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Any engineers want to help a new community radio station in Greene/Columbia?

Why are you going to the trouble and not just distributing content via iTunes or Blogradio.com, or any of the hundreds of others that range from simple storage and distribution to full production assistance at dirt cheap prices? You can be up and running this afternoon for listen only, before the end of the week for fully interactive.
 
We already have two web streams. But there are people in this country who cannot afford computers/internet access/etc. but can go into a thrift store and buy a radio for $1.

And if you are on this board I assume you know the value of radio as a communication device, and how it could be used to really help communities, rather than just stuff far-off executives pockets with money.

Cheers!
 
I am not talking about streaming, I am talking about distribution of content. I don't know what far off corporate executives have to do with your mission, but whichever medium you choose is secondary to your message. You can do everything from stand on a soapbox and yell to starting up your own international media monster.

You need to answer these questions: What is your mission, what is it you wish to convey, who is your target audience, what devices and venues do they use for communication, which or any combination of which is most mission and cost effective?

Radio's use as a communications device is invaluabe, ask any cop or fireman. Ask the people you are trying to reach and not so much.

Just for giggles call a few thrift shops and some electronic stores and ask them how many ordinary radios that they sell in any given month. Then just park yourself outside Albany High School and count the kids with earbuds versus the kids with radios. What do you see?

If you really are aiming for a demographic that has to buy a radio for a dollar at a thrift store then the medium that may work best for you is simple face to face or leaftleting at soup kitchens and homeless encampents. Several larger cities even have a newspaper dedicated to that demographic and which is sold by poor people who get to keep the money.

You don't need an engineer as much as you need someone to evaluate your mission, message, target, resources and desired result. Also, how are you going to pay yourselves in all of this? There is a reason why corporate money controls the old media - expense - and that word is killing even them. Today the New York Times announced that they need to borrow a quarter-billion against their one-year old headquarters in order to keep publishing into 2009.
 
[quote
I don't know what far off Radio's use as a t so muchggles call a few thrift shops and some electronic stores and ask them how many ordinary radios that they sell in any given month.
[/quote]


Yeah , radio falls into the catagory of"old media", got that term from the mouth of the former prez of NBC at a party a few years back. :'(
 
Listen MT1, you are just trying to start some flame war, and I am not biting. I answered a question about radio's usefulness. If you don't think radio is useful, I don't understand why you would be wasting your time posting to a radio board. Please don't waste anyone else's time, even if you want to waste your own. The people here seem to think radio is important, or else they would not be here.

What I do need is a radio engineer. So if anyone among the folks here that are interested in radio want to respond or contact me directly, please do.

Anyone interested in our mission can read more about it here:
http://www.free103point9.org/communityradio/
 
Just like I thought. It's about your ego not some lofty goal. Just say so.
 
MT1: It's about my ego because I won't fight with you? Click on the link to find out what it is about, and if you still want to criticize after you read something, go right ahead.

I still don't understand why someone who says radio is a dying form not worth starting new stations is wasting his/her time on a radio board? Curious, no?
 
I'm just glad I'm not one of the people you're trying to help, you're too busy wanting to be a star in a dead venue, killed because it reached critical mass of fools without a clue about what they were (are) doing.

What I have been trying to get out of you (and you have been very open) is whether or not any thought was put into your project other than "Hey, let's start a radio station!" like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland putting on a show or something.

This is an example of why radio (and television) have replaced old media as entertainment and (especially) information mediums. I would love to see your business plan and learn how you plan to fund a top down information and news dissemination project in an environment which works in reverse and what kind of marketing research you did that somehow indicated a demand for the kind of content you are talking about on a broadcast platform. You have a tiny population in huge geography, that takes a large staff, that takes resources.

Seems to me that you could accomplish pretty much the same effect with a consumer driven texting project in combination with any number of Cloud-based platforms accessible to any hand-held device, and you could do it for next to nothing - leaving you with more time and resources to devote to content and your mission rather than spending all your time begging for help or money.
 
hi free. maybe you can contact local colleges and trade schools who give out electrical degrees and see if anyone is interested in helping. good luck.
 
I think that this is exactly what is wrong with so called community radio - no resources, no know-how, and nothing more than a lets-play-radio attitude.

What you need after you find an engineer is a radio professional that you are willing to pay a nice yearly salary to run the station to make sure that things like processing sound good, audio is put on the air with some minimal standards, that there is some organization to the on-air product, and so on so forth.

