This fall, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will give away hundreds of full power non-commercial educational (NCE) licenses for any qualified nonprofits. The FCC has just announced that applications will be accepted for these valuable licenses by the FCC between October 12 and October 19, 2007. For ten years, no new licenses have been given out. If you have ever dreamed of starting your own radio station, this is likely to be your last chance before all remaining FM spectrum is given away.
(Mike Janssen, formerly of Current, is now working on this FMC Full Power project.)
NPR has a new CD collection called The Declaration in Sound. Most of the tracks are NPR intervus and commentaries; ya know, Edwards, Krulwich, Stamberg and such on presidential drinking problems and Declaration of Independence quotes, like “Cruelty & Perfidy,” “of justice and of consanguinity,” and “merciless Indian Savages.”
This week’s HV cast is for Memorial Day, part two (of 2) of our special “For the Fallen“: Host Major Robert Schaefer, U.S. Army Special Forces, a Green Beret and poet, presents troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, reading their emails, poems, and journals, as part of the NEA project: “Operation Homecoming,” and selections from the NEA CD Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience with well-known authors reading their poems, prose, and essays about their time in the military. Major Schaefer, the Host of this special, contributed the poem “Clusters” to the book.
The court said the FCC’s “fleeting expletives” policy did not pass muster for “failing to articulate a reasoned basis for its change in policy.”…
The FCC found two Fox Billboard Awards show broadcasts to be profane, and thus indecent, because they allowed variants of the word “fuck” and “shit” to be broadcast outside of the FCC’s 10 p.m.-6 a.m. safe harbor for “indecent” broadcast speech.
Fox argued that neither of the broadcasts would have been found indecent under the previous almost 30 years of FCC indecency policy (1975-2004) and that “without adequate explanation or even acknowledgment, the FCC has abandoned the restrained understanding of indecency that served the public for three decades.”
Our npo, Tundra Club, just got another grant from the National Endowment for the Arts via their Arts on Radio and Television program. The $15K supports our series of HV Specials. The NEA, along with CPB, have been a huge HV supporters. More than that, really, without NEA, HV wouldn’t exist; many HV producers likely would never have been able to develop without NEA grants.
For seven years, Christopher DeLaurenti went to orchestral concerts wired, wearing a leather vest with microphones nestled in the shoulders and cables running down the back. Come intermission, when the audience wandered out, Mr. DeLaurenti perked up. The DeLaurenti concert going vest had microphones sewn into it.
He made his way toward the stage. With his MiniDisc recorder running, he secretly captured the random sounds that followed: woodwind noodles, honks of oboe reeds, the murmur of voices, the scraping of chairs.
Mashups, I know, are sooooo 2006, but still they persist. Sounds For The Space-Set is a new collection from mashartists RIAA (22 free mp3s). Sun Ra meets Space Odditey mates with the Four Tops– and that’s just in the first song. Try “Salvador Dali Teaches Rex Harrison How To Say ‘Butterfly'” (Dick Hyman “The Moog and Me,” Salvador Dali interview, Chicks on Speed “Wordy Rappinghood”):
“The Wonder Is All Around Us” (Vangelis “Alpha,” Dr. Michael Shermer and James Randi interview: “Skepticality” podcast interview, Ken Nordine “Satellite”):
HV audio was all over pubradio last weekend. Jake Warga searched Ethiopia for “The Perfect Photo” on All Things Considered. On This American Life Scott Carrier, in Salt Lake City, watched “The Lake Effect” form as SLC mayor Rocky Anderson debated FOX New’s Sean Hannity.
This week’s HV cast is for Memorial Day, part one (of 2) of our special “For the Fallen“: Host Major Robert Schaefer, U.S. Army Special Forces, a Green Beret and poet, reveals his love-hate relationship with the bugle call “Taps.” We join a “Military Honor Guard” in Long Island, recorded by Charles Lane. We hear interviews with World War Two and Vietnam vets from the public radio’s StoryCorps and This I Believe series. Composer Phil Kline sets to music the slogans Vietnam soldiers etched into their lighters, in Zippo Songs. And we attend the daily ceremony by Belgian veterans honoring the WWI British soldiers who died defending a small town in western Belgium (produced by Marjorie Van Halteren and Helen Engelhardt).
A story on last night’s NPR ATC, “Studying a Koala Mystery in Eastern Australia” was the first of a new series from Jim Metzner (Pulse of the Planet). The series Science Diaries puts recorders, and blogs, in the hands of scientists “to let these dedicated folks tell their own stories.”
For the next week the story is an NPR Story of the Day podcast, “I can see his bum…”:
I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a “tool” of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our “two-party” system?
However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the “left” started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of “right or left”, but “right and wrong.”
