Skyapnea Night Broadcasts

For the first installment in this series of Night Broadcasts curated by SKYAPNEA for NTS, electroacoustic duo One For Ghost puts together a mix of almost pure reworks. Most of the material gets the same treatment as OFG own recordings and it's edited and assembled to fit into the duo's sound. As in their debut release "Archives Vol.01" Doreen Ooi and Giovanni Civitenga keep working in an area equally defined by Dilla, Fennesz and Arvo Part, using fragments of acoustic sources, contemporary classical music and electronics to create highly textured music both engaging and hypnotic. 

Every second friday of the month from 4 to 6 AM, NTS will air a special mix curated by SKYAPNEA, two hours of sounds specifically assembled for the dark limbo before sunrise. Featuring artists on the label and friends, the Night Broadcasts series aims at offering artists an intimate time frame to experiment with.

Ethereal Shadows - Communications and Power in Contemporary Italy

Franco ""Bifo"" Berardi, Marco Jacquemet, & Gianfranco Vitali Translated from Italian by Jessica Otey

Focusing on Italian “videocracy,” Ethereal Shadows documents the emergence of the first Italian media mogul, Silvio Berlusconi, and his rises and falls from political power. It also explores Italian media activism through three case studies: a discussion of the first autonomous free radio station, Radio Alice (broadcasting in Bologna between 1977 and 1979); a review of Italian Internet activism focusing on the site Rekombinant.org (launched in 2000); and a chronicle of the emergence of OrfeoTV in 2002, the first illegal micro-TV station in Italy. 

“Ethereal Shadows is a landmark achievement in contemporary media studies: a must read for anyone who wants to understand contemporary media power— the impasses of totalitarian spectacular power as well as the exodus routes of autonomous constituent communication powers.” — Jack Z. Bratich, author Conspiracy Panics 

John Cage in Conversation with Morton Feldman

Radio Happening 1 of 5

John Cage and Morton Feldman recorded four open-ended conversations at the studios of radio station WBAI in New York. These meetings spanned six months between July 1966 and January 1967, and were produced as five "Radio Happenings". Both men were at transitional points in their music. Cage had completed “Variations V” in 1965 and “Variations VI” and “Variations VII” in 1966, and would publish "A Year from Monday" in 1967. Most of Feldman's important work was yet to come. These conversations between two old friends, relaxed, smoking, and throwing out ideas, are full of laughter and long ponderous silences. They form an incredible historical record of their concerns and preoccupation with making music, art, society, and politics of the moment.

Listen here at: 

Sly & Robbie - A Dub Experience

Filters
Although it is rather simple in design and construction a filter is one of the most important elements in broadcasting. No matter what, a proper filter must be used between the transmitter and antenna. Use of a filter will help deprive the FCC of one of its main arguments against micropower broadcasting - interference with other broadcast services.

A proper filter reduces or eliminates harmonics from your broadcast signal. Harmonics are produced by the transmitter and are multiples of the fundamental frequency you are tuned for. For example, if you broadcast at 104.1, you may produce a harmonic at 208.2, and (less likely) 312.6 and so on. Most filter designs are of the low pass type. They let frequencies below a certain frequency pass through unaffected. As the frequency increases and goes beyond that point the filter begins to attenuate any frequency that is higher than the set point. The degree of attenuation increases with the frequency. By the time the frequency of the first harmonic is reached it will be severely attenuated. This is very important since the first harmonic from an FM transmitter falls in the high VHF TV band. Failure to reduce this harmonic will cause interference to neighboring TV sets.

Instructions for making your own RF Low Pass Filter for 88-108MHz Transmitters

Pirate Radio Guide

A technical primer and guide with advice about micropower broadcasting and other aspects of running a pirate radio station.

Many people still assume that an FM broadcast station consists of rooms full of equipment costing tens of thousands of dollars. The Micropower Broadcasting, Free Radio Movement has shown this to be untrue.

Micropower broadcasting uses FM transmitters whose power output is in the range of 1/2 to 40 watts. Such transmitters have a physical size that is not greater than that of your average brick. These transmitters combined with other equipment including inexpensive audio mixers, consumer audio gear, a power supply, filter and antenna enable any community to put its own voice on the air at an average cost of $1000-$1500. This is far more affordable than the tens or hundreds of thousands required by the current FCC regulatory structure.

More info here: Seizing the Airwaves: A Free Radio Handbook

Luted Crucible Bronze Casting

Institute of Making

'Luted' or sealed crucible casting is a low-cost and low-tech method of casting, relatively unknown outside India and West Africa. It involves sealing the raw ingredients for bronze - copper and tin - into one half of a peanut-shaped crucible made from mud. The other half contains the wax model to be cast. The whole thing is baked in a furnace, and when the metal is molten it is flipped over, and the liquid bronze fills the cavity left by the wax.