Radio Amateurs & Shortwave Broadcasters Assist Nepal Earthquake Relief
In the days since the disastrous earthquake in Nepal amateur radio operators have been lending critical communications assistance, especially in places where power, telephone, wireless and internet service has been interrupted. Nepal has only 99 licensed amateur radio operators, which is why hams from other countries have traveled to the country to help. The country’s […]
There Are Surprisingly Few Spanish-Language News Stations
The Pew Research Center released its annual State of the News Media report for 2015. One fact struck me that I haven’t seen otherwise commented on elsewhere: only 30 Spanish-language radio stations in the US air news and talk programming, out of more than 500 Spanish-language format stations total. That’s seems really low to me. […]
Community radio: how do you use SoundCloud?
I spend a lot of time rummaging around SoundCloud. Some of this energy goes into following the service’s engagingly sporadic use by community radio stations. WFMU in New Jersey, for example, has a SoundCloud page titled WFMU Marathon. “Share an MP3 only (for size & compatibility) telling us what you love about WFMU,” the account requests. […]
Santa Cruz community radio station to weigh selling license to classical network
The Board of Directors of community/public radio station KUSP of the Monterey Bay/Santa Cruz area is holding its annual foundation meeting on Monday, May 4. The Santa Cruz Sentinel reports that the principal item on the agenda will be whether to sell the cash strapped license to the Classical Public Radio Network, which operates classical […]
College Radio Watch: College Radio Scholarship Featured in Special Issue of Interactions
Scholars focused on college radio are a pretty tiny subset of the already small universe of radio scholars, so I am thrilled to see the publication of a student radio-themed issue of Interactions: Studies in Communication & Culture this week. Brian Fauteux shared the news yesterday on Radio Survivor and he and I also have […]
LPFM News: 12 New Stations, Many Avoiding Timeshares
The FCC approved twelve low-power FM construction permits this last week, bringing the grand total to 1839 new low-power FM stations authorized in the 2013 application window. All but one of the approved groups was in an MX group of applicants competing for a single frequency. Six of these groups were able to move out […]
Free Access to Special Journal Edition on College Radio
A special journal edition devoted to college, student, and university radio has just been published by Interactions: Studies in Communication and Culture. Excitingly, the issue is open access and available to all readers. This is also a special issue as it features original articles by Radio Survivor’s Jennifer Waits as well as by me. Given […]
Why so few community radio stations in India?
Here is an interesting piece from the Down to Earth news site about the state of community radio in India. DTE is a fortnightly magazine on science and the environment. Author Anupam Chakravartty notes with disappointment that India, a huge radio loving country (especially during elections), has only 173 community radio stations, all told. In […]
WTJU floats; ARTxFM boomboxes; Soma.fm weirds out; WDNA videos live jazz
Boatloads of events and performances are happening across community radio-land, especially during subscriber marathon season. Lots of stations are posting Facebook pix and videos of what’s going on. Here below, for example, is the Dillard Center for the Arts Jazz Band live on the air via South Florida jazz station WDNA during their latest subscriber drive: [fbvideo link=”https://www.facebook.com/223739571165/videos/10153150201681166/” width=”500″ height=”400″ […]
Have you ever had a “paranormal” experience with radio?
Late last year Scientific American posted a fascinating commentary on an “anomalous event” with an old radio receiver. What caught my eye was that it was penned by Skeptic magazine editor Michael Shermer. It recounted his wedding to Jennifer Graf, who had been raised in Köln, Germany—in part by her grandfather, who died when she […]