Radio Survivor

In light of the 70th anniversary of the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System’s (IBS) annual conference last weekend, it’s a good time to reflect on the college radio pioneers who rarely get mentioned in radio history discussions.

My fascination with the early days of college radio began when I started diving into the history of the radio station at my alma mater, Haverford College. Although Haverford’s first radio station, WABQ, drew much press and attention during its short run from 1923 to 1927; few people outside of the college are aware of the triumphs of this student-built station that was for a time the most powerful college radio station in the United States.

So, it was with great interest that I sought out Hugh Richard Slotten’s 2009 book Radio’s Hidden Voice: The Origins of Public Broadcasting in the United States.

In the book he points out that,

“Radio stations at universities were particularly important because they pioneered some of the earliest experiments with radio in the United States and they played a key role in the establishment of an alternative, noncommercial, public service model for broadcasting.”

Also of interest to me is Slotten’s acknowledgment that college radio faced competition from commercial stations way back in the 1920s. He writes,

“As early as 1922, President Jardine at Kansas State College wrote to a colleague about his fears that commercial interests were actively ‘trying to eliminate’ college radio stations.”

It’s not surprising, considering the huge growth of radio in the United States in 1922. According to Slotten, on January 1, 1922 there were only 28 licensed broadcast stations in the U.S. This number soared to 570 by December 1, 1922.

In the book, there’s a big emphasis on the importance of stations at land-grant universities, many of which offered extension courses and home study courses over the radio airwaves (particularly in the 1920s) for residents in rural areas. Slotten points out that by the late 1920s there was even more competition for space on the radio dial and that many stations were forced to share frequencies and commercial stations seemed to be favored in the Federal Radio Commission’s decisions surrounding assignments.

In order to gain more insight into his research into the early days of educational radio in the United States, I spoke with Hugh Slotten over email. In our conversation he talks about how he became interested in college radio, explains why much of college radio’s early history has been unwritten, and offers up his take on why pinpointing the “first college radio station” is such a challenge. (more…)

Even with kids hearing new music from blogs and TV commercials, rock ‘n roll and radio are still inextricably linked. Last July Matthew ran down some of his favorite songs about radio, including The Ramones’ “Do You Remember Rock and Roll Radio,” and The Clash’s “Radio Clash.” This week the guys at one of my favorite radio programs, Sound Opinions, did a feature on their favorite songs about radio:

Jim DeRogatis:
Wall of Voodoo, “Mexican Radio”
R.E.M., “Radio Free Europe”
Donna Summer, “On the Radio”
Nirvana, “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter”

Greg Kot:
ZZ Top, “Heard it on the X”
The Replacements, “Left of the Dial”
Indeep, “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life”
Public Enemy, “How to Kill a Radio Consultant”

“Radio Free Europe” and “Left of the Dial” are certainly on my list and “Mexican Radio” is one of my favorites, too. But I’m kind of partial to the heavy metal cover by the Swiss band Celtic Frost:

Some of my other favorites share a certain theme, like Rage Against the Machine’s “Guerilla Radio” and Mojo Nixon’s “Pirate Radio” (language NSFW). And then there are some moldy classics, like Steely Dan’s “FM” and Rush’s “Spririt of Radio.”

What are some of your favorite songs about radio? Anything more unusual or obscure?

Each week I’m going to post a few songs, music videos and websites that  have caught my eye at some point. I should mention that many of the links to “songs” will probably be on youtube (aka they may include videos that I don’t consider to be particularly good) and that I’ve chosen the “music videos” based more on the music video than the audio track, although I will try to pick catchy and/or relatively “good” music. Enjoy!

Songs

1) Patsy Cline’s “Crazy“: I know that music like this tends to elude my generation, but Patsy Cline is, in my opinion, simply amazing.

2) Boys Like Girls’ “Love Drunk“: Just another pop/emo catchy track. I don’t know how mainstream these guys are now, but their self-titled album was pretty good.

3) 3Oh!3’s “Don’t Trust Me“: This song is admittedly pretty catchy, although I have to say that the thing that caught my attention was the phrase “Do the Helen Keller.” Intrigued (I normally am by new “hip” phrases), I decided to run a search on Urban Dictionary which managed to spit out a few definitions that I’d rather not retype. Feel free to check it out here.

