October 2021 marked being involved with Radio for 30 years. It was October 1991, at the age of 14, when I became a volunteer at Hospital Radio Chelmsford. I had previously expressed my interest after visiting it during a Boys Brigade ‘communications’ badge challenge of presenting a radio feature but was too young so had to wait for my 14th birthday to come before retrying. I was lucky in that the studios were around a 10 minute walk/5 minute bike ride from my house and it wasn’t long before I...
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2021 Theme
It’s January and so time for me to think of a new Theme for the year. I don’t do resolutions anymore as don’t want to start the year with eventual failure. There is also a podcast I listen to called Cortex and they talk about Themes quite a bit. There is also a video about them. 2020 was meant to be the Year of Progression. It kind of was! This is one of the benefits of Themes rather than resolutions as they are less specific and can be twisted if required. Originally my...
2020 Theme – “Progression”
Cortex Podcast from Relay.FM The end or start of a year is always a good time to think about the future and one of the ways I do is by choosing a yearly theme. Resolutions don't work for me and probably don't work for many. The idea for yearly themes comes from the podcast Cortex and you can listen to their episode talking about their theme here. I can't quite remember 2019's one which is why I have chosen to write down the one for 2020, I think it was around mindfulness and being aware of...
Podcasting to less than 250 people
In 2018 I was determined to resurrect my podcast and give it a proper series/season so I could then decide whether it was something to continue with or drop. A brief history if I may. The Podcast, then called Desert Island Geek, began in 2007 and was hosted by Neil Dixon who did the first 7 Episodes. It then vanished from 'iPodderX' which was the app I was using to sync podcasts to my ipod nano. I got in touch with Neil in 2008 and asked him when the next episode would be and he said he did...
Hospital Radio: Deliver More Value
I am going to write at least one more article on the future of Hospital Radio. I don't think it is very bright if stations only continue to be a "Radio Station for people in Hospital" - I hope to back this up with facts and figures to support this claim. In the meantime, I wrote this article which I have submitted to the Hospital Broadcasting Association for sending to their members. We are aware of the impact that Hospital Broadcasting has on the NHS through the study released a couple of...
Always think ‘Why?’
I was sent a link to this video where the question of why is asked and how important it is to selling. This instantly got me thinking about how to apply it more in Radio. The excellent book by David Lloyd speaks more about the words to use when talking on the radio including the powerful ‘you’ but this got me thinking about the whole way you come at something to talk about on the radio. I have some personal experience of offering up a travel insulated mug as a prize which is branded with the...
Myriad Playout Hack – Scripts Location
Myriad Playout has a 'script' feature built in which allows you to either link to script or allow the presenter to choose a script to read out on air. A client wanted to have a dropbox folder be the location of their scripts so it could be updated from outside the studios. I reached out and spoke with Peter Jarrett, who is one of the founders of P Squared, and he told me of a sneaky hack that could be done in the registry. It is strictly unsupported and could well be undone if you upgrade the...
Using My Library to set Intro/Extro points for import to Myriad Playout
A lot of users of Myriad Playout are volunteers and only visit the studio when presenting a show so do work at home beforehand. One job which can be done at home is tagging up songs and idents for importing into Myriad Playout when at the studio. The application I use and recommend is from Charlie Davy called My Library. I have made a small video to show you how it simple and quick to tag up songs.
Programming Axia IQ to put players into Preview Mode
Have been working with Hospital Radio Chelmsford on their Axia Install. One of the desires was for the studios to operate with Myriad Playout the way it works when Myriad is plugged into the SRM mixer from P Squared. They are using the Axia IP Audio Drivers which have built in GPIO and they had it working so the 'next' soft button fired off the player. What we have now programmed is if the fader is 'off' the player goes into Preview Mode. Preview is then removed when the fader goes 'on'. This...
VIDEO: Tascam DR-10x overview
Have done a video showing off a new gadget. The Tascam DR-10x which plugs into the bottom of any xlr mic and allows you to record in .wav format.