AbR 2009

A snapshot of the Africa by Radio executive who were all at the first ever AbR Continental Convention held in Johannesburg, earlier this month. The next one should be held in Accra, Ghana, if plans work out.

Previewing some beta

We had a good team meeting yesterday, getting ready to move our new Feba website from Alpha stage into Beta stage. Part of the discussion was about ways to display video other than YouTube. We settled on BlipTV - www.blip.tv - and here is a sort of a sneak peak. The Alpha site is up there, but I shall resist the urge to reveal any more until after the private Beta stage is over.

FIELD TRIAL IS ON AIR

The FIRST Response field trial participants have endured a 14-hour bumpy bus ride, equipment glitches and power cuts. Upon arrival in Nagapattinam at 5am today, they quickly set up their equipment (including attaching the antennae to a drain pipe on the roof). The FM station was live on air by 6:30am and they received their first telephone call from a listener about 7:15am, quite surprisingly. (Sat 28 Jun) READ MORE

Also, check out this video clip - more like it here

New Casting Hope podcast

Paul Vernon working on something important

My new Casting Hope podcast from Feba Radio is out today. The conversation introduces the new 5th generation of the Chrysolite studio - also known as the studio in a suitcase.

What is in this show?

Tim Miller, Tony Knowles, and Paul Vernon talk about their work on the new Chrysolite. Unfortunately, Charles Randall was away on holiday, but we hope to get him onto a future podcast when he can wax lyrical about the design and purposes of the new mixer in the Chrysolite. The podsafe music is from http://www.magnatune.com/.

The correct feeds for everything are:

Blog - http://feba.libsyn.com/

Podcast - http://feba.libsyn.com/rss

iTunes - itpc://feba.libsyn.com/rss

The show blog is available at: http://feba.libsyn.com/

Long Road to Freedom

On the road to Makamia, Cabo Delgado Province, Mozambique

Although there is no single north-south road, from where this photo was taken, a day' driving north would reach Tanzania, and three to four days driving south would reach the capital, Maputo - indicating the vast extent of the beautiful country of Mozambique. This location was about an hour inland from the coastal (and natural harbour) of Pemba. We were on our way to visit the buidling site of a new radio station, intent on reaching the Mwane people, who inhabit the coastal region and islands of northern Mozambique.

Appropriate Technology

Container Studio gets new meaning in Mozambique

Back in the UK after 5 weeks of African adventures, here is an interesting picture of a community radio station we visited in Beira, Mozambique. Look carefully ... the building is simply three 40 foot containers stacked on top of each other. In fact, it is six containers in all. The on-air station is at the top. Middle section is the office on one side and recording studio on the other. Radio Peia is run by a Brazilian missionary and his family, who have been there for 8 years.

In the on-air studio, windows open, street sounds pouring in...

Radio Mast in Malawi

FM MAST ON NDENGU HILL, NEAR KAMWENDO, MALAWI

Part of my current travels included visiting the future site of an FM radio project that will reach the Yao people of Malawi. The picture shows the completed mast and coax cable going down the hill to the transmitter building. This site is about 20 kms from the southern shores of Lake Malawi. The project is scheduled to reach first transmission by April 2008. It is a joint project between Feba Radio UK, TWR and BUSA. The mast needs to go higher, and there is a lot of building work to be completed, but it was very moving to stand up on that hill and envisage the numbers of people who could soon have a local radio station in their own language.

Mundu Radio

Last week I replaced my broken Palm T3 with a new TX and quickly discovered how useful it is with access at work & home, to wifi broadband. One interesting applicatlon is Mundu Radio, which works on many platforms of mobile devices to stream audio to your PDA or phone. It took less than 5 mins to create an experimental feed to Paradise Lost. The streaming works with GPRS & 3G connections too.

-sent via Palm

Goon Show Site

Anyone who is a current fan of the fabulous Goon Shows knows that attempting to locate digital recordings of these classic British comedies is not that easy. The Goon Show Site is a wonderful sight with this in mind because every month 4 shows are available for download as MP3 files.

Additionally, there are links to other Goon sites, helpful history pages, and lots of onformation about the cast and characters.

Well worth a look ... and if you haven't got a clue what all this is about, download a show, turn the volume up, and experience some of the finest comedy ever produced for radio ...

Other links: The Goon Show Depository US Goon Show Archives BBC Radio 7 Wikipedia on The Goons