.
-pjc

Sorry for the long hiatus - crazy stuff going on, as usual.

1. Changed jobs already, in Feb.: it’s a long story about a flakey CEO that ended with me quitting amicably and then being fired the next day when I outlined a few days I needed off to interview. I already had a new job lined up, but it would have been helpful to coast for the next two months. The new gig features a shiny new “officer” title (CTO) but the reality is I have fewer people working for me now than I have in the last six years. This has been good because I’ve had to get my hands dirty with design, programming and support issues that I hadn’t done in quite some time and it’s allowed me to build my own systems as opposed to trying to morph into some other IT org.

2. Late last month Aimee launched Web Search and Rescue, a website marketing and search engine optimization firm. She was intrigued by what I was doing for EA and learned a lot, plus we have the support of a national author on the subject who would like to see us turn the concept into a national franchise. The website is not complete yet - but it’s damn close.

3. Personally this year we’ve done quite a bit: the kitchen was completely renovated and looks damn good, the landscaping is plodding along, we are being considered for the Northeastern Jeep Club, though we’ve booked a Jeep Jamboree to Killington VT for next month on our own. We already have our tickets to see the Police when they hit east Hartford in July. Two Saturday’s ago we both met the Edge at a charity auction at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square (I bought a cool B&W photo of Mike Ness from Social D by a Rolling Stone photographer as well). In March we were deemed worthy for front row seats to Letterman at the Ed Sullivan Theater - when Will Ferrell was the guest. Aimee took a trip to the Florida Keys with her best friend from high school last month. We’ve joined the Sunday Cinema Club down in Madison CT which has been fun and educational, despite the fact that you have no idea what movie you’ll be seeing until you show up. We’ve made a few friends and been to lots of restaurants and pubs, especially along the sound and in the city of New Haven.

This summer we’re looking forward to some long weekends at the Cape and Newport RI. Friends and family are scheduled to come out to see us every month so far with the exception of September. We are going to Myrtle Beach with some WI friends in August. Aimee is doing some heavy research on Hawaii since we would like to spend a week or 10 days there in October for our 10th. November will find us back in the Midwest to give thanks to our friends and families for not disowning us for moving so far away.

I’ve been trying to convince Aimee that we need to do a weekly 80s radio show or podcast, but she’s not budging. I’d like to write more and might renovate Music DVD Geek at some point very soon, purely as a music DVD review blog with images and sound samples. I can’t believe what’s happening to online radio these days. It’s beyond sad, its criminal and it only continues to hurt music artists by reducing the number of music buying/tour attending fans in the world.

More later - hopefully.

-pjc

PS: let us know how you’re doing: patrick@websearchandrescue.com

PSS: I recently finished a new Spring/Summer mix CD called “Crazy Fools”. If you’d like a copy for your travels, send your mailing addy to the email above.

This little list is not inclusive of people, places or experiences, but just simple shiny things that bring a bit of pleasure:

1. LaLa.com: A community of music fans/CD traders that ultimately allow you to get rid of those discs you no longer listen to in exchange for ones that you will. Similar to Netflix where you create a want list, your CD’s are sent from other LaLa members and your cast-offs are sent by you direct to others. A very simple and affordable (~$1.50US per disc) little service that will bring you a bit of joy everytime a new CD arrives in the mail. The only negative is occasionally you do not get ALL the artwork (back tray and booklet) but after almost 30 trades, I’m very pleased. Can’t wait for them to offer DVDs as well! If you sign up, be sure and add me to your friends list - my member name is nfofreako 80sAirwaves. Also, they offer SOME of their members free virtual radio stations so if there is ever a resurrection of 80s Airwaves, you will likely find it over at LaLa since they cover all bandwidth and royalty expenses.

2. The Tube: Having been off the pipe for about six weeks now, the cable pipe that is, we have been watching a bit less TV than before, but one of the channels that seems to fill our infrequent down-times periods is a digital channel called The Tube. This little channel, almost completely commercial free, simply plays music videos. Can you imagine a TV channel that only plays music videos? No reality TV, no game shows, no pimped this or cribs that. Just back to back music videos. What a concept! They do get a bit heavy with the classic rot artists and even in MTV’s heyday they didn’t play nearly as many LIVE videos as the Tube does, but I must say I really appreciate this station and have found myself killing an hour or more without realizing it. Sure they could use a few more 80’s videos and a bit more soul… or ska… or reggae. And if they would just broadcast music videos in HD and 5.1 I just might get a Tube logo tattoo over my heart.

3. Before the Music Dies (Available soon on DVD): Back in March, when we saw the premier of this documentary at the SXSW Interactive in Austin, the experience was powerful… Like life impacting powerful. This movie captures 90% of everything that has gone wrong with the music business. The only part they left out was the slow death of music retailers. They also get a bit off-course with an attempt to make a model into a pop-tart, but it was an almost interesting experiment. I wrote a review of the movie for the Ironweed Film Club (of which I am a proud member) almost immediately after I saw it. My hope was that the Ironweed folks would be pick it up and release it on one of their monthly DVDs. Instead, Before the Music Dies is finally coming to DVD on its own. The link above will take you to their page and from their click the Amazon link for the pre-order - they deserve the affiliate funds more than I. If you have ANY music fans on your Christmas shopping list this year, make sure this disc is in their stocking.

Enjoy your time with family and friends this holiday and keep an eye out for those who are seeking either.

-pjc

It’s been exactly one week since ALL of our things arrived. Beyond underestimating the weight of our “stuff” by 1 ton, United must have forgotten how much space our things actually take up - or it grew while in their possession because they had to send two trucks to get it all here to CT. Beyond some damaged tables and scuffed couches, almost everything arrived safe and sound. And boy - do we- uh… I have a LOT of stuff. I thought selling off my vinyl collection would help, but I’m just obsessive about music things, I guess. Still not ready to admit I actually have a problem, so we’ll save step one for later! See, procrastination does have some benefits.

