Yes you can! Our normal memberships are done via PayPal. Just go to http://www.rusc.com/join.aspx and fill in your details. You will be taken to PayPal's secure server to complete the process.

To cancel your PayPal subscription to RUSC just log in to your PayPal account by going to www.paypal.com and go to the "History" subtab of the "My Account" tab. Choose "Subscriptions" from the pull-down "Show" menu and press the "Submit" button. Choose this subscription, and click on its "Status." You will be taken to a Transaction Details page from which you may cancel your subscription.

Cancelling your membership is easy. You can do it whenever you want. All you need to do is go to https://support.ccbill.com/. Just enter your details and CCBill's secure automated system will do the rest for you. Of course, if you have any problems please do not hesitate to get in touch.

If you joined RUSC using WorldPay you need to cancel your subscription by logging in to the Shopper Management System at:
http://www.worldpay.com/shopper/

To log in you will need the special username and password that WorldPay sent to you via e-mail when you initially subscribed. This username and password are NOT the same as the one you use to enter RUSC. After entering your WorldPay username and password you will be taken to your own information screen where cancelling your subscription is a simple process. If you get stuck at all please do not hesitate to e-mail me at ned@rusc.com and I will be happy to help.

There isn't currently a way of swapping from monthly billing to quarterly billing. The only way to change a subscription from monthly to quarterly is to cancel the monthly subscription and then resubscribe on the quarterly subscription.

There are currently over 20,000 shows available in the member's area and with more being added all the time it means you are unlikely to run out of things to listen to for a long long time. I add new shows every day of every week throughout the year except for Wednesdays and I've not missed a day for years, so you can rest assured that you will always have something new to listen to.

To make sure that the site operates at an optimal speed for ALL members there is an upper limit of one thousand shows per month and not more than 50 shows per day. I'm sure you'll agree that this is a very large amount and most members would never need to download more than this in a single month. The reason for having a limit is simply that it gives everybody a fair chance to download the titles they need as it prevents people with very fast connections from draining all of the bandwidth hour-after-hour without giving anyone else a chance. If you do go over the limit on any day don't worry as the limits are reset every 24 hours so you'll be back to normal the following day.

The cost of membership depends on which of the three membership options you choose. The monthly recurring membership costs $7.50. The quarterly recurring membership is $18.00 per quarter, which means you save $4.50 on the normal monthly membership. The annual membership costs $60, which is a saving of $30 on the standard monthly membership. There is also a three-day trial membership for just $2.95, which converts automatically to the monthly membership if you do not cancel within the first three days.

You'll have immediate access! The sign-up process takes about two-minutes and that's it. As long as your credit card or on-line check is valid then you are straight into the members area are ready to start downloading.

The whole of the payment system for RUSC is stored on secure servers that are certified by Thawte, which are one of the largest and more respected certification organizations in the world. They use industry-strength 128-bit encryption. Whenever you are thinking of paying for something online it is worth following these golden rules.

1. The url should start with https and not the normal http. You can check this by looking at the url address line at the top of your browser window. Https indicates the page is stored on a secure server.

2. In the task bar at the bottom of your screen there should be a little icon of a padlock.

3. There is one more thing you can do just to be completely certain although this is probably overkill. If you are in one of the later versions of Internet Explorer you can click on File and then select Properties. At the bottom is a button that says Certificates, click on that. A window will open detailing the status of the secure server. There's three tabs you can click through and these will tell you who issued the secure certificate (in the case of CCBill it was Thawte who are one of the biggest certificate issuers in the world), and that it is valid and that the certificate status is ok.

Not a lot of people bother with this final step of checking the certification, but it does bring added peace of mind I suppose. I've been using CCBill for nearly six years now and have always found them to be very secure and reliable.

It simply means that you don't have to go through the hassle of rejoining at the end of each membership period (e.g. month, quarter or year). Your card will simply be charged automatically for the next period without you having to do anything. You can cancel your membership whenever you want. There is no minimum length of time you must be a member. You could, if you wanted, cancel during your first month of membership if you wish, but I am pleased to say that most recurring members stick around for a lot longer.

For those who like to get technical RUSC is on a direct 100 meg full-duplex connection to the Internet backbone, which is the equivalent of 100 standard broadband connections. The server is a high spec Dell PowerEdge using SCSI storage devices.

You certainly can burn these shows to CD. There are two ways of doing this. You can burn them as MP3 files, which allows you to get LOTS of content on each CD, but you'd need one of the latest home or car players which can now play MP3 CD's. Older players can only play audio CD's.

