Anyone remember that Christian Slater flick from the early '90s as fondly as I do? For those who aren't familiar with it, go watch it. You won't be sorry, if you can get past the obviously dated fashion sense of the early '90s. In the movie, Slater played an awkward but smart kid, Mark Hunter, from the eastern US, moved unceremoniously to the suburbs of Arizona. His dad bought him a shortwave radio kit, so he could keep in touch with his friends back home. Instead, Mark uses it to start a pirate radio station, and under the guise of Hard Harry, he lets loose all sorts of mayhem at his high school, and a constant barrage of Leonard Cohen's Everybody Knows.
It all seemed like so much fun. What a way to reach out and be heard by so many people. Sure, social networking sights such as Twitter and Facebook do a great job of that, but it just doesn't have the same charm as sitting in your dimly lit bedroom with a home-built radio station does.
"Ham radio", another term for amateur radio, is intended solely to be the licensed and private use of designated radio bands, for purposes of private recreation, non-commercial exchange of messages, experimentation, self-training, and emergency communication. Amateur radio, like other regulated radio services, operates under rules that limit the maximum power and the technical and operational characteristics of transmissions. Amateur radio stations are issued with a designated call sign to allow identification of stations. The power of amateur radio equipment is restricted, and operators must not cause interference to other authorized radio users. They may not broadcast to or communicate with the public with their equipment. They are only allowed to communicate with other licensed operators. National regulations governing amateur radio use are coordinated under international agreements since radio frequency transmissions can cross multiple national boundaries. But where is the fun in that?
So how would you go about building your own "pirate" radio station? You could head down to your local electronics shop and buy a heap of semi-expensive equipment and a stack of Leonard Cohen records, or you can go the high-tech route, and go with online streaming options, such as Nulsoft's SHOUTcast, or NCH's BroadWave among others. Still, you will generally need a few things to get your show happening, such as a microphone, a mixer maybe, some audio editing software and a pretty decent computer. If you want to be legit in any way, you should also shell out a couple of bucks for licensing if needed (depending on the streaming service you go with). A few bucks here and there might mean the difference between some awesome radio, or a night in jail. All this should generally be cheaper than a day at Radio Shack, but you'll be set for a long time either way.
Go, make some Radio Gaga, some Radio Googoo, and shoot me your station addresses!
Showing posts with label Broadcasting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Broadcasting. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Technology: Broadcasting - Going Mobile
Over recent years, we've seen a great deal of change in the way we receive our media content, primarily thanks to the internet, and more recently, our handheld mobile devices, such as the iPhone and BlackBerry.
The first to feel the winds of change was clearly print media such as newspapers, followed closely by the music industry with shifts from physical delivery systems such as the CD to "digital downloads" via the illegal types of Napster, Kazaa, and their legal brethren, iTunes. Walkmen laid way for the Discman, which has now become little more than a paperweight with the advent of the MP3 player, such as Apple's iPod devices, first introduced in fall 2001.
Years later, traditional television and radio broadcasting has had to address the way their viewers and listeners alike want to take in their content. Netflix has had a big hand in the way that viewers watch their content - in my own home, I can watch nearly any movie or TV show from my game console, any one of our many computers, or via our mobile phones. Most cable or satellite providers also make On Demand content available to their subscribers; they also make DVRs with large capacity storage for their subscribers to record any program they want, to watch at a later time. Long gone are the days where you had to hunt for a blank tape to record a specific show.
Smartphone penetration is significant and increasing. Pandora and other pureplay streaming listening is increasing. Still, the impact has been generally minimal on FM and AM radio. But make no mistake, habits are changing. The seeds of this are happening today with streaming audio, and radio can’t afford to ignore what is happening in that space. Its future depends on it.
For radio, we are seeing this accumulation of changing behavior occur before our eyes. From fewer commercials to the ability to share our listening experiences with friends to On Demand access via podcasts to pausing and skipping songs, there is a gap in functionality that will increasingly lead to a streaming tipping point.
When consumers start to say that radio annoys them because it can’t do this or it doesn’t have that, then you will start to see consumer adoption change. Many forward thinking broadcasters are already making the changes necessary to move with the times. Streaming audio has long been available via station websites, and many broadcasters are also offering their fare via applications for smartphones. One of the best parts of that is that you can now access stations from across the country that you couldn't before. It IS a small world, after all.
The first to feel the winds of change was clearly print media such as newspapers, followed closely by the music industry with shifts from physical delivery systems such as the CD to "digital downloads" via the illegal types of Napster, Kazaa, and their legal brethren, iTunes. Walkmen laid way for the Discman, which has now become little more than a paperweight with the advent of the MP3 player, such as Apple's iPod devices, first introduced in fall 2001.
Years later, traditional television and radio broadcasting has had to address the way their viewers and listeners alike want to take in their content. Netflix has had a big hand in the way that viewers watch their content - in my own home, I can watch nearly any movie or TV show from my game console, any one of our many computers, or via our mobile phones. Most cable or satellite providers also make On Demand content available to their subscribers; they also make DVRs with large capacity storage for their subscribers to record any program they want, to watch at a later time. Long gone are the days where you had to hunt for a blank tape to record a specific show.
Smartphone penetration is significant and increasing. Pandora and other pureplay streaming listening is increasing. Still, the impact has been generally minimal on FM and AM radio. But make no mistake, habits are changing. The seeds of this are happening today with streaming audio, and radio can’t afford to ignore what is happening in that space. Its future depends on it.
For radio, we are seeing this accumulation of changing behavior occur before our eyes. From fewer commercials to the ability to share our listening experiences with friends to On Demand access via podcasts to pausing and skipping songs, there is a gap in functionality that will increasingly lead to a streaming tipping point.
When consumers start to say that radio annoys them because it can’t do this or it doesn’t have that, then you will start to see consumer adoption change. Many forward thinking broadcasters are already making the changes necessary to move with the times. Streaming audio has long been available via station websites, and many broadcasters are also offering their fare via applications for smartphones. One of the best parts of that is that you can now access stations from across the country that you couldn't before. It IS a small world, after all.
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