Music Videos

1) OK Go’s “This Too Shall Pass“: I honestly can’t think of a better way to describe this video than the word “awesome.”

2) MGMT’s “Kids“: Having listened to this song LONG before seeing the music video, I became quickly surprised by how disturbing the video was. Regardless, it’s a song that I enjoy.

3) Saturday Night Live’s “I’m On A Boat” featuring T-Pain: This is almost a year old, so it’s sort of fallen out of popularity, but I still find it amusing.

4) Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance“: If you haven’t seen this yet, you might as well do it now. I doubt that it will be going away anytime soon. I’ve actually read some very in-depth articles on this video, like this, which have actually somewhat improved my opinion of her.

Websites

1) xkcd: This is easily one of my favorite webcomics. I particularly enjoy the strip’s physics comics, such as this and this, but all of the comics tend to be consistently humorous.

2) One of my friend’s posted this on facebook a while back (I think that it might have been Nigel?), and I found the video to be quite interesting. The video is a recording of a lecture given at Yale University by Professor Shelly Kagan titled “How to Live Given the Certainty of Death.” It’s admittedly somewhat morbid (it IS a discussion of death), but I strongly suggest taking the time to watch it.

Sirius XM satellite radio CEO Mel Karmazin warned the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday that the FCC’s proposed non-interference rules with a nearby wireless band won’t do.

“We are extremely disturbed by the proposal,” Karmazin confided in a letter sent to the agency’s Chair, Julius Genachowski. “The proposed rules seem to bear little resemblance to the technical record in this proceeding. More importantly, the proposal raises the real and direct threat of crippling interference to our 35 million current listeners and the 90 million satellite radio-equipped vehicles that will share the road with mobile WCS by 2015.”

As we’ve reported, Sirius XM and the owners of spectrum in the Wireless Communications Services band have been wrangling for years about how to avoid interference, given the nearness of their licenses to each other in the 2.3 GHz zone. The owners of WCS, which include AT&T, Comcast, and NextWave, want to step up use of the region for broadband, but these interference concerns have gotten in the way.

Last year, WCS reps proposed compromise limits on transmission power for WCS base stations and Sirius XM repeaters. But Sirius questions whether the interference tests conducted in Ashburn, Virginia upon which the recommendation was based would be as accurate as looking at Clearwire’s WiMAX network in the Philadelphia area, especially when it comes to mobile video use. “As this data was based on the real-world functioning of an operational WiMAX system, it provides a more transparent look into mobile handset performance than any other WiMAX-related information or description previously filed in these proceedings,” the company wrote last month.

WCS and Sirius XM engineers had a meeting about the FCC’s latest proposals on Tuesday. We don’t have a copy of the plan, but here’s the rest of Karmazin’s reaction to it: (more…)

It seems that most folks have short-term memory when it comes to college radio, as there’s much nostalgia for the supposed college radio “heyday” in the 1980s. Many would be surprised (and even shocked) to know that student radio has a tradition going back for more than 70 years.

In fact, some of the earliest college radio stations began more than 80 years ago in the 1920s. As early as 1926, a group known as the College and University Association of Broadcasting stations boasted at least 28 station members. By 1940, another group of pioneering students were starting up campus-only stations and these efforts were what initially sparked the formation of the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System.

Beginning today, the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System (IBS) will celebrate more than 70 years in the college radio game, as it presents its 70th annual conference in New York City. Students from college, high school, and community radio stations (along with their professors, teachers, and advisers) will converge at the Hotel Pennsylvania for several days worth of sessions about the business and art of radio.

It’s a far cry from IBS’s first gathering in 1941, when, according to a New York Times blurb (12/28/1941, “People Seem to Like it”), representatives from 30 college radio stations met in New York City to “exchange notes on the tastes and habits of campus listeners.”

Last year I was lucky enough to attend the IBS conference in NYC. Although I can’t make it this time around, I will still be covering it over on Spinning Indie, where I will be hosting live Twitter feeds from the conference, as well as recaps of various sessions courtesy guest blogger (and college radio DJ) Amber Wilmot.