The second way is to burn them as audio files. Using the latter allows you to listen to whatever you burn on a normal CD player, but you will only be able to fit around 75 minutes of content on each 80 minute CD-R.

To do either of the above you might need to get hold of some software, but the chances are that this came with your CD burner, or already installed on your computer, such as Windows Media Player is with Windows. Two popular packages seem to be Roxio's Easy CD Creator and Nero, but there are many more.

Most PCs and Macs come with software that will play MP3 files. Windows PC's, for example, usually come bundled with Windows Media Player, which should work fine. However, if you find that your system does not have compatible audio software then there is a wide selection of software MP3 players available for downloading (Winamp, UltraPlayer, MusicMatch, etc.). You can download any of these players and many more from popular download sites such as www.tucows.com or www.hotfiles.com. One very popular player that is completely free is Winamp. You can download a copy by going to www.winamp.com.

As the shows come as ordinary mp3 files getting them on to your iPod is very easy. If you've not yet downloaded the files to your PC right click on the big red "down" arrow, and choose Save Target As or Save Link As. This starts the file download to the folder on your PC you've chosen. Once the download is complete, open iTunes and in File, choose "Add File/Folder to Library", browse to your files, and click "Open". This imports your shows in to iTunes. They will appear under the "Recently Added" playlist, and from there can be copied to your iPod in the usual way.

There are many different software packages that you can use to burn files to a CD-R in a format that can be read by standard CD players. However, some of the earlier packages will only burn to an audio CD if the original file is in a .WAV format. Fortunately, most of the more recent versions of CD burning software realize that the vast majority of users want to burn .MP3 files and not .WAVs.

One of the most popular packages is Roxio's Easy CD Creator. This will do much more than just burn audio audio CDs. It is also a fabulous tool for managing the copying of files to CD-R.

Alternatively, Windows Media Player usually comes bundled free with Windows, and will burn mp3 files in audio CD format fine.

One thing to remember is that you will only fit around 75 minutes on a standard 80 minute CD-R when you're creating "audio" CD's. This is because the burn process itself takes up some space on the disc. This means on average you're only going to get two half an hour shows on each CD you burn.

Some modern hi-fi systems, and now car players, have the ability to read MP3 CDs, which is wonderful as then you can cram up to 100 half an hour shows on a single disc and listen away to your heart's content without ever having to get out of your armchair. Here you'd be copying the computer (data) MP3 files to the disc, rather than creating audio CD's. In data format the advantage is you're only limited by the file sizes in Megabytes (MB's), rather than the duration in minutes.

If you want to record MP3 files to cassette you will need a lead to run directly from the "Out" socket on the sound card of your computer to the "In" socket (or phono plugs) of your cassette deck. Usually this will be something like a stereo jack plug to two standard phono plugs. If this all sounds a bit technical for you don't worry. Give RadioShack a call and they will know exactly the kind of lead you need. The good news is it should only cost you a few dollars at most. Once you've got the lead set up it is a simple matter of pressing record on your cassette deck and then playing the file you wish to record on your computer. The downside of using cassettes rather than burning to CD is that you have to record in real time. That means, if a show is 30 minutes long it will take you 30 minutes to record to cassette so it can all be very time consuming.

I use a wonderful piece of software called Whereisit. I've been using it for a few years now and have everything catalogued with it. It will catalog absolutely any kind of file so you are not restricted to just MP3 files. I don't know what I would do without it. It will catalog the files on your hard drive or on CD, or any other media come to that. All you need to do is tell it which hard drive, directory, or CD (inserted in to your CD drive) you want to catalog and Whereisit will retrieve the filenames from each and store them in its database. You can then do all sorts of things such as print out listings of what is on each drive, folder, or CD. It is also VERY quick for finding shows. For example, if you wanted a list of all the Shadows you've downloaded just enter SHAD into the search box and it will tell you which drive, folder, or CD they are on. Whereisit is shareware so you can try it out for 30 days (or something like that) and then only register if you like it. The url is www.whereisit-soft.com and the man who wrote it is excellent at providing support and keeping the software up-to-date. I tried lots of alternatives before I went with Whereisit and didn't find anything that was nearly as good.

Some software packages take over the file associations without giving proper warning to the user. There are two or three easy ways that you can use to get around this problem.

Right clicking on the file and choosing "Open with.." should give you a list of all the media players you have installed on your computer. Simply select the player you want to use and if you see the option "Always use..." tick it.

