Royalton Community Radio
March 14, 2013 9:15 AM Subscribe
Royalton Community Radio
Royalton Community Radio (RCR) is an independent, community-based, all volunteer, non-profit station — based in South Royalton, Vermont — which intends to educate and entertain our audience with diverse, thought provoking local programming that has been neglected or under-represented by other media. In particular, RCR's programming reflects the values of environmental/agricultural sustainability, freedom of expression, grassroots democracy and the uniqueness of our creative, cultural community.
This community radio project is over two years in the making. We have been working with groups like Prometheus to help guide us on the process of getting our FCC LPFM license. It is a slow process and the FCC keeps moving the application date, so we decided to get started with an Internet streaming station while we wait, figuring that it was a good way to get our programming staff trained, and work out the bugs.
The studio is a small 10'x10' box we carved out of the office space of another community organization called B.A.L.E. Much of the equipment is donated, but we spent money on the radio board.
I won't go into great detail here, but because the station is all volunteer, there was a great need to automate much of the process. My colleague on the Technical Committee and I used some commercial software like Rogue Amoeba's Nicecast to broadcast via our streaming host, and Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro to record some of the live programming for rebroadcast at other times. The rebroadcasting and other automated processes are handled by some of Apple's built-in applications: Automator scripts move recorded shows from one of the computers to another where they are imported into iTunes. Smart playlists were created to manage the shows, and other calendar scripts were used to schedule the rebroadcasts for automatic play. Even more scripts were employed to play music overnight and to fill in current gaps in programming. Most of the programming is locally produced but we do broadcast a few syndicated shows. There are even slots set aside for internships for the local high school students.
Plug: I personally have a morning show that runs from 07:00 - 10:00 EDT (12:00-15:00 UT) where I will mostly play music.
Royalton Community Radio (RCR) is an independent, community-based, all volunteer, non-profit station — based in South Royalton, Vermont — which intends to educate and entertain our audience with diverse, thought provoking local programming that has been neglected or under-represented by other media. In particular, RCR's programming reflects the values of environmental/agricultural sustainability, freedom of expression, grassroots democracy and the uniqueness of our creative, cultural community.
This community radio project is over two years in the making. We have been working with groups like Prometheus to help guide us on the process of getting our FCC LPFM license. It is a slow process and the FCC keeps moving the application date, so we decided to get started with an Internet streaming station while we wait, figuring that it was a good way to get our programming staff trained, and work out the bugs.
The studio is a small 10'x10' box we carved out of the office space of another community organization called B.A.L.E. Much of the equipment is donated, but we spent money on the radio board.
I won't go into great detail here, but because the station is all volunteer, there was a great need to automate much of the process. My colleague on the Technical Committee and I used some commercial software like Rogue Amoeba's Nicecast to broadcast via our streaming host, and Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro to record some of the live programming for rebroadcast at other times. The rebroadcasting and other automated processes are handled by some of Apple's built-in applications: Automator scripts move recorded shows from one of the computers to another where they are imported into iTunes. Smart playlists were created to manage the shows, and other calendar scripts were used to schedule the rebroadcasts for automatic play. Even more scripts were employed to play music overnight and to fill in current gaps in programming. Most of the programming is locally produced but we do broadcast a few syndicated shows. There are even slots set aside for internships for the local high school students.
Plug: I personally have a morning show that runs from 07:00 - 10:00 EDT (12:00-15:00 UT) where I will mostly play music.
Role: Board Member, Web Developer Manager, Technical Committee, DJ
I am composing an email now to the programming committee, parmanparman. From a technical perspective it looks very doable. It has a consistent length, and is accessible via podcast in iTunes. So if the programming committee agrees, the tech committee should be able to script the automatic broadcast. I will report when I know more. Are you the person we should contact if we have questions? Are you affiliated?
posted by terrapin at 7:42 AM on March 20, 2013
posted by terrapin at 7:42 AM on March 20, 2013
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posted by parmanparman at 6:16 AM on March 20, 2013