To get the low down on this year’s festivities, I chatted with IBS’s Chairman of the Board Len Mailloux, IBS President Norm Prusslin, and conference planning coordinator Michael Nevradakis about what they have in store for this year’s conference and for their thoughts on how college radio has changed since IBS’s beginnings in 1940. (more…)

A study released this week from the Pew Internet and American Life Project reveals some interesting tidbits about how people in the United States are increasingly turning to the Internet as a major source for news.

However, the report, “Understanding the Participatory News Consumer” (PDF) also highlights the fact that people continue to seek information from multiple sources, including radio. According to the report, in a typical day, 54% of Americans “listen to a radio news program at home or in the car.”  The study also found that 59% of study participants reported getting news from both online and offline sources.

The report goes on to describe the demographic differences between various segments of news seekers. Here’s what they say about those who listen to radio news:

“Looking at those who are most likely to listen to radio news either at home or in the car on a typical day, several demographic groups stand out: those between ages 30-64, college graduates, and those who use the internet and cell phones.

Interestingly, those who are online are more likely to get radio news: 57% of internet users get radio news regularly, compared with 44% of non-users. Similarly, 53% of the cell-only population (those who have dropped their landline and rely exclusively on their cell phone) get radio news on a typical day, compared with 39% of those who rely exclusively on landlines.

Radio news is also a major draw for Republicans and conservatives, compared with Democrats, moderates and liberals.”

To see how those listening to radio news differ from those getting their news from TV, newspapers and other sources, take a look at the complete report. It also shares some really interesting findings about participatory news consumers, who tend to utilize multiple news sources and are more likely to interact with the stories that they consume (by blogging, commenting online, posting to Facebook, using Twitter, etc.).

Last month the Federal Communications Commission announced new rules that will give Native Americans “tribal priority” when it comes to applying for radio licenses. Now the agency may extend that principle to wireless licenses as well. Here’s what FCC Chair Julius Genachowski told the National Congress of Native Americans today:

“The Commission recently adopted rules giving priority to Tribes in getting broadcast radio licenses in Tribal communities. These rules will give precedence to federally-recognized American Indian Tribes and Alaska Native Villages that want to set up new radio stations that serve communities on Tribal lands. Many of the comments we received in the broadband context encouraged the FCC to establish a similar priority for wireless licenses. The National Broadband Plan will recommend that the Commission look at expanding any Tribal priority policy to include the process for licensing fixed and mobile wireless licenses covering Tribal lands.”

That’s the National Broadband Plan that the FCC will release on March 16, BTW. This can’t come too soon as far as I’m concerned. Broadband penetration out on the res is somewhere between five and ten percent, according to FCC stats. Even plain old telephone penetration is only around 65 percent.

On top of that, Genachowski says the NBP will propose:

· Creating a separate Tribal Broadband Fund to support sustainable deployment and adoptionprograms in Indian Country;

· Providing funding to upgrade connectivity for federal facilities on Tribal lands,  including those managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Indian Education, and the Indian Health Service; and

· Allowing more members of the Tribal community to share connectivity funded by the E-rate and Rural Health Care programs.

Those last programs come out of the FCC’s Universal Service Fund. The Health Care program finances connectivity for rural medical centers; E-Rate offers cash to wire up schools and libraries. Despite the huge digital divide, there’s a lot of really creative wireless stuff going on in Indian country. Hopefully this will bring out more.

WOXY still exists, but it’s no longer a commercial broadcast station. Since 2004 WOXY has been an internet-only station streaming cutting edge indie rock with real live DJs. But the WOXY I’ve nominated for our top 5 commercial station countdown is the WOXY that once broadcast at 97.7 FM from the Ohio college town of Oxford.

I first wrote about WOXY last August, prompted by the internet release of a short documentary about the station by filmmaker Zachary Herche.

