"Oh, radio! Tell me everything you know..."

If you get the reference in the title, congratulations, you're also a wrestling fan.


The training session went off without a hitch. Just had to pay the £6 fee for joining the society, and I was shown how to operate both mixing desks, the microphones, and also the software that controls the station.

UPSU Radio uses an open source program called Rivendell. I can't remember which operating system they use, but I do know it's a Linux distro, so probably Ubuntu. There's no installers for Rivendell, and the program has to be compiled from the source code, so I wouldn't be able to practice with it at home, as I am useless when it comes to that. There's no way to get it running on Windows, anyway; it's strictly Linux-only, officially. Well, there is an unofficial Windows solution around, but it's not all parts of the program, so it'd be useless for me. There is apparently a way to get the Debian version working on Mac OS X, but I haven't attempted that yet. Rivendell is thankfully easy to use, and the interface is touchscreen-friendly, which is great, as the station has a touchscreen monitor.

So, I know the station's rules now, and most importantly, I know the procedure for adding new music into the system, which I'll probably be doing a lot, as the music I listen to is pretty different to what they usually broadcast. They have good standards, too; 320kbps MP3 files preferred, no lower than 192kbps (obviously, the files have to have been legally acquired, so either ripped from a CD/vinyl, or bought from a music store, like iTunes or eMusic).

I'm not gonna rush into doing a show yet though, due to the upcoming work experience at Twofour, plus current assignments at dBs. I'll probably wait until the break in-between semesters to do a show. Or failing that, summer break.

UPSU Radio Training

I've had an email from Josh Hancock over at UPSU Radio. He's set the day for dBs students to have their training sessions before they can work at the station. It'll be next Tuesday (the 27th). He's set up a Doodle page for everyone to pick their timeslots (the training sessions are only half an hour long, and they're running from 12:00 to 21:00). I've already marked myself in for 16:00, so I can go straight to there after finishing up at dBs at 15:30.

...well, that was fast!

So, on Wednesday, I fired off an email to Laura Johnstone, the Production Coordinator at Twofour, expressing my interest in doing a two-week work placement with them, and also explaining my restrictions; I wouldn't be able to work Mondays and Tuesdays, due to being in dBs Music those days, obviously. So in reality, I'd only be working six days. After a few back-and-forth replies, it was all sorted, and the next day, I received a confirmation email from the HR department, containing this PDF.

So there we go, I've already secured 51 hours of work experience for myself. I'm also currently in touch with UPSU radio (University of Plymouth Student Union), so there may be more hours on the way...

Unearthing lost relics

I've only just discovered I still had a Blogger blog. Hadn't posted here in over three years (the previous posts have been hidden for this blog's new use). That's temporarily going to change, as this is going to be turned into a journal for the work placements I do during one of my university assignments.

First step: actually looking for a placement. I saw a post on the course's Facebook page yesterday talking about a one/two week placement at Twofour, an independent media group actually founded here in Plymouth. They've supplied programming in recent years to the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky1, and various other channels. It's an ideal placement for me (I'd be a transcriber), but transport would be an issue, as there's no buses which go to where they are. The closest I can get to it on a bus is a 20 minute walk away (or just over a mile), and I'd have to walk a mile to get to a bus stop actually on the route that takes me as close to Twofour as possible. So I'd have to walk two miles each way, which at least isn't all in one go; I get a little rest on the bus.

Oh well, I'll apply now first, see if they actually do take me on, and then worry about the potential transport issue.