One week in we have, or more accurately, Aimee has about 90% of the boxes unloaded and put away. The remaining 10% are mine, of course, and still need to find some reasonable landing. You don’t realize how much you liked your old home until you move into someone elses. At this point, while our stuff is here, this doesn’t feel like our “home” yet. What makes a “home”? Glad you asked:

1. Your bed and your pillows. After three months sleeping in other beds its amazing the difference that your sheets, pillows and blankies make to that third of your life you spend horizontal.

2. Reasonable water pressure/temperature. The family who lived here before us must have had that disease like that little girl on Grey’s Anatomy where they couldn’t feel pain. The water goes from normal to scorching in less than a minute and reducing the temprature to a tolerable level reduces the water pressure to the point where it feels like someone is… Well. You get the idea.

3. Functioning, Air & Water Tight Windows and Doors: Within our first day in the home, we discovered that the cellar door not only wasn’t sealed properly but that if enough water pools in front of those doors, it will make its way down the stairs and right into our basement. We’ve also learned that if you paint your window trim/casings a hideous shade of lime green or purple (yes, they’ve used both - I’ve got pictures!) that you should really make sure they still slide afterward! We spent an hour yesterday just unsticking two garage windows so we could close them for the winter.

This all boils down to a motto I’ve had for nearly my entire adult life: If you want something done right, hire a professional. Just because you can do something yourself, doesn’t mean you should, especially when it comes to your home. At some point in the future another family will be looking to buy your home and if its clear that you:

A. Really don’t know how to hang a garage door
B. Really don’t know how to do faux painting
C. Really don’t know how to hang a counter top microwave in a makeshift box
D. Really don’t know how to paint windows/walls/doors/closets/outlets/switches..
E. Really don’t know how to install laminant floors
F. Really don’t know how to install a ceiling fan
G. Really don’t know how to landscape
H. Really don’t know how to take care of your above ground pool

THEN HIRE SOMEONE!

Or, expect your home to sit on the market for six to eight months waiting around for an idiot like me to come along, miss most of these details and buy your damn house and then hire all the people you should have hired in the fucking first place. Sleep well Mr. Bob Villa wanna-be and Ms. Martha Stewart you ain’t. At least you got to keep your own bed & pillows.

-pjc

So being the self-proclaimed, bleeding edge prosumer that I am, it came as a shock to my wife and subsequently some of our friends, that our new home in Connecticut would not have an HD dish w/PVR. And while yes, the local cable provider does in fact offer HD receivers, we’ve decided against that as well. What’s left - why an antenna of course, the wonderfully retro and “analog” technology that can be seen on almost every house over 20 years old.

So why spend $500 installing a new antenna and rotor, when all of these other options are available to us?

1. Despite an antenna’s more mature looks vs. a new 3NLB dish, the reality is that new antenna’s pull over-the-air (OTA) digital signals from local broadcasters. After doing a bit of research on AntennaWeb, I’ve discovered that our central location between Hartford and New Haven is an advantage for excellent HD reception from these broadcasters.

2. Beyond the initial installation and hardware expense, IT’S FREE. What do you spend on your cable/dish bill to receive HD signals? My best guess is somewhere between $60 and $100 per month. Even with an average of $80 per month, that’s just a lunch shy of $1,000 annually… To watch TV. No thanks, we really watch too much TV as it is.

3. What about your PVR/Tivo like device? Yes, we will certainly miss pausing live television and given some new open source products on the horizon, we may still add that with our OTA HD receiver, but what I found is that when you have all of the new Letterman episodes from the week, you tend to watch ALL the new episodes from the week. Again, we watch too much TV anyway. Did you know the average family logs about seven hours of TV viewing a DAY. Given eight hours for sleep and eight hours for work/school/commute and seven hours for TV that leaves about an hour to take care of life’s other necessities, like family, reading, eating, listening to music and bathroom breaks. One of the biggest things we will likely miss from our old Dishnetwork PVR is the on-screen caller ID for those bastards who try to call during the Amazing Race!

4. Quality: I’ve been reading online and hearing from other video geeks that increasingly both cable and dish providers and compressing HD content to fit more through the pipe. With an antenna THERE IS NO PIPE, so the result is full blown HD content in 5.1 surround sound. And did I mention, it’s free?

5. Local Channels and Weather Resistent too: During my first 24 hours with my Dishnetwork option I noticed there were no local channels - a “feature” the salesman failed to tell about and I was not educated enough to ask about. While I did secure a Chicago channel for some local news information, the first storm hit two weeks later and showed me how vulnerable dishes are to cloud cover when you need them most for severe weather warnings. Luckily some of the side channels that come with local digital TV contain simple local weather radar that clearly shows when to duck and cover.

6. I mentioned music earlier on, but with the proper filter/connection, an external roof mount antenna will provide an FM receiver with copious audio options that will challenge the TV for our attention. During our three month stay near long island sound, we’ve spent more time with the radio on than the TV and our goal is to maintain within our new home. Yes, that will mean no more MTV, VH1, HGTV, TBS or Adult Swim, but most of the specific shows we want to see, I can torrent anyway. So we have already subscribed for a 6MB DSL line!

This isn’t the first time I’ve greatly reduced my TV consumption. At a younger age, I decided that buying music was more important than paying my cable bill and the cable company quickly took care of my priorities. This left me without ANY TV connection for over two years and I survived just fine. Actually I watched a lot more movies and enjoyed a lot more music. Plus, it seems some of the wisest people I know don’t even own a TV. There must be something behind that. I just looking forward to doing something cool with all that extra time!

-pjc