WAIFStream.com is down, for good. Thank the Board of Trustees!
In order for everyone to understand why WAIFStream.com has been disconnected; I need to give you a little background on my involvement in streaming WAIF online. Hopefully this article will give you some understanding as to how much of a frustration it has been dealing with this poorly managed organization. Keep in mind that I am also not a journalist or professional writer.
My involvement with WAIF started almost 9 years ago, in early 2000. I couldn’t hear the station from my apartment in Northern Kentucky and was very annoyed that they didn’t have some sort of internet streaming. So I contacted a few of the programmers. After a few emails back and forth about what was needed they allowed me to bring in an uplink computer to stream their shows via the internet. A small community radio station in Cincinnati was now live to the world.
Many months went by and after teaching the programmers how to run the uplink themselves, I ended up moving out of town and leaving the future of WAIF’s online streaming in their hands.
Fast forward a few years and I find myself back in Cincinnati.
Apparently a local business that had been streaming WAIF went under or decided that streaming community radio wasn’t for them. So this time I tried to contact station management and see if I could be of any service.
The management of WAIF was very hard to get in touch with. I left several messages and emails. While waiting for WAIF management to get back to me, I registered and started streaming the station on WAIFStream.com. This was done by using a small radio connected via an uplink from my office in Newport.
Finally with the help of Kitty Carson and my public posts on WAIF message boards I was able to get in touch with Mike Wood, treasure of WAIF at the time. Mike was also in charge of anything having to do with IT at WAIF. He was a very nice guy and easy to deal with.
Both Mike and I realized that for WAIF to move into the 21st century a huge internet following would need to be established. I suggested the addition of features such as message boards and community chat, something that I had attributed to the internet success of former programs I had done streaming for back in 2000. Mike said that the board members of WAIF are very reluctant to embrace technology and that he had doubts that the board would let a redesign of the WAIF homepage take place. That being said, he would talk to Howard Riley and see what we could do.
Eventually I was told that WAIF would not redesign it’s homepage due to budget issues. After explaining that I wouldn’t mind recruiting a few like minded individuals and putting things together for free, Mike told me that it was the reluctance to embrace technology that put the nail in the coffin. I assumed that WAIF was digging its own grave and never pushed the issue again.
Mike and I installed an uplink PC in the back of WAIF and uplinked the digital audio to servers owned by my company. WAIF had a Mac server but it was unusable for this type of streaming without some major configuration changes. I told this to Mike but he insisted that we try and use it because, “The station paid a lot of money for this server and if we told them it wouldn’t work for what we needed it for, the board wouldn’t be happy.”
I suggested the station sell this server on eBay to recover the unneeded expense. Mike said it would make the people who suggested purchasing the overpriced server look bad. I thought this was really weird but told him I would try to put it to use in streaming WAIF. I spent about 2-3 days trying to get the configuration right without any luck. I tried to make plans with Mike for me to drop the server back off at WAIF but I never heard from him again about it.
Over the next few years I heard rumors and news reports detailing corruption at WAIF. I never got involved. Mike and Howard seamed like good people to me so I never paid attention to the critics. I attributed the bad press to a few pissed off programmers that had been fired. That being said, I was probably wrong in my assumption at the time.
WAIFStream.com worked with no problems for about 3 years. I always kept Mike’s contact information handy, and Mike always had mine. Every so often I would give a call to him or talk to Howard if I had any issues. My email address was on the front of WAIFStream.com for this entire time and my phone number never changed.
After three years of streaming WAIF, I get a call from Donald Shabazz out of the blue. Mr. Shabazz is very rude and is asking me where the station’s server was and who else was benefiting from station’s equipment. I was shocked. I had been providing a service to WAIF for the past few years and never been talked to like this. I told him where the equipment was, that I had not used the equipment and that WAIF was more than welcome to come get it. I told him that Mike knew everything that was going on and that I had been instructed to report to Mike or Howard if I needed anything.
During this time I have never received nor asked for even one dollar to fund this project. Streaming WAIF online was something that I was glad to do as a courtesy to WAIF listeners and programmers.
Apparently the stream had been offline for a few weeks and no one had my contact information because Mike had left the organization on short notice. I was told to meet Howard at the station on Sunday morning and that I could have access to the streaming uplink.
That Sunday I meet Howard at the station and noticed that the streaming PC had been tampered with. Someone had installed other software and it was conflicting with the streaming uplink. I made Howard aware of this and he agreed that someone had tampered with things. He said that he would make sure that everyone knew not to touch the uplink and to call me if they needed help with things.
At this point I also gave Howard instructions on how to reset the internet stream if things went down for some reason. Apparently Howard didn’t retain this information because I was at the station a total of 3 different times to hit a reset button. It seems like I was at the station every other week because of some mishap. The internet would go out for an extended period of time, a storm would knock out the power, or someone would mess with the uplink PC. The problems have been endless, all caused because of one thing or another going on at the station.
Until recently I had been willing to help WAIF get its streaming problems under control.
The last straw was on CHRISTMAS EVE when I received a very unprofessional call from Victoria (WAIF Board Member) yelling at me that the stream had been down for months and that WAIF was going to “pursue legal action” against me for the stream being down.
WAIF is going to pursue legal action against a volunteer for providing a service to the station out of his own pocket? Are they insane?
This Victoria had no idea who I was or what had been going on. Victoria also thought that WAIF was paying me to provide this service. Victoria also had no idea that the stream was down in the past two months because internet access was down at WAIF studios. Shouldn’t a board member know this?
Her really being a board member is something I can not easily verify because WAIF no longer publishes the board members on its website. She also claims that Howard is no longer station manager. So I really don’t know who to believe.
I have volunteered for many different organizations in my life and I have never met one that was more ungrateful than WAIF 88.3 Cincinnati.
So from this point on, WAIFStream.com will not be streaming WAIF.
WAIF Board Members: You need to make arrangements to come and get your server from my office. Please email me at chris@chrisswain.com for directions. I have made my last trip to your studio and have contributed my last hour of time for your organization. If you are really serious about taking legal action against me, I will see you in court. I guarantee that the judge will have a good laugh and that my team of overpaid corporate attorneys can figure out something good to counter sue you over. It’s your choice.
To those listeners / members who have enjoyed listening to WAIF online, I am sorry that this project has to end. You can thank the WAIF Board Of Trustees for screwing up yet another good thing that WAIF had going for it.
Sincerely,
Chris Swain
Former WAIF Volunteer
WAIFStream.com
chris@chrisswain.com
