Brainstorm (and introductions)!

[Sal Atticum]

So what are your ideas?  Throw something out, no matter how crazy it sounds.  If we can get a radio station going at UND, who knows how long it will last? 

So who wants to be involved?  What skills does everyone have?  Who else needs to be involved to make a radio station work?  How can we get them on board?

If there are any problems with the message board, please let me know and we'll try to fix them.  Also, if anyone wants to be moderator for the UND Radio board (or thinks we should elect someone to that position), make a post or shoot me a PM or an email--I'm perfectly happy to administrate rather than moderate!

Matt

 

[Rodger Dodger]

Hey all, my name is Nick and I am a web programmer/designer (with an emphasis in User Interface Design and Server Side scripting).  I also think I would be great at being a radio personality however I think that is reasonably far off from where we are right now!

Some ideas that i would like to throw out there is this and topics for discussion.

Don't let a department take this over.  It should be a student run program with a department partnership.  I heard a lot about working the radio station into curriculum.  I think this could be a dangerous precedent, because then the department could influence decisions and/or  take control of the station and I would NOT be for that.  However I do encourage working with departments and allowing them to use the facilities, they should just not have a say in how it is run.

Who do you allow to get involved? Is there a liability on the station if someone swears or says something racists?

[Atiffarid]

Lets get this radio to the air/cyber waves.

[Plantains]

Yost and I had talked about trying to host a radio show at UND a couple years ago.

Honestly though, I bet it wouldn't be too hard considering there's only like 5 radio stations u can receive in GFK.

[Sal Atticum]

Guardrail: At the meeting last Thursday we went over the options. There are essentially two: terrestrial FM (with a tower and an FCC license and all that) radio or Internet radio.  I think some people are working out the difference in cost right now--terrestrial would be more expensive to set up initially because of the FCC license and the tower, but paying fees to play commercial music would be cheaper in the long run compared to Internet radio (I assume because we could theoretically reach more people with Internet radio and it's also easier to pirate; does anyone know the real reasons?).  So at this point we're looking for interest (from the student body and GFK) and funding (most likely from SG).

There is the third option of using multiple low-power transmitters to broadcast FM but only on-campus.  This is how radio stood at my undergrad school when I started there; since then I'm not sure if the "black boxes" have been replaced or just augmented by Internet radio at this point.  I bring this up because it seems like a halfway point between a full-power station and Internet-only.  The problems I can see with this are whether people listen to the radio on campus or only their computers.  One of the reasons to go full-power that was mentioned at the meeting was that people in their cars could listen, and that would be a good market in GFK.

Atiffarid: Welcome aboard!  I agree.

Rodger Dodger: I think you have a good point about not letting a department take control of the entire station.  I may be too optimistic on this point, but I think it's not likely to happen if the station is funded through BOSP with minor faculty oversight.

Maybe a good question is, who IS running the station?  I don't know the power structure of the DS or Studio One.  Are students in charge of each?  It could start off as internship or independent study to get the station going, because what's going to be more real than that?

You obviously have to watch out for slander other language that violates the law, but I think giving anyone a fair shake once they know how to run the station would be fair.  There are a lot of hours in a week, and I don't think the beginning is the time to push people away because they *might* say something bad.

By the way, if anyone wants to create a new topic on any of these subjects, feel free.  I forgot what the four areas we're supposed to be thinking about are, but a topic on each of those in general might be a good place to start (Jackie?)

[jkdemolee]

Hi everyone, I'm Jackie DeMolee, the current BOSP chair and the person "leading" the radio forum as well as the committee that's been set up for spring semester.

Rodger Dodger: The firs thing I want to address it allowing a department-take-over of some sort. There are a lot of programs at other schools that incorporate their radio stations into their curriculum. I understand that the Communication department has been a complete clustereff, but the faculty member who attended the meeting is new. I have personal experience with him from when he interviewed here for the position last spring. If this radio station is going to continue beyond this group of students, there needs to be more support than just the current students who are interested. It needs university support. And one way to help that along is to get support within the department that SHOULD care about something like this. Maybe not in the way of curriculum, but it's just an idea. It would help fill on-air hours, which is vital. And the classroom setting could teach students the basics that they can then apply on the airwaves. I went to school for radio broadcasting at NCTC in Thief River Falls (the program does not exist any more). We learned in the classroom, but we also applied it in the studio. We were required to fill so many hours a semester on-air. Again, that would help with filling airtime, plus a course in radio is seriously lacking in the department. I want to say that I have faith in a lot of the new faculty members that they respect students. The tenure faculty are another story and they don't want this thing at all, nor do they want any change from what I've been told.

I think that you're an asset to this team because, I think, the general idea is that we put this online first and see if we can get it operational and functional, which I think we can! If we're going to do it online, we're going to need a Web site and you sound like you know something about it! As I stated in my e-mail, we have a server that can host an online station right now, but before we do that, we must have some structure and some understanding as well as equipment.

