Get Ready For Our Christmas Music

Last year our unique Christmas music line up was such a success that we didn't have to think twice about returning this holiday season beginning on November 16.

Within a 5 week period in 2008, our audience had surged past 1000% as they enjoyed the 'Christmas Hit Combo'. Much as the trademarked 'Classic Hit Combo', the Christmas side offers a blend of traditional hits and favorites in rock, blues, country, Christian, all time classics and more. The reward this time around is a bonus week before Thanksgiving.

If you joined us last year, the hits you loved then will be back as well as additional tunes we picked up throughout the year.

Bookmark our site now and get ready for Christmas holiday tunes as you've never heard them before!

Time For You to Join Us

Online radio has officially crossed the threshold of the new mega-trend in interactive communication. The latest projections show the industry has experienced a whopping 700% increase in less than 2 years.

Since it's debut on January 1, 2008, GUS.FM has experienced the ups and downs, the tweeks, time and investment. Now it's time to move past the development stage and establish it's rightful place as a major trend setter in the online broadcasting world.

We are a formidable force. With a unique, trademarked format known as the 'Classic Hit Combo' a worldwide fan base is now experiencing and appreciating a unique variety of music presented in a way that gels genres and demographics that cries for more.

This is where your help is needed. We are building a national sales force that will be responsible for referring new advertisers to our original platform. More info can be found at our Sales Reps Needed page. You will find a bit of useful information there about our industry and a compensation plan.

Portable Internet Radio: GUS.FM and XYZRadio

There are a plethora of internet radio directories that you will find we have placements on. There's an almost 100% probability that you found us through one of those. For the most part we're quite pleased with the results of bringing a whole new batch of our audience base and very beholdent to those websites for the fine job that they do. Can't say enough about their services.

There is a new generation listing network service that I would like to bring to your attention and I'm very proud to say that we are included on. XYZmp3.com focuses on the application of internet radio to the mobility of iphone, PSP, PS3, and beyond PC only apps by way of Wii, even TiVo.

Registering on the site is easy. Download the app for your paticular device then if you have an internet plan, point back to XYZRadio and voila!, you have internet radio on the go. The site also has an HD quality layout, so we not only sound good but look good on it as well.

If you happen to put all this together, please pound some feedback. I'd love to hear from you!

New Choice Listener Downloads Available

The Top Listener Picks is a new feature added to the GUS.FM homepage and blog. Mp3 downloads of complete albums, or, select singles from popular artists are available at a special price through our link to Amazon.com.

Based on the artist(s) rankings from daily, minute by minute connections that are compiled from data received at our streaming servers, the totals are a true and unbiased reflection of what the listening audience responds to or is searching for. With that in mind, it's interesting and fun to see the variety that pops up with the different genre blend that make up The Classic Hit Combo.

An example of this is when a song is playing on GUS.FM and broadcast out to the many directories and search engines. Discovering listeners connect to the stream at that very moment, adding to the number within the time frame that the song plays. That builds towards the top 5 position, which in turn earns the placement in the top listener choices. Music is available for downloads at a promotional price. It should be noted that not all artists or record companies participate, so there is no guarantee on artist/song availability.

Regular Amazon customers will be able to access their accounts through the links, allowing customers to redeem any benefits that accrue for Amazon purchases if applicable.

An earlier feature are downloads available at a discount when ever a song is currently playing. Visitors to the site will be able to view what is on-air and (if applicable) purchase their mp3 at the Home, Control Room or Blog pages.

Since the numbers are updated daily, music showcases will refresh daily as well. Stay tuned for feature enhancements that are expected.

Another Broadcasting Legend Passes; If Not by Name, By the Indelible Words

This year, there have been many notables passing within the entertainment and radio/TV industries. All have had the respective tributes and special reports garnered. Well earned, considering their impacts and legacies. Most notable, were two giants in the broadcasting industry, Paul Harvey and Walter Cronkite.

However, there is the occasion in which a local event so impacts the world, that the lightening strike is marked not only in the exact time of the event itself, but is recorded for posterity by the source available at the time.

