Merry Christmas Friends of the Radio!

Good News everyone!

Our radio station is on the move full throttle and it's gonna be killer!

We plan to go live in February starting at 14 hours on the air per week.

We were granted a temporary radio space on the sixth floor of the Meyerhoff, and will be moving into a more permanent space next fall.

There is going to be a radio benefit concert on the 6th of February in the Black Box so mark your calendars!
We are currently getting in touch with bands and all recommendations are welcome.
We hope to include some samples of programming into the benefit show.

I'm very excited that we were all able to make this happen!!
Now that finals are finished I'll be updating more regularly :)
Please e-mail me with any questions!

<3 Amber

soundproofing

in order to soundproof a space, you essentially need to either create or modify existing walls keeping a few things in mind: To prevent sound from escaping the space, you essentially need to put into place heavy walls. The more dense material used for the walls, the less it will vibrate and less sound will pass through it. In addition, products like Green Glue provide a dampening layer that absorbs a lot of the sound.

Most walls are built with a hollow framework and either faced with drywall or sheetrock. The wood frame as well as the airspace allows sound vibrations to travel very easily. In order to reduce the noise passing through the wall you would build instead with a layer of pink foam filling the airspace in the wall frame, and hang thick sheetrock, then sandwich another layer of the same material on top of a layer of green glue or other dampening agent.

Since we're probably going to be building a recording booth, this will allow us tp construct the best walls given the situation. In terms of flooring, I believe the best soundproofing you can accomplish is pouring a slab of barium-loaded concrete for the foundation of the space. If we could do this then we would have 0% worries ever in a hundred years.

the idea for floors is really the same. Put in place a massive stable layer and no vibration will pass though it. there are products available that we could easily install on the floor of the space, most of them a form of mass-loaded vinyl sheet.

another benefit to building a studio inside an existing space is that if the studio room is in no way mechanically connected to the outside room, then we've solved a good bit of our soundproofing needs by not allowing the vibrations to transmit outside of our studio. Once we have a space, then we can design a room to build inside it that will be our recording studio. It will have to be large enough to house our dj booth as well as our live performance space. It must have no parallel walls - these create standing waves that can ruin the acoustic quality of the room. Since I think it's better to do something well or not at all, this could be expensive.

I'll keep you updated

I am having problems sending mass e-mails, so that last one never sent.

Please just look here for instructions.

beki@bekibasch.com

SEND ME YOUR STUFFFFFFF

R A D I O S H O W S

Copy of the e-mail I just sent out:

Ok guys, things are moving along rapidly, and now it's time to get to the radio content.

If anybody is interested in having a radio show, I need you to send me a file 3-5 minutes long of a preview of your show, plus a brief description of what it is- i.e. if you read a chapter of moby dick one week, will you be continuing the story next week?

This isn't a selection committee. I just want to see who is willing to put the time into it. Chances are if you can't get a preview together, the real thing may be a bit of a commitment.

If you have more than one idea, send me more than one preview, but just keep in mind that having a LIVE show is a time commitment. It is reccomended (for the sake of scheduling logistics) that you have at least a one hour show, but we are totally open to smaller segments. We'd like to get a lot of stuff on the air, so let's see what's up!

Pratt Radio had it organized so that from about 5pm to midnight every weekday they had one hour segments and the people would just come clock in for their show and then the next one would come. That is 7 shows a day, 30 a week. If we do at least 3 a day, that's 15 a week- but I think we can provide more than that.

Again- 3-5 minute sound file plus a couple sentences on what your show is + your name and number.

E-mail me with any questions.

BEKI BASCH

Program COORDINATOR

p.s.

tell everyone

Trying Ma' Hand at Graph. Des.

      
       I just came across, rather serendipitously, a work-study employee organizing photographs of the school into neat little piles on the "special materials" table in the Decker Library basement.  After judiciously interrupting him, I proceeded to leaf through the seemingly endless materials till at last I chanced upon some titillating photographs of the Station clock-tower.  I archived a few digitally that I thought would be a boon WICV's public image. 
      

Annie and Ellen's Radio Show (no title yet)

Free Association Radio Show

General Structure: We decide a theme for each week. It can have to do with a holiday that week, or a poem, or a random idea like being stuck in an elevator. We will welcome listeners to send in theme ideas. One of us plays a song that has to do with that theme, and while that song is playing the other has to come up with a song that they associate with the theme and that song. It is basically free association with songs. It will be spur of the moment; we will not plan it beforehand. The songs can stray from the theme as this progresses. By the end of the show we will try to tie the last song back into the original theme.

Special Segment: Baltimore Find of the Week

Both of us share an object, observation, interaction, or other Baltimore experiences in one minute. For instance, we could give a quick food review of a Mexican restaurant we travelled to.

Timing: We figure each song is about two minutes and thirty seconds, so we will play around ten songs each show.We will play all kinds of music, from pop to alternative to jazz.

in response to ben's post

If everyone involved in the hardware/ software and basically everything ben needs for budgeting can meet before 3:00 tomorrow in the station computer lab, that would be awesome. We should all collect notes and form one document laying out what we have found that way we can hand it to ben.

