Island Music Radio

Now if the province could muster up a community/college station…

Why is it up to the province?

I did not mean a.the “Province”, the semi-post-colonial government (the sadly ubiquitous entity which meddles in the corporate sector, has settled for restricted local governance, and protects us from gasoline price, milk price and even soda pop production fluctuations (through quasi-criminalizing normal activities - a tactic the East Germans would have been ashamed of) - etc. etc.).

I meant b.the “province” which is the collection of people who live here - society.

This is again distinguished from c.the “Island” which is a sub-set of the “province” which is that part of the people who live here who are “Islanders” a term of inordinate obscurity but seemingly telling importance - the governing culture.

I would like to see a community / college braodcast station as exists in every other part of North America on which you can find something about “c”and a fair bit less about the usual bland praise for and pap about“a” and “b”.

Oops, I was trying to be so clever with my infantile HTML that I reversed C and B in the last paragraph - you get my drift…

Good to hear Alan.

And; Agreed!

So lets start it! At 39 in a few months I have a dream - to host “Als’ world of punk and ska” on a college community broadcast in PEI before I am 45.

Check in with the folks at CIMN at UPEI. I hear they have a big crew of eager volunteers this year. While I was at UPEI, I seemed to be one of the only people who was bothered by the fact that they didn’t actually broadcast to an audience. Raise the bar people.

Steve: CIMN,. poor CIMN…

Alan: have you done any preliminaries, like talking to the CRTC? I know they are much more lax with “community stations” now,…

I did review the guideline and college and community have been severed so you can get a license to be a station just for the community. Makes sense as university interests differ from the community. Plus the flow of annual volunteer replacements is both a blessing and a curse. I think a community french language license is what the group in Wellington are pursuing. I do, however, require emotionally broadcast. I was a host and for a time program director at Dal during the years that CKDU was getting its licence and transferring to the antenna. I, too, got very tired to broadcasting to the pool room in the student union. Fair to say, I am willing to do the legal/licensing work pro bono. But a humming tower is a necessary part of the plan. And a snazzy logo.

Peter, could you tell Steven that I told him so last November….or did he tell me so?

I would like to be able to control the streaming MP3 music content by each host and have the ability to create at the outset at least spoken word spots through “miked” MP3 files moving to more formal live hosted radio shows. Having a rudamentary “studio”, however, does create the hanging out spot even if the technology is MP3 based…maybe just a spot to record voice MP3. Likewise the “tower” - might just be at fifteen foot post on the top of the roof of who ever owns a roof in town. I would happily host a North Shore Rustico relay from high atop this hill. Getting a community license would ensure the honouring of the requirement to get a broad range of points of view on the air.

PS I was that cranky host on Radio ECMA who kept questioning the Real Audio stream Saturday afternoon.

I mean I would like each host to be able to control their own MP3 selections.

To start: I do not claim to be an expert or even an amateur..

That being said, Ramsey Electronics seems to be able to get a few watts pumping for under 1k canadian… They also sell some good antenna gear. I recently did some background research when my church bought an FM transmitter to broadcast to hearing impaired people in the church and around town shut-ins (90.1FM on Sundays)…
http://www.ramseyelectronics.c…



As for to MP3 streaming,. That is a good idea., It would be smart (and easy enough) to have backup programs incase of I-Net Downtime for a would-be DJ, and of note to Alan: You could easily have FULL control over your MP3 Stream including using you microphone… I used to run a ShoutCast radio station a few years ago,. quite a lot of fun…

Alan also makes a good point about a Hangout spot… Moral is always a key factor in making anything fly.

Alan, I know you just want an excuse to hang out in my office.

I can resist a skinny man in cords!

So what else needs to be done? I will check the CRTC paperwork.

Technical question: if this can be run on the internet as well as broadcast, could Bell satellite high-speed internet be used as a relay to low power FM transmitters in various parts of the Island? For 50 buck a month where a dish already exists and the antenna, could this be more than a downtown c’town thing? Depends on the license but repeater antenna would be interesting.

I worked with CIMN about 4 years ago to develop a proposal to go FM (CRTC dealings etc..). I remember completing the proposal but they never did anything with it. I’ll see if the proposal has survived numerous reformats and computer changes…

CIMN has a very nice music collection (CD’s, Vinyl, etc..) It would be nice to get access to that.

Alan: That probably would work. Reliabiliy would be a big factor. I’m not at all familiar with Bell’s service… But you are right,. A setup like that would allow for cheap relaying… Perhaps there are other options too?

Also,. would something like this want to be tied to CIMN?

I’v setup a group site/mailing list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/radiopei/

This would be a good place to discuss this further and keep the weight off Peter’s site. Go and sign up.

I have no problem with a tie but think that simply flowing into the university station for content might not be the best. A truly independent station would be my preferrence. If the UPEI station wishes to have technical assistance to do the same thing themselves the more the merrier. I don’t want to be hauled up in front of the “Principle” telling me content is not in accordance with school policy.

Good call on the off line.

Anything ever come of this? I was very disappointed when I returned to the Island to find out that CIMN had died. I know it’s easy to be cynical about its viability, but I think there are good reasons to believe, now, that CIMN could work.