Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Radio

FM Interference & Potential Coinkidink

JoeXIII007 — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 22:05:23 -0800

Heard some strange radio interference Christmas day, wondered if a hypothesis is correct in relating it to the local 'terror' attempt at DTW??? So the family had gotten home from a Christmas gathering, and someone checked the radio randomly to see what was on the low end of the FM spectrum (88-89, 88.7 and 89.1 to be exact), and we heard light static followed by some horrific beeping that could have came straight from a loud Atari game. Not quite bass, not quite tenor, just loud, obnoxious, and alternating (low then high, repeat). It did not last long.

Thus the question: what could this have been. We live within 30 minutes of Metro, so it was thought that since this noise had not been heard since 2001, it might have had something to do with the terror attempt. Otherwise, no clue, and would like to know for later reference.

Ideas?

Who makes the station-specific versions of radio songs?

Zephyrial — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:01:33 -0800

Who is responsible for recording / editing those customized versions of pop radio songs that include the radio station's or city's name? You know when a song on the radio has been edited to change some lyric to include "KISS 107" or the name of your city (the most recent example that comes to mind is I heard Kesha - Tick Tock on the radio and the lyric "DJ blow my speakers up" was replaced with "New York City blow it up")? Who is responsible for those?

Does the singer record a bunch of different versions with sponsor-station names in the studio? Are they recorded when the singer records those "Hi this is [name] and you're listening to [station]!" messages? Or do stations hire sound-alike singers to dub over certain key moments with their name / location?

I don't know if anyone will have any insight into this, but it's something I've always been really curious about.

Two Stupid Jobs

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 09:51:13 -0800

I went from possibly being unemployed to being offered two jobs I only sort of want. I need to take one of them in order to live, which should I take? I recently posted this anonymous askme about getting an internship in public radio, and I ended up getting the position. I then had to tell my employers at a full time job that I have worked at for four years (outsourced IT) that I would like to go part time for three months during the internship. Initially, they told me there was no place for me there while I was doing the internship and there was much hand-wringing and worrying about money, as well as applying for other positions.

Eventually, me and my employers were able to come to an agreement where I would move away from my current position in account management toward a more sales-oriented position. I will be taking a pay cut, from 73k to 60k, which won't impact me much. For the three months that I am part time, I will be making 30k, which, while difficult, I can handle. My continued employment is provisional on my success in this position, and will be reviewed again when the internship wraps up at the end of March

During the period of hand-wringing and application sending, I applied for a position at a non-profit as their operations manager. This non-profit works with first amendment issues and, as someone who wants to work in journalism, has a mission that much more jibes with my world view than the corporation I currently work at. About 2/3 of the job will be administrative and kind of dry, but there is a third that will allow me to work on education initiatives, writing for the website, and other things that I feel like I would actually enjoy. The executive director of this non-profit has basically told me that he would like to offer me the position and that he just needs the approval of the board.

The problem with this position is that it starts, full-time, at 36k a year, a little less than half of what I make now. Additionally, the director has made it clear to me that it will require more than the standard 40 hours a week, and will include having to go to conferences (pays us for travel and lodging, but no per diem or anything.) The director has made it clear that they are not looking for "nine to fivers," and they want a person who can commit outside of the standard 40 hour work week. I live in New York city, and I'm paying about $825.00 a month for rent. Doing the math, if I were making 36k a year, after taxes, rent would be just under half of my total monthly income.

So I'm faced with a choice. In one corner, a sales job that I almost certainly won't enjoy, at a decent pay rate, with the provision that I need to remain successful or I will be let go, and in the other a job which I might like a little more (though still saddled with a lot of drudgery) for very little money, requiring hours beyond the standard 40. Honestly, neither of these are holding a very strong appeal for me at the moment. My focus is on radio and journalism, both admittedly difficult fields to break into.

I guess my question would be, which one sounds less painful to you?

Should I go for financial security and take the sales job?

or

Should I go for a position that I might potentially like more and work for peanuts for the forseeable future?

Your help would be appreciated. Any questions can be sent to throwaway email address:

radiodreamjob@gmail.com

New stereo amp to replace my broken one.

misterpatrick — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:28:05 -0800

My amplifier/receiver died. I need something inexpensive (~$200) but powerful to replace it. I am not an audiophile but like my music to sound good. Should I get a simple amplifier and an HD radio tuner or troll eBay for a used receiver? I have two sets of speakers plus woofer and need about 100W per channel. Need three or four inputs. Don't need fancy 5.1 or anything. Recommendations? The receiver I am replacing is a Sony STR-DE525. Worked fine for me but our radio reception isn't great here and the stations we listen to broadcast in HD, so one reason to just get an amp and an HD receiver. My other inputs are the computer (iTunes), cable, DVD player and turntable.