Alternatively, you can change the file associations in Windows. The instructions below will tell you how to do this. It's a very easy procedure and only takes a minute.

1. Click on Start.

2. Click on Settings.

3. Select Control Panel.

4. Open Folder Options in Control Panel.

5. On the File Types tab

6. Click the file type that you want to change (.mp3 for example).

7. Click the Change button.

8. Select the application you want to associate with this file type (Winamp, RealPlayer, etc)

9. Make sure that the tick box next to "Always use this program to open these files" is checked.

10. Click OK to save the association.

11. Click OK again to close the Folder Options window.

Another solution that usually works is to reinstall the package that you want to be the default player. In most cases the process of reinstalling will change the file associations back to those of your chosen package (i.e. the one you install last becomes the default player).

This is not a guaranteed solution, but it usually works and it does no harm.

Some portable MP3 players do not like files encoded in certain bit rates. Most of the files on RUSC are encoded at 32kbps (kilo-bits-per-second), but there are a few at other rates. If you do have a file that won't go onto your portable player and you are desperate to hear it there is one sure fire way of getting round the problem. Download one of the MP3-to-WAV-to-MP3 converters from a site such as www.tucows.com or www.hotfiles.com. Convert the file to a WAV file and then convert it back to MP3 in a bit rate that is suitable for your MP3 player, 32kbps is usually ideal for spoken word and is a good compromise between quality and file size. If what I have just said sounds a little too complex for you then you are probably best just putting the offending file to one side and downloading another file for your MP3 player.

You certainly can. A lot of what appears on RUSC is driven by member requests. Whether it is a specific show, a specific series or more of a certain genre just let Joy or me know and we'll do our best to oblige.

There are two ways of downloading shows to your computer.

You can either use the basket or use the "Right-Click To Download Now Button". The last option is probably the easiest to get started with.

Step 1: Find the show you would like to download by clicking on the links until you get to the page containing details of that show.

Step 2: On the left hand side you will see two buttons. Use your mouse to right-click on the button labelled "Right-Click To Download Now Button" (i.e. you use your right hand mouse button rather than the normal left hand mouse button).

Step 3: A little menu will pop-up. From this select the "Save Target As..." or "Save File/Link As ..." option (it may be worded slightly differently on your system) and press Enter or left-click with your mouse.

Step 4: A dialogue box will pop-up asking where you want to save the file. Select whichever folder you like on your hard drive in the usual way and then click OK.

Step 5: The file should now start downloading to your computer. The time taken to completely download the file will vary depending on the speed of your connection, but it will usual take about 20 minutes per show on a 56k modem and just a few minutes on cable or DSL connections.

Step 6: To play the file on your computer all you need to do is go to the folder in which you stored the file and double-click on it. This should open your default MP3 player and play the file.

It all depends on the speed of your broadband connection. If you have a lightning fast connection to the Internet it will take just a few seconds, but even on a typical broadband connection it would only be a minute or two. The time taken will obviously vary depending on the amount of traffic on the Internet at the time you are downloading and the ISP you are using to connect, but it's usual very quick.

RUSC is updated EVERY day of the year with new shows except on Wednesdays when Joy and I take a rest. We've maintained this schedule for well over a decade now, so you can rest assured that this isn't one of those sites that is only updated infrequently. Not only do we add shows six days a week, but we also add editorial, polls, and other goodies several times a week too. As you might have gathered, this is very much a labor of love. It is something we're both very passionate about. We have so many lovely members who have been with us for years, that we wouldn't want to let them down and miss a day - not even at Thanksgiving or Christmas.

The gold starts that appear next to some of the entries indicate that the show in question has been added to the system within the last twenty days.

RUSC specializes in the genre usually known as OTR, or old time radio. Another term for it would be The Golden Age of Radio. Most of the shows are from three decades; 1930's, 1940's and 1950's. This was a fabulous time in radio and shows from this era are as enjoyable today as they were when they were first broadcast. You'll find a very wide variety of shows available on RUSC; detective shows, thrillers, science fiction, comedy shows, musical and variety programs, and even quiz shows. With over 5,000 shows to choose from you will be spoilt for choice.

Occasionally, the RUSC server will not be available. After entering you username and password you will get an error page that usually says 404 page not found. Don't worry, this will just be temporary. It usually means I am doing some important maintenance work, uploading more shows, or fixing a glitch in the system. This kind of work usually only takes a few hours so if you find that after 24 hours you are still getting the same message then please e-mail me at ned@rusc.com.