An example of this was WLS reporter, Herb Morrison's May 6, 1937 spontaneous cry, "Oh, the humanities.." in witnessing the Hindenburg disaster. The name to the voice is oblivious, but the impact of the broadcast plays on for infinity.

Sam Pate, a local radio reporter for then KBOX Radio in Dallas, triggered volume knobs to be turned up by being the very first to bring real-time surreal awareness of the earth shaking event of the Kennedy assassination on November 22, 1963. That, by the words, ..."something has happened in the motorcade route...something has apparently happened in the motorcade..there has been a shooting in the motorcade...." in response to police dispatch traffic he was monitoring on the only live Dallas radio report of the motorcade in progress. All others that had been credited were breaking reports, after-the fact actualities that interrupted scheduled programming. (ie; Cronkite's oft replayed report of the death of JFK in his post-mortem tributes last month.)

Sam Pate died August 3rd at age 77, after a long illness. His report lives forever.

Click here to listen to the report.

Social Networking: What is the Point, Really?

I'm here at my blog. I will post something that will capture the attention of someone that is gathering. Gathering information, solice, perhaps their wits about them.

Nonetheless, I'm in the act of posting. I've put aside the moment that it requires, and have a subject in mind. But, will it really matter? The fact that I'm posting is all that is important. You are reading it, and I would expect you to pursue further.

I just left my Twitter after posting a serious personal status that my wife and I overdid it while eating at a Mexican restaurant and linked several trending topics to my website. What's the point? I'm assuming this will drive the traffic for my business.

Earlier I was on Facebook. Sharing major developments on softball games, laundry details, garage sales and backaches. Yes, I back-linked. It's supposed to be the right thing to do.

I must put something productive into this activity, because, standing on it's own merit, it's only mindless marauding. Blah, blah, blah. What's the point? Fess up, you've felt the same way and still wonder where it's getting you. Assume nothing. Do you honestly know the answer to "What Are You Doing Now"?

The Summer of '69

To coin the Grateful Dead lyric; "What a long, strange trip it's been". A long, strange trip indeed. For 40 years.

Take pause, it's unbelievable too so many. Especially, to those who would question if there were any brain cells remaining to recapture the long term memory of one milestone summer, within one milestone year.

A gathering of bodies on a remote farmland and a gathering of eyes on a remote point in the universe converged on one single week of July 1969 and the world was never the same since.

Woodstock and man's first walk on the moon. Will we ever experience another legendary set events like that again?

iPhone and Internet Radio

Don't have one yet, but it's on my wish list. Since it's roll out a short time ago, the iPhone 3GS has brought a plethora of new fans to our site and associated webcasting stream.

For close to two weeks now, the trends on Twitter and other social network gatherings have consistently proven that the buzz is well worth the excitement. It is also the very element that webcasters as myself have been waiting for. With the white knuckled fingertip death grips at the edge of the operational cliff here, we may have been given an initial boost thanks to this handy device that breaks internet radio away from the traditional tethering of a PC.

My accountant approached me the other day to tell me that she's now on the road with GUS.FM via the website. That's exciting because the link to our stream is at the full blown 128k/44MHz bandwidth. I was intrigued and envious. Happy too, because her excitement turned into advertising dollars with a purchased placement prominently displayed on the homepage.

Beleaguered as it has been for it's young upstarts, the iPhone is turning the page and ushering a new era to an emerging industry. Internet Radio To-Go.

'WebRadio of the Great United States' Retired

After a gradual phasing out, our slogan 'WebRadio of the Great United States' has been retired and replaced with the most commonly recognized 'Home of The Classic Hit Combo'.

It's 'Make' or 'Break' Time for Us

We certainly hope you are enjoying the great music in our unique format that you are hearing on GUS.FM. Just as your home or business, our daily costs continue to escalate. In fact, June is the 'make' or 'break' month for us. There are different ways to choose as we ask you to please help keep us on the air.

* Click on any ad that you see on our homepage and purchase the featured product.
* Donate any amount securely through PayPal by clicking the button above. (Donate $50 or more and we will give you your own two hours of music and honorable mention throughout!)
* Refer new advertisers to our site (and make a little cash yourself) by clicking the 'Referrals for $' tab.
* Pass on the word by blog, social networking, email or even pony express about GUS.FM!