I have experience in running and operation of a radio station from my education at NCTC and working in radio for about four years part-time. I understand the basics and I have connections on how we can set things up to make them run. I'm meeting with Ryan Howard tonight at 6:00 p.m. in the Union to talk about structure.

One final thing, I think this message board is great, but I also have the availability to send invites to Google Wave (it's like e-mail, but interactive) and we could use that! I haven't really used it all that much, but I think it would be perfect for this kind of thing.

What is Google Wave? This is the best video I can find to explain it for those of you who don't have it or know what it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDu2A3WzQpo

[Plantains]

1. google wave is sort of a pita because you have to be invited.
2. What meeting?
3. If you go online, who cares about language or what you talk about.
4. In what capacity or how do sites like pandora work? It seems that we'd be doing ourselves a favor getting on something like that.

[jkdemolee]

I have invites to Google Wave and people who join Google wave would get invites. If it's something people are interested in. Maybe everyone on my current e-mail list who are interested in physically meeting next semester.

Ryan and I are just meeting to discuss structure and equipment for attempting to get an online radio station off the ground.

As far as content and behavior, it's important that this station set some guidelines and follow some rules. If it wants any funding or support of any kind support, it needs to be somewhat friendly to listenership. A radio station, regardless of whether it's online or terrestrial can be subject to lawsuits for slander. And I'm sure the FCC still has some mandates for Internet radio seeing as they have rights over things like iPods.

[Plantains]

I'm not really concerned about slander. That involves common sense.

[Sal Atticum]

Whoa...what right does the FCC have over iPods except for the standard "this device cannot cause harmful interference and must accept that interference it receives..."?

I'm horrible with names--which one was Ryan at the meeting (or wasn't he)?

Guardrail, there was a meeting last Thursday evening about the idea of getting a radio station going.  Jackie, do you mind posting the email you sent out in case there are people who haven't seen it?

[jkdemolee]

Ryan Howard was sitting to my right in the meeting (your left). He's my "partner in crime" as of right now. We're really working together to set up the basics and do research with some experience and knowledge so that other people who are participating have information to go on. Next week Ryan and I are going to try to meet with Bob Boyd. He is on the space committee at UND and we will need space for a radio station. We're also working on doing research, I have a phone call "meeting" with my old instructor at NCTC tomorrow morning and over break I'm going to find my radio broadcasting books that I had for classes because I didn't return them.

This is the e-mail I sent out to the forum participants. I removed my phone number, but if someone would like it they can e-mail me at [email protected]:
Hi everyone,

I wanted to e-mail all of you to thank you for your participation in the radio forum last week. I'm even more grateful that a good amount of people are willing to continue work on this next semester.

I'm looking forward to meeting with all of you. As a small "homework" assignment over winter break, I would like all of you to brainstorm more about what you want and what you'd like to see from the radio station. If at all possible, look into some stuff that you are really interested in.

On Thursday evening, after the forum, I got a phone call from someone who said that there's a UND server available that could stream an online station today if we wanted. If this is something that the group wants to move ahead with, we have a lot to decide and a lot of discussion to happen. We could have an online station up and running by sometime next semester, but there are some things that need to happen first.

I look forward to seeing you in the spring and I will be in contact during winter break about setting up a meeting time. I would like to meet once a week next semester.

Again, thank you all for your participation,
Jackie DeMolee

[Sal Atticum]

Thanks, that was my guess at who you meant.

Well...what should the rest of us do?

[jkdemolee]

For right now, ideas and questions. I know that there were some questions during the forum that I couldn't answer. We also want to find people in this group that will work in the four different areas that Ryan suggested at the meeting. I don't have the list with me and he's currently upstairs in the Union, but will be back in a little while. Legal is one of them, which we've been discussing a little here.

We'd like to be able to share what we're doing over break on here (and via e-mail) and then this stuff can be discussed further in the spring when we actually meet. We figured we'd start the basic ground work from there.

I think that with diligent work, an online station could be running before the end of the semester. It would be a start, eventually, I think, everyone would like a hybrid including terrestrial radio. I would like to see people be able to get their feet wet as soon as possible because a lot of people are excited about this possibility now.

[jkdemolee]

Oh, and if someone would like something specifically delegated to them, we can probably figure something out.

To be honest, I have a lot of things floating all over the place in my head and I'm trying to get as much information as possible to make this work. I'm trying to use my connections, but there is definitely stuff that I'm not as well-versed in (legal, state-related stuff) that some people will be able to focus on.

[Sal Atticum]

I guess if everyone else has jumped on the Google Wave bandwagon (just guessing), you could send me an invite.  It seems very cloak and dagger, but that's just my opinion.