Even in the late 1990s when I first heard WOXY the station stood out a fresh of breath air in the Dayton-Cincinnati radio dial. In fact, it would have been unique in any US radio market at that time. As far as I’m concerned WOXY pioneered the modern indie rock format that has found a home on public stations like Seattle’s KEXP and Minneapolis’ the Current. Featuring a playlist that has a more strict rotation than college radio, but much looser and free than most commercial formats, these modern indie stations appeal to an audience that doesn’t want to be beat over the head with commercials and the same 20 songs all day, but also isn’t quite up for the sheer unpredictability of a truly freeform station. It’s interesting that WOXY pushed that frontier on commercial radio, but it was never as profit-motivated like a Clear Channel station.

Late last year WOXY moved from Oxford to Austin, TX. Listening to the station recently it seems to have absorbed its new home town’s music scene quite well, representing Austin in a way similar to how KEXP represents Seattle or the Current represents the Twin Cities.

It really quite tragic that the commercial radio business seems no longer able to support stations like WOXY. However, there is some solace in knowing that the internet seems to be hospitable environment. Nevertheless, there are still listeners in cars and other internet-deprived locales who can’t yet enjoy WOXY. While the current generation of teenagers is the most wired ever, I still imagine there are culturally isolated teenagers living outside Oxford, OH or Austin, TX who don’t have good internet access, for whom finding a rare broadcast station like WOXY would be like an oasis in the Clear Channel desert.

As Federal Communications Commission watchers everywhere know, a huge part of the agency’s strategy to build out the nation’s broadband infrastructure will be to get more spectrum licenses to the wireless industry. In fact, FCC Chair Julius Genachowski says the Commission’s National Broadband Plan will propose freeing up 500 MHz over the next decade. And then there’s this comment from Genachowski, which has me scratching my head a bit:

“The Plan proposes resolving longstanding debates about how to maximize the value of spectrum in bands such as the Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) or Wireless Communications Service (WCS) by giving  licensees the option of new flexibility to put the spectrum toward mobile broadband use—or the option of voluntarily transferring the license to someone else who will.”

We’ve been watching the WCS fight for a while here at Radio Survivor, and (more significantly) so have Volvo, Ford, Chrysler, Comcast, AT&T, NextWave, and quite a few members of the House of Representatives, all of whom have communicated with the FCC on this matter (Mercedes-Benz just filed a week ago).

Here again is the “longstanding debate,” in a nutshell. As the table below indicates, Sirius XM transmits its content over spectrum very close in proximity to the Wireless Communications Services band. (more…)

In times of emergency shortwave radio, operated by both amateurs a/k/a hams and government agencies can provide an information lifeline when wired and cellular communications are disrupted. Right now shortwave is being used in the aftermath of the Chile earthquake this morning and in anticipation of tsunami waves in the Pacific.

According to Communications Quarterly news posted today, there are several frequencies being used in the amateur shortwave bands:

SSB frequencies: 10 meters – 28.300, 28.500 MHz 15 meters – 21.200, 21.350 MHz 20 meters – 14.200, 14.350 MHz 40 meters – 7.050, 7.095 MHz 80 meters – 3.738, 3.750 MHz (via CQ Public Service Editor Richard Fisher, KI6SN)

Chilean hams and emergency service agencies are asking that other amateurs keep these frequencies clear so that emergency communications are not impeded.

The communications on these frequencies may be difficult to hear on many radios because they’ll be using SSB, or single-sideband, a power-saving mode often used by hams to transmit longer distances using less power. These broadcasts will sound distorted on a regular shortwave radio, and require the use of a receiver that features SSB reception. I have such a radio, but in the RF interference zone of my Chicago apartment I’m having difficulty getting any clear reception.

I’ve been trying to hunt down some frequencies for Chile-based broadcast stations that use AM/normal mode on shortwave, but I am coming up empty. The only station I’m coming up with is Voice of Chile at 11,890 KHz listed at Radio Shack’s shortwave radio guide.

The National Hurricane Center is broadcasting tsunami updates at 14.300 MHz. I’m able to tune this in, but I’m getting too much interference to hear clearly. With luck people in Hawaii and elsewhere in the Pacific who need this information are receiving it better.

On the internet Ustream is offering a live stream of several local TV channels from Chile and Hawaii.

Thanks to NW7US and RadioGeek who have been providing emergency shortwave information on Twitter.