Thank you again for your support.

Why We Play Christian Hits

We are different. But, structuring a fined tuned, mass-appealing blend of music in a radio format isn't as easy it may appear.

Bottom line this is a business with a marketable product. The main goal across the board from the artists, songwriters, record companies, station and reps is to make a profit.

Granted not only is there the right audience to target to in the effort of gaining the greatest share, but the retention of those that have made the effort to allowing our unique programming to be received. That mass appeal in the sheer millions have made mega-stars of many in the music rotation that you hear on GUS.FM. Or, anywhere else as that matters. You could just have easily have tuned into a terrestrial Jack-FM or, Bob-FM, or Pandora to get exactly what your taste associates with at a certain, precise moment.

All well and good for the secular hits. But there is this matter of Christian Contemporary music that leeched in there somehow. What gives?

I've been in and around the broadcasting industry for over 30 years and to claim that there is no personal tastes injected at the control of the programmer at the helm, is not true. I've seen it, and have done it myself. It's simply human nature. And it's an art. (Albeit, a dying art.) This is a behavioral pattern with the audience, and whether you know it or not, the programmer is part of the audience as well.

In our personal and professional lives we strive to live by Christian principals, values and most certainly motivation. The music here is the core. The motivation is the result. That motivation has blended into a mission. And the mission of Christ is to tell all the world.

I went through a personal crisis 20 years ago that the Lord saved me from. During that time period, I was emmursed in the Word and became acquainted with a new and fresh approach to gospel music. Christian Contemporary. Rich Mullins, Amy Grant and Steven Curtis Chapman had the ability to un-intrusively pull off getting the message to my "radio" ears and through to my spirit. It was healing. I have never forgotten that. So I continue to pay that forward. If one of our listeners can be blessed in a hectic course of the day while working at the pc, then it's worth the one listener that is offended and just didn't get it. But I will still pray for that one.

To include that into the remaining secular tunes to create a 'Classic Hit Combo' has never been a problem for me, nor, obviously, to many of our continuing fans. I often reminded of the fellowship of Jesus and the social riff-raff at the time, much to the scorn of the scribes and pharises. What it told me was, it's the Message that will find it's way, even if it has to enter the back door. It's proven that the most subtle approahches are the most effective.

Hopefully, you have discovered your own personal reasons at to how the blend of the hits at this station affects you.

Obama Administration; The Swine Flu of Capitalism

The market is beginning an uptick, some would say a surge. Anyway you look at it

Pass It On!

Copy and paste the following. Then send to 10 of your closest friends;
"You can make a MILLION DOLLARS! You just have to know where to find it."
Visit the website http://www.gus.fm
Pass it on...

The Corner Bakery Cafe

You may have me pictured running around a traditional radio station punching the active buttons to keep the great music flowing to the world.

In all actuality, I'm out and about in the field with a million or so things on my list trying to keep the business afloat. With that it's necessary to keep my mind and eye on the store while shuffling about miles away from home base. Thanks to a great GoToMyPC connection, I can "hands-on" remotely. Whenever I feel the unction, all that is required is either an air card or a favorable WiFi hotspot.

Until recently, the WiFi location was an automatic Starbucks. After all, a cheap "tall" and a comfy corner (if possible) was all the admittance I needed to park and click. I've never been a fan of Starbucks. The ambiance has been cavernous, crowded, loud and with featured CDs blaring at 120 decibels over my head, somewhat obnoxious. I'm not into the "frapachapachino" or latte louver. Just the regular coffee is akin to 40 weight oil. Face it, settling for the place has played out long enough. No wonder they're hovering the bankruptcy cavern.

However, I have frequented a spectacular location that I would highly recommend for a login or a business one-on-one. That being The Corner Bakery Cafe. The space is larger, the staff friendlier, actual lunches are detailed, tremendous and affordable. Best of all, the coffee is tasty and you get refills!

The Corner Bakery Cafe, check out to see if one is near you. If you're an investor, this would be a great franchise idea.