There did used to be a button to do exactly that, but unfortunately all the web browsers behaved in a slightly different way and so it didn't work for everyone and it became a bit of a support nightmare. I do hope to add this feature back in once I can find a reliable way of doing it that works with all major web browsing software.

Transcribed means it was recorded for broadcasting at a later date. Often a show would be broadcast live on the East Coast, for example, and then a few hours later the recording of that show would be broadcast on the West Coast or in other parts of America. Usually, this was done to make sure the big shows reached the peak time audience in each time zone. Sometimes it would be due to the show being syndicated to lots of small local radio stations over a lengthy period of time.

Old Time Radio, or OTR as it is often known, is a catch-all term for radio shows broadcast in a period that started in the late 1920s and finished in the early 1960s. This period is also often called the Golden Age of Radio. It is a period when radio was king of all broadcast media. TV either didn't exist or was very much in its infancy. It's hard to imagine today just how powerful and popular radio was in those days.

Programming was much more varied during this period than it is today. There were comedy shows, detectives by the dozen, thrillers, drama, quiz shows, and many more genres. Lots of people, myself included, would also say that the quality of radio broadcasting was far higher than it is now.

If you've never heard a radio broadcast from this period why not try out some of the shows available in the non-members area by clicking on the "Downloads" link.

All the shows on RUSC are believed to be in the public domain. In addition the membership fee is a contribution towards hardware costs, server space, bandwidth and general administration, it is not a payment for the shows themselves. There is absolutely no charge, implied or otherwise, for the shows themselves. The shows are made available free of charge to members of RUSC. If you feel you have any claim over the copyright for any of the shows on RUSC please let me know and I will take immediate steps to remove the shows in question.

Most hi-fi systems, home theatre systems, and in-car CD players are designed to play normal audio CDs. It sounds like your colleague copied the files on to the CD as MP3 files, which wouldn't work unless your player was capable of playing MP3 CDs (which some are). If your colleague burns the CDs as audio (rather than MP3) they will work in any kind of CD system. Something else that can cause a problem is whether you burn to CDRs or CDRW. The latter are rewriteable CDs and these are not compatible with some equipment.

I do my best to respond to all e-mails as quickly as I can and usually manage to get a response out within 24 hours. There are no staff at RUSC, it's just me and my wife Joy, and RUSC is a hobby and not a business so sometimes I do get tied up on other things, I might be on vacation or just feeling under the weather. So saying, even when I'm away you will usually find that I manage to log on from somewhere and respond so the most likely explanation is your e-mail has gone astray and is floating around in cyberspace somewhere. If you don't here back from me within 48 hours it is well worth sending me a gentle reminder just in case I didn't get it the first time around.

Every file on RUSC is in a standard .MP3 format and can be used with any popular MP3 software player or portable device. However, from time to time I receive an e-mail from a member saying that the shows are downloading to their computer as .MPGA or .MPEG files and not .MP3 files.

I don't know exactly what causes this problem to happen on some people's computers, but thanks to the input of several members it seems to be something to do with file associations.

When you install certain applications they will adjust the file associations accordingly. For example if you install some new MP3 playing software it may prompt you whether you want the new player to be the default player, which would mean the new application will run automatically whenever you click on a .MP3 file.

Unfortunately, some software packages have a nasty habit of literally taking over certain file associations and this can cause the kind of problem you are encountering with .MP3 files being renamed .MPEG files.

A possible solution

Several members who had this problem and solved it successfully did it by removing RealAudio completely from their system. It seems that RealAudio and RealJukebox change various settings on your computer and once they have been removed your system performs as it should do. To remove these applications just follow these steps:

1. Click on Start

2. Click on Settings

3. Click on Control Panel

4. Select Add/Remove Programs

5. A list of all the applications on your system will appear. Look down the list and when you see RealAudio and/or Real Jukebox highlight it by clicking on it with your mouse and then click on the Add/Remove button.

6. Repeat above until you have removed RealAudio and Real Jukebox.

7. Exit all applications.

8. Reboot your computer.

Hopefully, this will fix the problem and your files will now download as .MP3 files and not .MPEG files.

A temporary fix

The files on RUSC are .MP3 files and it is your system that is giving them the extension .MPEG. To prevent this from happening make sure then when you save the file to your hard drive you add .MP3 to the end of the filename each for each file. The files should then be stored as .MP3 files and not .MPEG or anything else.