It's wonderful you'd like to get into the broadcast world, but at the same time you are contributing to one of the many problems in radio instead of doing something to fix them. You might want to start off by changing your name to actually reflect the frequency you are going to broadcast on.

The FCC should have NEVER granted you a CP if you don't have an engineer on staff already nor the resources to run a quality station. At this point it may benefit your organization to sell the CP for a nice chunk of change to WAMC, WMHT, or even one of the million religious nuts out there like Sound of Life, or WNGN.
 
Again, MT, I point you to that link.

To suppose that it didn't take professional paid engineering to get a Construction Permit is kinda weird coming from, I'm guessing, a radio professional. Suggesting we need to have excellent audio, when no one will hear our station for, like, two years, seems a waste of money to me.

There are plenty of professionals involved in this project, and to suggest otherwise is just rude. I am guessing that you wouldn't be so rude to my face, it is more of an internet thing. And I certainly see why my initial post would lead you to believe we might be rinky-dink, but if you clicked on the link you might see we have done much professional work in other areas, such as outreach to the community. You might realize that our listening area doesn't have any media to speak of, no radio reporting, and little print. Greene County isn't the most affluent area either, so we don't think we should be spending money ensuring high-quality audio when we are only barely even looking at any equipment yet (right now I am just concerned with getting an engineer to certify equipment that folks have donated). Moreover, we do have lots of audio professionals involved, and one way to get committed individuals is to see who would like to volunteer a bit of time for a short project (like certifiying donated equipment), and then keep them on and pay them well when the proper time comes.

Again, I think everyone on this board would appreciate more civility in your posts. You seem to be posting about a lot of things about our project that you know absolutely nothing about, and I have seen no evidence that you bothered to explore the link we provided to find out more. So perhaps you can refrain from all the "shouting" and talk nice. If you have any questions, you could, for instance, e-mail me directly.
 
Poor area and few resources, exactly my point. That's like a working poor guy needing a car to get to work today but people swirl around him trying to put him into a Bentley, but can only afford to put one together from parts at the pick 'n pull and will take two years to do it. Meanwhile our guy is still hoofing to work. I don't know how long you have been at this but even your web site - is a static page with no content, links or audio. It takes half a day at most to set up a fully interactive web site from your server's templates. For free you can add a free call-in feature that runs live at a time of your choosing (the telephone numbers are free), feeds RSS and is then automatically uploaded to iTunes for purchase. Use Skype ($2.95 per month) and have nearly studio quality sound. Do you have a local cable system? They are loaded with free time for exactly the kinds of things you are talking about doing.

FYI, I am an officer on a 501c3, we have a fiduciary duty to place every possible dime to our mission. That means we use the most effective means we can utilize in order to use as few dollars as possible to place those dimes. You are going the other way and diverting resources from your mission to your own desire to be "on the radio".

It only takes a few times listening to WAMC or any other welfare station to realize that the bulk of their work involves fund-raising and that is in spite of Alan Chartock already having a lock on the corporate money nor can you afford a team of grant writers like he has so that you can access government grants - both of which are pies shrinking as fast as commercial advertising dollars. That leaves you with individual donations and in-kind donations from people in an area which you acknowledge has little. In short, you are simply using the wrong tool, and a cumbersome and expensive one at that.

You may want to do grand things but what you could have had up and running for some time now is not because you are focused on the venue and not the reason why you are seeking a venue. Want the next generation there to not be poor? Put them through work shops on New Media not radio. Gosh, a hundred years ago you would be training blacksmiths I imagine.
 
You are wrong on so many counts:

*That particular web page is pretty static, but it does have links, and video. Click on the rest of the site and you will find thousands of links, thousands of sound files, and much, much more. There are two web streams on our site (not that particular page, but just try www.free103point9.org). We are an 11-year-old non-profit.

*We get grants from the NEA, Warhol Foundation, and plenty of other places stations like you mention don't. We have no problem getting grants for the activities we already do, which you have no idea about. You have no idea about our organization, or what it has done, locally or internationally.

*We are doing youth, and adult, workshops on new media and radio. Our board includes someone from Ethos Wireless. We are well-versed in technologies of the future.

We are doing almost all of the things you say we are not doing. You couldn't spot the content, links or video on that page? Maybe you can if you click on the rest of the site.

Why are you so mean and want to be so negative? I have tried patiently with you. I don't understand.

Please e-mail me directly from now on and don't waste everyone else's time. I bet you can't do that either. Please. Pretty please. Thanks for your interest, though I wish you were trying to help rather than just being belligerent.
 
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