Internet radio Paradise Tunes, operated by Dan Halverson, needs your support to keep his on-air enterprise going.
By Dan Halverson
Paradise Tunes Station Owner
After retiring as a Cyber Security Analyst at Point Beach Nuclear Plant in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, in March 2017, it became increasingly difficult to stay on the air but because of the support from a few listeners, I was able to keep the station going.
Recently, many of those supporters have decided that they needed to reallocate funds because of the economy and cancel their monthly donations. Let me know if you need any additional information.
Here’s little history below.
In 1993, I bought a farm around eight miles north of Iola off Highway 49 on Roosevelt Road and then north on Pleasant Hill Road and I named it “Paradise Ranch.” While living there, I started a small tanning business called “Paradise Tanning Studio” but decided that living in the middle of nowhere wouldn’t attract many customers. So in the spring of 1995, I built a home with an attached studio in Scandinavia, Wisconsin, to run my tanning salon while still employed at Krause Publications.
I think you can see the pattern here regarding the name “Paradise.”
Because of my love of music (especially classis rock) and technology, I always thought about how cool it would be to create a streaming online radio station. But I wanted it to be different than other stations as basically they were all playing the same music. You would only hear the artist’s big hits off an album.
So, I decided I wanted to play the songs on the albums that people didn’t hear on the radio. I called them “deep album cuts.” This would make my station unique in that people would hear songs from their favorite bands that they may have never heard before.
Finally in August of 2004, after doing a lot of research regarding radio automation software, dedicated file servers, computer hardware, mixers and external audio interfaces, I uploaded all my mp3’s to the server, configured the software, built a website, and named the station “Paradise Tunes.”
Advertising back then was mainly from word of mouth. But I was very excited that I had finally created a streaming online Internet radio station!
In those days, we only had “dial-up” Internet connections which weren’t capable of streaming without constant buffering so it was quite frustrating. But as time passed, faster Internet became available and buffering was a thing of the past.
Today, Paradise Tunes is listened to by audiences from around the world and is available on our website, iTunes Internet Radio, TuneIn, and many other online radio streaming sites.
I occasionally go “Live” taking requests from countries all over the planet and have made some good friends as well. I also have a mobile version of Paradise Tunes and a recording studio setup in my RV. So, when I go chasing 70 degrees six months out of the year, I have the option of going Live from my RV as well.
As Paradise Tunes is a free station and because the costs of online streaming continues to rise, it has become more and more difficult to keep the station “on the air.” I depend on listener support to help keep us going.
Paradise Tunes is also unique whereas it is free of any annoying commercials. Just great classic rock, 24/7 – 365 days a year!
Please visit Paradise Tunes at: https://www.paradisetunes.com and if you enjoy the music, please consider showing your support with a monthly donation by clicking DONATE or the PayPal button.