Recommend magnetic clips for radio's power cord/antenna?

anonymice — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 16:04:39 -0800

Recommend magnetic clips for radio's power cord/antenna? I have a kitchen under-cabinet cd player/radio. (Sony ICF-CD543RM.) Its power cord doubles as a radio antenna. But FM reception is weak and intermittent depending on time of day. Right now I have the cord stretched horizontally along the backsplash behind the sink to the outlet on the other side of the counter, using adhesive cord clips to keep it out of sight. But depending on the time of day, there's too much static to listen to the radio.

What I'd love to do is put some magnetic clips on the underside of my (metallic) kitchen cabinets to hold the radio's power cord. Then I could move the clips around to put the cord in the least staticky configuration for that time of day, while keeping the cord invisible.

Has anybody ever done this? Are there any magnetic clips that work well for this purpose? And -- here's where I reveal my technical ignorance -- would putting magnets close to the antenna interfere with radio reception?

How do I become an online DJ?

Miyomei — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:11:30 -0800

How can I set up a streaming online radio station from my (Windows 7) laptop? I would like to start my own online radio station; primarily, this would be used to broadcast to a selected group of people. In essence, I would like to be able to pass them a link that opens either in their music player of choice (.m3u, .pls, etc), or a small web app that requires no download. I do not really need a service to attract listeners, and I will probably be hosting only 50-200 users max.

Other features I'm interested in:

-On-the-fly song queuing.
-Microphone support (more importantly, push to talk. I don't want it always on.)
-Free for me and the users.
-Good audio quality.
-While not important in any manner, video support would be neat.

I have searched and searched Google for an answer, but it's just not doing much for me. Perhaps my Google-fu is not strong enough.

Is the old BBC "My Music" radio series available on CD?

parttimesaint — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:34:47 -0800

Is the BBC radio series named "My Music" from the 60's & 70's available on CD anywhere? This was a companion show to "My Word!" and I can't find it anywhere.

the difference it makes

four panels — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:29:22 -0800

Sort of looking for an Internet Radio Stream that plays kompakt pop/ambient kind of stuff. Thank you!

Gift horse, mouth, etc.

InsanePenguin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:49:27 -0800

Why am I getting free Sirius? I bought a Kia Soul+ in July (great car, just made the IIHS's 2010 top safety list!) and was graced with the 3 month free Sirius subscription. Awesome, but not awesome enough for me to pay for it, so when it ran out in October I wasn't terribly upset. I got myriad letters from SiriusXM asking me to come back, giving me offers, etc. but I ignored them and they stopped coming.

Then, like 3 days ago when I was turning on the stereo I hit a bump and my finger pushed the satellite radio. Low and behold, it loaded my stations right up and started playing!

Now, I went to check the Sirius website to see what status my subscription was at, but I realized I never made an account (confirmed by entering my Sirius ID, they didn't have an account on file for it,) and when you go to make an account it asks for your credit card number. I didn't want to accidentally end up actually paying for it, so I stopped there.

So my question is, has anyone seen something like this happen? Did they send me a letter that I missed offering me a free trial or something?

Cost- and effort-effective way to end up with a large HD full of lossless classical music, legally.

Your Time Machine Sucks — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 04:58:22 -0800

Cost- and effort-effective way to end up with a large HD full of lossless classical music, legally. Well, after my question here, I'm still not quite satisfied with the quality of my worktime music listening. I'm over my requirement for enjoyable-to-listen-to DJs, which isn't happening in combination with playlists I like, but I'm starting to get annoyed by the digital compression of internet radio. So, I was wondering if it is possible to provide my own classical radio, to myself, by stocking my work HD with large amounts of music I'm likely to enjoy hearing but haven't heard all of before, at lossless or near-lossless quality. Given the following conditions:

1. My fantasy: I would be happy to hear any non-symphonic, non-opera composition written by any European composer known or unknown during the centuries 12-19. Rather than excluding anything out of hand that fits those conditions, I would love the opportunity to hear it and if I hate it I'll take it out of the queue. Hearing some symphonic music or opera isn't a problem, but getting it into the playlist is not a goal of this undertaking. Non-operatic vocal music and proto-opera like Camerata is fine.

2. I'd like to do it legally, without individually purchasing vast amounts of CDs and ripping vast amounts of CDs. I don't have the time or money to build up a new digital music library one CD at a time. I also can't afford to pay for a big classical music library recording-by-recording on iTunes. I don't want to specify what would be too expensive, other than to say that a retail per-album payment approach to creating a radio-station-sized playlist or bigger will be too expensive.