So basically, whoever can make it/ wants to make it should show up around 1:00 if possible.
And maybe we can skype some chris berry as well!

lets get this shit together!

can the various committees send me what they have by 3:00pm on Tues

That will give me time to compile your research and put something coherent together for my meeting. I am trying to raise start up money now, but will want to articulate how we want to grow in the coming years, so you can help me by differentiating between the two with regard to hardware/software/space, etc..

if you can provide pricing and specifics and rationale for the following;

dedicated server

live streaming/broadcasting software

mics

computer

hardware that allows us to do telephone interviews

hardware that allows us to stream live, remotely

booth construction/costs

what else?

also, for those of you that are working on visuals i was thinking it might be helpful to include the station tower,( conceptually, as illustration) the more we can marry the radio station to the station tower space the better ...

for licensing; please get in touch with amber. at this point I think it is wise to focus on web radio issues, so we can start broadcasting. Regardless of whether we get bandwidth down the road, we will more than likely have to prove to the admin that we are for real on the web first...

unless, you want to scrap the idea of any institutional relationship all together and become pirates. there is an argument to be made for that route too! either way, I am going to a meeting on wed a.m. to ask for seed money from the school and would like to include any licensing costs in the budget and be informed about the relevant issues.

also, please send me the abstracts for your radio shows you are interested in putting on. it will give them a sense of how great this is going to be!

bluzzatto@mica.edu

-Ben

FCC and Licensing Research

I lost my phone list, very sorry. Can all Licensing and FCC researchers please meet tomorrow at 10:15 PM in the Station Computer lab. Or e-mail/call me at ambermoyles@gmail.com or 734.751.6790
Thank you!
-Amber Moyles

hmmm...

I was looking at that freeradio.org site and you can buy a whole set up to transmit FM @ 10 watts , (4-5 miles) for under $600!! we could make that much money with one benefit show! what do people think of doing pirate radio until/along side mica radio? It could be the same group of people but not attached to the institution of MICA. Maybe this is a terrible idea, because it would be bad if it took away from the MICA station becoming legit and institutionaly funded. I dunno what do you guys think?

<3 - Neal

wicv gif idea

gifninja.com Create custom animated gifs at gifninja.com!

The Neoliberal Networking Drive Originate in the United States

This is a really great article on networking and the FCC's involvement with early internet from my Open Source class. Enjoy!

Schiller Digital Capitalism

Meeting Posters

1.

2.

Look out for 'em.

-Z

Programming Ideas

1. Twister Radio Play while we are playing the game twister with the world.

(example

script

script

script

sound effects

left hand yellow

script script script

sound effects

right foot green)

-Amber and Zack

2. Random Blog Perfect Song- short segment

where i read a random blog entry and than play the perfect song that fits with it

3. Word of the day

4. Movie Review

Radio Designs

Love,

Amber and Zack

Some things of Interest

This guy:

http://www.freeradio.org/

Also,

http://www.arttalkam.blogspot.com is a really amazing archive of interviews from a show by Cyrus Smith. The show is now off the air but its definitely worth checking out. He also made this really beautiful box set of little books of transcriptions from some of the conversations he had on air with different artists, including Michael Rakowitz. On a recent visit to Chicago I bought the box set so I'll bring that in for everyone to check out next week.

I've also been emailing a few college radio stations for some general advice on programming, licensing, software and hardware, staffing, etc. but am still waiting on responses. I'll keep everyone updated as soon as I hear back.

More later.

Ciao,

Zack

Updates on research

I've been in contact with a friend who used to dj at WVKR.  He gave me some general advice, as well as asked the advice of others more knowledgeable in the field.

Here is the gist of our back and forth:

One thing he suggested is underwriting.  In the last meeting there seemed to be some hesitancy in regard to outside patronage but this seems like a good alternative:

"depending on how much money, if any, your school is willing to pour into the project you might need to find external sources of revenue just to keep the station afloat. underwriting is one way for a non-commercial station to receive money. it's kind of like a commercial but its done in a very controlled manner. you approach an organization in your community and ask if they would like to purchase underwriting support on your station - basically they pay you some sum of money every month and in exchange you create the terms for which one or many of your DJs take a moment during each show to thank that company for providing underwriting support. you can't tell the listeners to go patronize that company but it still gets their name out over the air and gets the station money."

Trevor also suggested Prometheus, but the issue there is that the FCC just announced a non-commercial full power application window on Friday. New low power stations won't be available until the Local Community Radio Act passes. It passed Committee last week and should go to a full House vote by the end of the month.  There's more on the website, prometheusradio.org
 
Also,

The FCC has announced an immediate freeze on certain FM allotment
proposals -- and an eventual freeze on ALL FM applications -- in light of
the upcoming December filing window for 67 FM channels reserved for
non-commercial use.

Heres the link:  http://www.commlawblog.com/2009/10/articles/broadcast/brrrrrrr-the-chill-is-on/index.html


I have the contact info of two employees at WVKR and I will contact them as soon as I can.  Although, since I've been rather busy, if anyone wants those numbers who has the time to pursue them, email me or comment here with your preferred email, and I will send them your way.