PRX– Public Radio Exchange, distribution, peer review, and licensing of radio pieces
NPR This I Believe– Engaging people in writing, sharing, and discussing the core values and beliefs that guide their daily lives
Here’s an ancient piece of his, posted on the Transom Inspiration page, “Rejection”:
Gathering of the Generals: Samantha Broun- Nature Stories Podcast, Emily Botein- Stories from the Heart of the Land, Jay, Viki Merrick- Atlantic Public Media
I spent a few days this month in Wood’s hole observing the emperor in action. Typical day includes phone-coaching some Alaska kid in an AK studio reading his I Believe essay, working w/ Emily Botein on their new Nature Conservancy funded series Stories from the Heart of the Land, adapting his bicycle to my much-smaller height so I can mic-while-biking for said series, writing his chapter of a new book on pubradio, polishing production w/ Viki Merrick of the new HV special “Father Figures,” getting a BBQ ready for his kids, and checking out that night’s squid fishing.
Oh, one more thing, Jay also likes the bikes w/ big engines:
Third Coast Festival features “Ocean Hour,” a radio classic from 1979, back when NPR attempted such sonic splendor. It’s produced by HV’s Larry Massett (who also composed & performed the music ) and Keith Talbot– 3rdCoast interviews Keith “Behind the Scenes.”
Our Memorial Day hour special, “For The Fallen,” airs on 300+ 370+ stations this weekend. Check the webwork for audio, casualty charts, and video slideshow. The host is Major Robert Schaefer, US Army Special Forces, a poet and Green Beret.
Took the new all-in-one HHB Flash Mic/Recorder (US$1K street) for a literal spin. Wrapped it in a Rycote full-ball wind-sock (that I use for my Shure VP-88), stuffed it inside the chest pocket of a shell-jacket (in above mic it’s that tribble sticking outta my torso), then pedaled about 30-miles, recording and babbling into it much of the way.
The HHB is a good-sounding microphone with a high-quality digital recorder built right into the mic tube. It’s a mono omni dynamic mic. I rarely use dynamics cuz they just don’t sound as good as condensers (which have wider frequency response and greater signal level = better basses and highs = crispness and presence). But for a dynamic the HHB sounds pert-dern decent. Here’s a mic-ing-while-biking clip:
You can hear it’s pretty good with handling and wind-noise (at least w/ sock on). You can see the mic-to-mouth distance in above pic and hear it’s picking up my voice and road sounds rather well.
Ease-of-use is where this thing really shines. It’s gotta 1GB flash memory card (non-removable) built in, which gives you 3+ hours of recordings (at 44.1KHz, 16bit mono .wav). If it’s on it’s in record-monitor mode. One-button starts the recording, and there’s a pre-record buffer that writes-to-disk the up-to-10sec. of audio before you hit record.
Batteries (2 AAs), which weren’t fresh when I statrted, lasted 4+hours. The headphone amp powered my Etymonic buds well — no trouble monitoring. The thing is really light-weight, but the mic housing and buttons feel rugged. The level meter screen is small but usable. The LCD display is quite readable, even in fairly strong outdoor-light, with usable indicaters of mic-lvel and battery-life. The bottom button/dial on the bottom turns it on and controls all the levels and myriad menu commands, which is a bit tedious; but if you set most everything before you go out it isn’t a prob. There’s a mini-USB jack (digi-camera style) on the bottom for uploading your soundfiles via computer. Didn’t use the filters (high & lo pass) or auto-level controls, so don’t know nada about how they perform.
In sum, this thing performed admirably in this difficult-to-record situation. So considering the parameters: an all-in-one light, rugged mic/recorder that sounds good, is simple to use, stores lotsa audio , and runs a long time on a set of batteries, HHB has done a really nice job. But as with all HHB products, you pay for their high-quality and innovation: the HHB Flash Mic’s about US$1K (street).
Cred: Borrowed the mic from Atlantic Public Media. Recording was for the new series Stories from the Heart of the Land. Thanks to Emily Botein for clip selection.
This week’s HV cast is from the Song and Memory series. What song from your past brings back a strong memory? Kelly Kinsey tells us about a Beatles tune that takes her back. Produced by Ann Heppermann, Rick Moody & Kara Oehler, “Eleanor Rigby” (mp3 3:23):
This week’s 
Our npo, Tundra Club, just got another grant from the National Endowment for the Arts via their 
NY Times article, 
Mashups, I know, are sooooo 2006, but still they persist. 
HV audio was all over pubradio last weekend. Jake Warga searched Ethiopia for “
I finished a bike “
This week’s 
A story on last night’s NPR ATC, “
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Our Memorial Day hour special, “For The Fallen,” airs on 
The HHB is a good-sounding microphone with a high-quality digital recorder built right into the mic tube. It’s a mono omni dynamic mic. I rarely use dynamics cuz they just don’t sound as good as condensers (which have wider frequency response and greater signal level = better basses and highs = crispness and presence). But for a dynamic the HHB sounds pert-dern decent. Here’s a mic-ing-while-biking clip:
This week’s