3. Any top-tier performers, any high-fidelity recordings are fine with me. I'm OK with quirks of analog recording, so I guess that pretty much any high-quality recording after the late 50s is going to fit the bill. Please restrict commentary on my total lack of standards about important things combined with freakish pickiness about unimportant things to Memail.

4. I'm up to the task of getting any sound format into one I need for my own setup in an automated fashion. If something is available in a country that I'm not in, I'll do the legwork of figuring out whether it's an option.

OK. So, obviously what I've just described is not even remotely possible. There is no "legally purchase an enormous hard drive full of a single good example of every non-operatic, non-symphonic composition written by a European composer between the 12th and 19th century, performed by anyone acknowledged to be good, recorded decently, in lossless format" product. I doubt it would fit on even a 2TB drive in any case.

My question: what is the closest I can get (even if it's very, very far away), for the least money, as a result of investing the least effort? Examples I could imagine would be: sources of lossless (or at least top-quality lossy) public domain recordings (lots of link-clicking is not excessive effort), labels that sell drives full of their back-catalog releases for much less than the cost of purchasing them at retail, download services that have bulk download deals of recordings that are not the latest and hottest with lossless (or at least top-quality lossy) formats. Thank you for any suggestions!

100 meters in 10 feet or less?

puckish — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:29:11 -0800

DIY antenna for a crystal radio kit. Can I do this with less than 100 feet of wire? This is for the oatmeal crystal radio box kits. We're doing a workshop with kids in a few weeks, and I'm not sure if we're going to have access to a roof antenna.

What other options do I have for being able to wire these up and get them to work? Loop antennas? Can I just throw a wire out the window? It's been about ten years since I've thought seriously about dipoles / yagis, and I'm a little lost.

I've looked here and here, and read this previous question (I'm also planning to take a look at the ARRl handbook). Any suggestions for how to set this up?

Thanks!

The Diamond Age of Wireless

mouthnoize — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:24:03 -0800

I would like to understand the dynamics of radio waves like a bird understands air currents. What would be the best way as a middle-aged learner to gain this insight?

Some previous discussions indicate a degree in electrical engineering, but I'm pretty much done with academia - I'm looking for a more kinesthetic approach. I really want to intuitively understand the ways that radio waves bounce, jostle and jive!

Any thoughts appreciated! :)

Radio Fa-Fa-Facebook

almostwitty — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:23:56 -0800

I need examples (good and bad) of how radio stations, DJs or programmes use Facebook. Thank you!

You got me so I don't know what this song is

TimeTravelSpeed — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:06:39 -0800

Help me identify a song I heard briefly on the radio. I'm pretty sure it was Van Halen, and I think it might have been "Got me goin" but with a long Joe Satriani-like intro solo. However, all the renditions I've found online have no such intro, so I'm second-guessing myself. The intro was ~30 seconds long and was melodic. There's a long finger-tapping bit which plays around with different arpeggio scales followed by a few seconds of silence and electric guitars launching into a recognizable intro to a famous tune that I just don't remember now.

Sub-question: what other finger-tapping solos are fun to play on guitar? For example, "Hot for Teacher" by Van Halen, "Digital Love" or "Aerodynamic" by Daft Punk, etc.

How to program a Radio Shack PRO-2018 Scanning Receiver?

randomthoughts — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:03:52 -0800

Can some one explain simply how to program a Radio Shack PRO-2018 Scanning Receiver Police/Fire/Weather/Air/Marine Radio? Bonus for finding Minnesota fire and police codes?

Looking for Your Radio Nightlight

panoptican — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:59:10 -0800

Looking for Benjamen Walker's Your Radio Nightlight archive. Long ago, like in 2006 or something, the entire archive of Your Radio Nightlight was available to download at toeradio.org. That website no longer exists and as far as I can search, the archive doesn't either.

Seems like this should exist somewhere though and I am just lacking the intrepid search abilities required to find it.

Here is the episode listing: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AoeYwddciGBVdENfZWkxRUJMSEJIeVZ0Ynd0YmVvWkE&hl=en

My new thinking technique is unstoppable!

infinitewindow — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:21:01 -0800

Recuperating from a head injury. How can I entertain myself with brain damage as a motif? Lots of stress going on right now in life, and to make matters worse I hit my head last night pretty bad. Right now I'm in the hospital under observation, and I have internet access to keep me entertained. When I get home for a day or two of bed rest, I will have no direct Internet access. I will have access to a PS3 with the Playstation Store.

Can you suggest interesting and not-stressful things to watch, read or listen to that

a. don't cost money
b. don't involve direct PC-type computer use
c. involve head or brain injuries in some way?