You can also rename any files you might have already downloaded by finding them on your system and then selecting File>Rename and adding the .MP3 extension on the end and they will then work just like any .MP3 file.

Conclusion If you are having this problem you should be able to solve it by removing RealAudio and RealJukebox from your computer or by renaming the files prior to downloading them or once they are on your computer.

If you discover a new way of getting round the problem please do let me know and I'll update this answer accordingly.

All of the files on RUSC are in the very popular MP3 format. This is probably the most popular audio file format on the web. It is ideal for playing on PCs and Macs, and will work with every portable MP3 player on the market.

• RUSC will never give your e-mail address or any other personal information to a third party for marketing or promotional purposes.
• RUSC does not use cookies or other tools to gather your personal information.
• RUSC will gladly remove you from the RUSC Newsletter mailing list at your request.

Prior to radio broadcasting as we know it today there were many amateur radio enthusiasts. Today they are restricted to two-way communications between people who hold valid "Ham" radio licences, but around the time of World War I things were a little less formal. It was from this group of pioneers that the first broadcast came.

The term broadcast was coined by a ham-radio enthusiast called Dr. Frank Conrad who lived in Pittsburgh and worked for Westinghouse as assistant chief engineer.

On 17th October 1919, bored of all the technical chit-chat that went on across the amateur radio airwaves, Frank Conrad decided to put a microphone in front of the speaker from his phonograph and play records across the airwaves. Mail poured in from far and wide, some even requesting other records to play. Frank was overwhelmed with the response and announced that he would broadcast his records for two hours each Wednesday and Saturday evening.

It wasn't long before Frank ran out of records to play. He was grateful when the owner of a local record store offered to lend him more records to play on the condition that Dr. Conrad would announce to the listeners that all the records played could be purchased at the store.

These broadcasts became very popular in the Pittsburgh area. So popular that Westinghouse believed there might be a valid business to be made from the manufacture of radio receivers.

To stimulate demand Westinghouse needed content that people would want to listen to. It was decided that the 1920 presidential campaign results would be just the thing to whet people's appetites.

A transmitting station was build on top of one of Westinghouse buildings in East Pittsburgh. Time was of the essence as the elections were just a month away. On October 27th, 1920 a licence was issued and KDKA was born. At 6pm on 2nd November KDKA began broadcasting the results and continued until noon the following day.

Unfortunately Dr. Conrad wasn't present for this momentous broadcast. He was busy standing by five miles away ready to continue the broadcast on his old equipment if anything should go wrong with the new transmitter.

The following year saw many more firsts.

4th March 1921 - First inaugural address (Warren G. Harding)

June 1921 - First inexpensive home receiver sold for $25 (Aeriola Jr. with a range of 12 to 15 miles)

2nd July 1921 - First broadcast of World Heavyweight Title Fight (Dempsey vs. Carpentier)

5th August 1921 - First baseball play-by-play broadcast (Pittsburgh vs. Philadelphia)

Things moved at a rapid rate after these initial pioneering developments. By the end of 1922 somewhere in the region of 400 broadcast stations had been licensed and radio was about to enter its Golden Age.

If you forget your username or password don't worry. Just send me an e-mail and I will look it up for you. For security reasons it is best if you can include your name and zip code (or postal code for anyone outside of the US). It's also useful if you can include your subscription number (it should have appeared on the e-mail you received when you first became a member), but don't worry if you can't track it down.

RUSC will work fine with Go!Zilla. You just need to configure it so that it knows the correct username and password for the site. Here's how to do that. In Go!Zilla go to Options/Configuration/Security and then insert www.rusc.com, your username, and your password. Save, and OK. You should then be fine. If that doesn't work let me know and I'll be happy to help.

Usernames and passwords are case sensitive so the first thing to do is to check that you are entering them correctly. Make sure you don't have the CapsLock key on for example. If you know you are a current member of RUSC and are having difficulty entering with your username and password send an e-mail to me at ned@rusc.com.

The problem you are having might be to do with the security settings of the browser you are using. If it is a current version of Internet Explorer you need to:

1. Go to Tools, Internet Options...
2. Then click on the Security tab.
3. Click on Custom Level...
4. Scroll right to the bottom and find the User Authentication section.

It is my guess that Logon is set to Anonymous which means your browser won't ask you for a username and password and will send empty values to the RUSC server (hence DENIED_EMPTY).

This should be changed to Automatic Logon Only in Intranet Zone.