FAQ
From WWR
Wow! Everything's changed. What's going on?
WWR constantly changes as we experiment with new features and tweak old ones.
Listening
I can't hear the music on my computer. What can I do?
See the Tune In guide for listening to the WWR stream. If you are still having problems, ask for help on the Live collaboration page. Often other listeners can help you get the stream up and running.
How many people can listen to Whole Wheat Radio?
Currently, Whole Wheat Radio can accommodate up to 90 concurrent listeners (20 on the low speed line and 70 on the high speed line). More accurately, WWR sends out a maximum of 90 streams. So, if two people are listening to each of those streams, that works out to 180 listeners. And if 1,000 people are listening to each stream, that works out to...
How do I make requests?
To find out how to request songs see Request songs.
How do I mark a song as a favorite?
Any time you see a song title that displays five stars, you can click on one of the stars to rate the song. If you really like the song, click the 5th star. Your User/Details page displays an automatically-generated list of your favorite artists. Your ratings are stored in a WWR database, and these ratings help determine which music is played.
How do I designate an artist as a favorite?
Rate their tunes. All the a favorites lists you see on the WWR wiki are calculated from the songs you've ranked.
Website
See the How-to FAQ for information about working with the WWR wiki
Whole Wheat Radio
What is Whole Wheat Radio?
Whole Wheat Radio (WWR) is an all volunteer, grassroots, labor-of-love webcasting radio station. WWR broadcasts on the Internet 24 hours/day, 365 days/year from a log building on Birch Creek Boulevard just outside of Talkeetna, Alaska. WWR has been "on-air" for more than six years, and "live" webcasting began in August 2002. There is not a terrestrial transmitter. In other words, you can't hear WWR on your car radio.
Unlike most other webcasts, WWR is interactive. Listeners are invited to interact with each other in a chat room, choose the music, and even create the website.
WWR currently supports a maximum of 90 concurrent listeners (20 on the low-speed line and 70 on the high speed line).
What type of music do we play?
We focus on independent musicians in the following genres: acoustic, folk, jazz, classical, bluegrass, singer-songwriter, swing, big-band, new-age, instrumental, blues, black-gospel, Alaskana, spoken word, and humor. We rarely air Christian, hip-hop, punk, techo, experimental-electronica, and hard rock.
To get a better feel for the types of music played on Whole Wheat Radio, you can:
- View a list of the last 25 songs played. This will give you an idea of the type of music we play. Or...
- Search our music library to see who is already represented. Search on a genre or term such as blues or jazz or female or singles to get a broad idea of what's there.
Is this a real radio station?
Well this certainly isn't a "professional" radio station. It is down-home, creative, flawed, human, and real. We don't take ourselves too seriously and we hope listeners don't either. We try to be humorous and laugh at ourselves. We support things like organic gardening, worldwide peace and tolerance, free-speech without fear, and simple living with minimal focus on consumerism.
The bizarre little clips you hear between songs is a reflection of that. Our motto is, Changing Radio - One Listener At A Time.
If you're looking for slick, conservative, big-city radio station, we're not it. As one person put it, "you're a small, unimportant webcast." We hope to keep it that way.
Who listens to this?
Our listeners tend to be adult music aficionados and music buyers. Those who tune-in regularly are transformed into "addicted" Wheatheads and become part of the Whole Wheat Radio family.
Listeners contribute to the experience in many ways: drawing in the Drawing Room, sending their own music, selling merchandise to help increase our bandwidth, writing artists for permission to air their music, and keeping us honest in the chat room.
How can you make money doing this?
We don't make a dime in profit for anything we do related to the webcast.
Some devoted listeners make contributions, and all of these contributions are used to increase our available bandwidth so more listeners can tune in.
Whole Wheat Radio exists simply because we love doing it. We don't pay royalties of any kind to anyone. Nor do we accept payola, bribes, or first-born children in exchange for airplay.
Is this station really from Alaska?
No, it's from Siberia. Actually, it really is from Alaska. Just outside of Talkeetna, to be exact. The broadcast originates from a log building known to Wheatsters as the Wheat Palace.
How big is Talkeetna?
Bigger than you might think. Go here, and you'll see a population figure of 772. But that's just a myth. Talkeetna's population varies with the time of year.
What's the time zone for Talkeetna?
Talkeetna is in the Alaska Time Zone which is one hour behind the Pacific Time Zone in the U.S. So when it's noon in California, it's only 11:00 am in Talkeetna. It's also four hours behind the Eastern Time Zone. So when it's noon in New York, Whole What Radio time is only 8:00 am. If you live in a state that doesn't use Daylight Saving Time, then things get a bit more complicated.
If you think in terms of Greenwich time, Talkeetna is -9:00. If you're confused about time zones (and you should be), try this link.
What's a Wheathead?
A Wheathead is a person who discovers Whole Wheat Radio, and then gets obsessed with it. It's an elite group. Probably about 2.5% of all people who listen to Whole Wheat radio go on to become Wheatheads.
Why haven't I heard of any of these artists?
Probably because, like most people, you've been brainwashed into believing that the only good music comes from well-known artists who are under contract with one of the big conglomerate music companies. Fact is, there are thousands of independent artists who make music that is just as good (if not better) than the big name artists. Whole Wheat Radio focuses on these independent artists.
Stick around here a while, and you'll soon begin to recognize some of these artists. And, chances are, they will become favorites and you'll even buy their CDs.
Can I download the songs played on Whole Wheat Radio?
No. If you like the music that you hear, click on the artist's link and buy a CD. Chances are the CD will be much cheaper than you're used to paying. Even better, the artist will actually make some money from the sale.
Most of the artists played by Whole Wheat Radio have their own websites. In many cases, these sites offer MP3 downloads. Check 'em out.
Problems
What happened to my userid?
You have to logon using your userid at least once every 90 days. If you don't, your userid is removed as are your song rankings. The reason is because WWR is designed to reflect the active listeners' tastes and preferences. If we kept everyone who'd ever been here in the list, the current listeners might not be able to take control of the station.
See also
Other places to find answers
- How-to FAQ
- How to pages
- Mr. Monkey answers all questions
- Ask on the Live collaboration page