I have been promised a trip to the local public library, so books, audio or otherwise, are good ideas. You can check out my personal library from the LibraryThing link in my profile if you want to be a hella good AskMe citizen. Blindsight would be a great answer because the protagonist had part of his brain taken out in childhood (and because it's a kickass novel). This essay would be a bad answer because it would totally stress me out even more.

KLOS L.A., the hazy '80s past

ambient2 — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:07:26 -0800

Calling Los Angeles Radio, circa 1980s. KLOS, Sunday night 'round 11 p.m. through 5 a.m., call-in talk radio. All topics. They talked about everything. Stoner heaven (a friend says, I swear). Who was the host? Thanks, dude. Rock on.

Currently Playing: with rss feeds...

twine42 — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:19:23 -0800

I've been thinking about updating a site I built that keeps a log of songs different radio stations are playing. To help me update it, please tell me what your favourite major or national level radio station is. Bonus marks if you know they release their "recently played" list as an rss feed. For the UKers out there, 'major/national' would mean things like BBC, Absolute, and various major DAB broadcasters. I'm not meaning people like Hertbeat whose transmitter is powered by AA batteries.

For the rest of the world - well, frankly I have no idea what stations are major and what aren't, so anything is welcome - especially if they broadcast on the internet as well...

( All comers welcome. At the moment it's only tracking BBC1, 2 & 6, Chill, the Absolute stations and NME. )

Sound Compression

Yakuman — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:31:14 -0800

Is there an audio plugin that will emulate the mono sound compression used by AM radio stations?

radio rookies, redux!

puckish — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:44:33 -0800

Three days, four to six kids, let's learn how to write a radio story. Go! I'm imagining three sessions -- one where we brainstorm, settle on story ideas / interview subjects, and come up with a list of 10 questions. Second session -- field recording! Third session audio editing (with me doing a lot of the legwork, logging, setup in between, so they can go directly to editing). Something like a cross between radio rookies and 826 -- really simple and low maintenance (we're running the workshop out of our living room) -- the idea, mostly, is to give kids microphones and see what happens.

I'm really excited about this but kind of lost on the details (never done this with kids -- only sort of done it on my own -- brand new territory!). This would be with four to six kids in the 8-14 range. A few questions: 1) Does it make sense to do one story or three? (we're going to have three recorders, so they'd probably need to pair up) 2) "Stories" or "interviews"? (the second is easier -- but just doing oral history type stuff sounds kind of boring...) Ideas? 3) What to write about?? I'd love to do something where we interview random people -- a "vox pop" thing (asking a dozen people on the street the same set of questions) -- what would you do with a million dollars? Do you know your neighbors? (maybe something more awesome than that?)

Help!

Inexpensive radio with digital tuner

ocherdraco — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:58:02 -0800

I'm looking for an inexpensive radio with a digital tuner and decent sound quality. Please recommend models. The digital tuner and the price are the most important parts (I hope to spend around $50 or less).

There's no copyright on Palestrina

venividivici — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:53:49 -0800

Do BBC Radio shows really expire after 7 days? I have, once again, missed a critically important radio show, only to have it yanked from iPlayer before I'd found out about it. I know the BBC says there's no way to listen to things after 7 days, but is this really true? Is there honestly no way around it? Many other online radio services will make exceptions if you beg and plead, or even just ask nicely. Many will also direct you to places where people are (legally, with their consent) archiving various shows.

I'm looking specifically for the Early Music show from October 3rd, featuring the Tallis Scholars and their director, Peter Phillips. Help me listen to this, people. Is it really gone into the ethers forever?

Irreverent and informative news podcast

brighton — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:10:32 -0800

Looking for the news equivalent of the "Football Weekly" podcast. Is there an audio podcast which does for current affairs what Football Weekly does for football?

If you listen to Football Weekly I hope you'll know what I mean. If you don't the main requirements are that it discusses the news in a fairly irreverent way, but is well informed. Covers all the main stories, and the hosts are allowed opinions of their own. It isn't a "comedy" podcast as such, but the personalities of the presenters will mean it does raise a smile. If it had a political bias in any direction, that would be fine. It would be great if it was UK-centric, but world news would be ok (US-centric would not). Ideally it would last about an hour twice a week.

What I'm not after (if it helps): The News Quiz, Have I Got News For You, The Daily Show.

What music played in the intro of today's episode of NPR's On Point?

niles — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:09:17 -0800

What music was used in the intro on today's episode of NPR's On Point? You can here it by clicking the "listen to this show" button on the top of this page. It's the drum/guitar piece that starts at 10 seconds in.

I know shows like This American Life list out songs that they use, but I can't find any corresponding list for On Point. The words spoken over the music also prevent me from using any music identification programs.

Anyone recognize it? Thanks!