Follow Up on Gus

After a new set of MRI tests we're very happy to report that any evidence of a mass was not detected. Effectively, the screen was clean.

We feel very blessed by those of you who sent up prayers. However you would like to look at it, a misread or a miracle, it still a big relief to know that a devistating diagnosis can be set aside.

Nevertheless, little Gus still has those migraines. So we continue to pray that a valid diagnosis can be found and treatment can begin right away.

Bryan & Ann

Pray for Gus

Your prayers and thoughts are requested for our 8 year old grandson and inspiration, Augustus 'Gus' McLarry.

For quite some time, Gus has suffered progressively painful and mysterious migraines of which batteries of tests have not turned up anything conclusive, until the latest MRI, which revealed a mass that is growing between the back of his left optic nerve and brain.

Doctors at Children's Hospital in Dallas have narrowed this to one of three things;
-A benign tumor.
-A cyst.
-Malignancy

Obviously, the the first two would be favorable as the actual diagnosis. Nevertheless, considering the location, it will be quite a delicate procedure ahead to treat and eliminate.

In the good times, Gus is quite the normal energetic kid. But when the headaches flare, it has become quite debilitating. We can only imagine how excruciating it must feel.

Feel free to keep posted on Gus's progress at our Facebook page. Thank you again for your continued prayers.

Bryan & Ann

FiOS...Kicks Ass!!

Within a few weeks, we should look forward to the migration of the GUS.FM multiple bit upload streams by way of Verizon FiOS. No longer depending on just "blazing fast" broadband, the conversion will be remarkably enhanced by light speed.

FiOS, the trademarked acronym of "Fiber Optic System", (or as I've coined it, "Fastest Internet On Steroids") is revolutionary with the fiber optic-to-the premises (FTTP)line. A monumental undertaking that Verizon established a little less than five years ago, has set the stage for a massive revolution in communication delivery. In essence, this throws out the traditional copper wire delivery of generations old phone and cable systems, no longer up to par to ever increasing velocity and unlimited bandwidth requirements.

Thanks to the onslaught of consumer dedications to the market for new ticket items, ie; high definition and real-time streaming, infrastructure had to make way. FiOS is the one and only solution in pure and uncompressed data. In our case, the buffering caused by jams in our upstream has been too much to bare. FTTP should eliminate a great deal of that problem.

Word-of-mouth is spreading to levels not seen since the explosive growth of metropolitan cable TV systems of the early '80s. To date only 4% of the country has access to FiOS. However, the emergence of FiOS is already seen overlapping into non-Verizon service areas. This sets the stage for a projected sustained market in the very near future. Not to mention a welcome relief when considering the current economic employment situation and career opportunities this opens. FiOS is seen as a leverage to a new consumer's boom of the 2010 decade.

Traditional cable and satellite systems have seen the writing on the wall. Much as the latter stages of VHS, Walkman and the carburetor, providers fear a helpless dwindling demand is picking up at an accelerated pace as subscribers jump ship to a brash and comparably priced platform.

Speaking as a former cable TV veteran, I see the adrenalin has reinvigorated a complacent and in some cases, bankrupt industry. We'll put it to the test when the connection to our HD stream is full blown soon. We'll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, if you're one of the lucky few that can get FiOS, by all means, see the light and get it!

It's the 50th Somewhere

Happy 2009!

We can now see this as a notable 'Golden Anniversary Year' for some. Milestones can be measured in all arenas of either how old you are to remember, or, how old it makes you feel when you consider that 50 years ago:

-Alaska and Hawaii gained statehood.
-Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution embedded communism in the Western Hemisphere.
-Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the "Big Bopper" died in a wintry plane crash.
-The American Football League was founded. Creating a fresh new approach to pro football which would later spawn the Super Bowl.
-Top Movies were Ben Hur, Some Like It Hot, Anatomy of a Murder and North by Northwest.
-Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments supervises the creation of the first integrated circuit.
-USSR probe Lunik II reaches the moon. Lunik III photographs the dark side of the moon for the first time.
-Tibet's Dalai Lama escapes to India.

Guess I'm still young. Though alive at the time, I'm still too young to remember.

Hope we continue impressive times!