A couple of questions I have, any help appreciated! :-)

[OldIronsides]

HI. I Have several questions and I thought I would just lump them all in here to hopefully get answers from you amazingly helpful people!
First let me tell you what I'm using and for what. I have a shoutcast radio station the broadcasts online game matches. I have some pregame music and my voice, and in game I use a background MP3 music file, with my voice and ingame sounds all being broadcast since I use the source option in record so everything going to my soundcard is broadcast. I have WinXP, Shoutcast DNAS 1.9, Winamp 2.81. I use a labtech headset. I normally broadcast at 56kps, 22.050Khz Stereo
1. I read that if you broadcast in stereo that your quality is essentially cut in half. That is my 56kps is split in half to accomodate the two stereo channels. I do play music but the primary information being passed on is my voice. In game sounds coming from various directions might be important and I would like my music to sound as nice as possible streaming at 56kps so that is why I have chosen stereo. Can someone advise me the pro's and cons of mono vs. Stereo
2. I have rented bandwidth from bean.net. I have contracted to have 50 slots broadcast at 56kps. Does this mean if I broadcast at 40 kps I effectively raise the ceiling of the number of listeners simply by streaming less KPS? I am concerned that bean.net has the thing set up for 50 slots and I cannot exceed that number of listeners, even if I set my KPS lower?
3. I've tried recording at 56KPS and 40KPS, and my ear really can't tell the difference except with music a bit. Is it dumb to think I'm producing a much better quality cast using 56 over 40? If 56 isn't that much better, would 40 allow me to shoutcast to more people? (See question 2 above)
4. One of my biggest hurdles to a professional shoutcast is that when I'm loading various maps when I'm in the game and it's up and running, the broadcast skips and stutters and is quite loud...as the last thing I say gets stuck and sounds like....bah bbbb..b..b....b....b.....It's extremely annoying for both my listeners and myself. Last night during some intense moments in the action, I had this stuttering delay during the match too which hadn't happened before. I suspect it's insufficient computer memory as I have a game running plus IRC, sometimes AIM, and winamp and shoutcast AND RIPCAST! Is insufficient memory the cause of this?
5. I also get a super high pitched screeching sound occasionally that sounds like my system is about to blow up. It is a very high pitched wail that sounds like feedback from a tradional microphone. I stop my shoutcast, unplug my headset and basically pray it stops. It does stop after 15 seconds or so but that is probably because I'm working like a madman to stop this screeching and as such have not been able to identify the cause, nor why I seem to make it stop. Way too many variables. Anyone know what this might be? I do have microphone setting on playback checked but slider down all the way. But my settings always stay the same so can't see how this screeching is related to mixer settings
6. Sorry this is so long, but here's my biggie: I want to have a second shoutcaster working the other side of the game for me. Other stations use Ventrilo to add the second shoutcaster. I have Ventrilo but am seriously fuzzy on it's operation. I believe Ventrilo works..or Teamspeak or Roger Wilco for that matter, because it ALSO goes through the soundcard, thereby being recorded. The problem is, a person cannot be in the game and listen to the shoutcast at the same time due to buffering or system limititations or something. The person on ventrillo could not hear my broadcast then, only what I said via ventrilo. But As I do not need Ventrilo open to broadcast, I would have to push to talk to talk to the other shoutcaster, and vice versa, but there's no way, we would be able to work together effectively this way. I know this is possible, maybe stations do it I just don't know the secret. Can anyone tell me how to add a second person to a broadcast via Ventrilo? I mean the nuts and bolts of how you do it and the theory even behind it possibly to help me see the big picture.

Thanks a ton for any advice, as you can see I've been saving my questions up! I'm having a ton of fun shoutcasting though! :-)
OldIronsides
www.oisradio.com