 Cheers,

Matt



 

Radio Sound Effects

Sound effects for shows!

Hi Everybody,

I had a very productive meeting today with Guna Nadaraja, the vice provost for research. Next week I meet with Dusty Porter and Megan Miller about a possible student life seed funding angle BEFORE our meeting that night. I am also trying to schedule another meeting with Tom Hyiatt, VP for tech to see how/if they can support our pilot efforts in the short term. I've put together a preliminary proposal to send ahead of the meetings, so they can prepare and get psyched about the idea. If you have the chance please send me any of the research you've done so far, so I can integrate it into the document!!!

also, any visuals would be helpful; logos, pics, stuff like that...

thanks,

Ben

staffing

Neil, definitely bring your friend in to talk to us. I have emailed both of Towson's radio stations, WTMD of course, but also XTSR which seems to more student-run. No word back from either.

also I have a portable radio that I'm fitting up to play audio through on multiple stations, so we could get that authentic scratchy-knob radio feel in-between segments, like if you were tuning in to different channels. I was thinking that if anything internet radio will lack it's the hiss and crackle of a real radio and the feeling of turning the knob and finding another station. When you listen to the internet i guess it's just one station and there aren't any unknowns, which is the really great thing about real radio, that you can tune in to a different station at any time.

program director

Hey guys,

I was talking to a friend last night and found out he has been the program manager for College Park's radio station WMUC for a while.

I thought it would be really perfect for him to come in an give us a little talk. He said he could give us a run down of each and every position necessary for running a station (internet based or radio based) and could definitely help us write a great proposal. He put together some 40 + pages for their proposal.

They broadcast regularly on 88.1 and share the station with WYPR occasionally when out of their range.

here is the link to their website:

http://www.wmuc.umd.edu/



I think we could definitely use some outside help on this one, but maybe that's just me. Any thoughts?


-neil

Word, words, words

These are all tentative, open to suggestion, and very much underdeveloped:

"Bad Comma" Grammar lessons interspersed with 80's and 90's hardcore–A half-hour/forty-five minutes

"If it ain't baroque, don't fix it" Baroque music in tandem with aphorisms–An hour

"On this day in the 13th century..." Pretty self-explanatory–Five minutes or less

"Sounds from the Supercontinent" World musical stylings supplemented by continental drift theory and geology lessons–An hour

Also:

In 1934, the anthology series Lights Out debuted and exploited many of radio's unique qualities to massive success. The program was penned by Wyllis Cooper and aired at midnight. Cooper employed stream of conscious monologues, multiple first-person narrators and internal monologues which were at odds with the characters' spoken dialog. It's most often remembered, however, for its gruesome and explicit sound effects which attempted to suggest joints being ripped from sockets, skin being eviscerated, heads being decapitated and other depictions of violence that would still be pushing the envelope, even on modern cable television programs. 

neuroTransmitter

neuroTransmitter
neuroTransmitter (Angel Nevarez and Valerie Tevere) was co-founded in 2001 as a project whose work fuses conceptual practices with transmission, sound production, and mobile broadcast design. Through the combination of media forms and sound performance, their work re-articulates radio in multiple environments and contexts - public, exhibition, over the airwaves - considering new possibilities for the broadcast spectrum as public space. neuroTransmitter's public performances connect FM radio technology and the body - negotiating, occupying, and sonically mapping the invisible and physical spaces of the city. As radio-sonic installation, further work references the politics, history, and technology of the medium.

CATEGORIES for posting

1. Hardware
2. Software
3. Location
4. Relationship to MICA/ History of Radio at MICA
5. Copyright
6. Location
7. Public Relations
8. Design
9. History of Radio (General)
10. Miscellaneous
11. Programming

BEFORE I FORGET

Make sure that if and when you post information, to tag it with the name of a category gone over in the meeting.  For example, if you suddenly realize you have a great idea for a show, go ahead and post it, but don't forget to tag it as "Content".  This will (hopefully) prevent the archives from transforming into a convoluted mess.

Zach, maybe you could post the tag list/categories, and add one for sundries–"Other/Miscellaneous".

 Love,

Matt

First Meeting- "a beautiful baby slowly forming"

Thanks for being here.

The next WICV radio (unofficial MICA radio) meeting will take place on October 28th '09 at 10:30 PM in the S106 of the MICA Station Building.

In this meeting we will be going over programming ideas including rough audio program sketches.

Research for the 28th includes:

Matt Fox: Software Research

Neil Sanzgiri: Hardware Research

Graham Wimbrow: Staffing Research

Peter Boyce: Staffing Research

Zack Genin: Staffing Research

Max Guy: Public Relations

Colin VanWinkle: Public Relations

Dan Allende: Political Relationship

Ben Luzzatto: Copyright & Location

Everyone: WICV Radio Design Ideas/Name Ideas

Everyone: Programming Samples

Everyone: Spread the word!

Those who are working in a group or on similar projects and all those working on specific research keep the blog updated.

All post design ideas to the blog.