“We provide a creative outlet for students and community members that’s free to get their word out,” said Marty Lemon, program director for the station.
The student radio station is put together and broadcasted using an Internet stream rather than radio waves. A stream is just that. It’s a constant flow of data being relayed from the Internet. .
Because the radio station is Internet based the music and radio shows are open to everyone in the world to have a listen. The content isn’t strictly City College based. “People from all over the country have sent in music,” Lemon said.
The music selection has been “pretty diverse” including everything from rock to experimental sound.
Many people didn’t even know there was a station in existence. Flyers and banners were posted to advertise it; even a radio club was introduced. It wasn’t until a campus wide e-mail was sent out that people began to take notice. The e-mail was sent about 3 weeks ago and the station has been up and in continuing progress for around 2 years.
“Listener ship has been pretty good,” Lemon said.
This past year the station has had 90,460 site hits and carry’s about 627 listeners.
Students are able to DJ and submit shows and music. There has also been talk of students reading and recording poetry.
Even pod casts of teachers’ lectures are in the works, so students will never have an excuse of not knowing a subject matter.
The station uses an OTS DJ system. It works like an auto DJ that sets up play lists allowing music to play in blocks. Rock and roll for an hour and hip hop the next. Whatever listeners want to hear it’s provided for them.
Connecting to the site is easy radio.sbcc.edu gets listeners to the homepage. A bouncing red arrow points those looking for tunes in the right direction. Using programs from icecast.org, a web site that provides stream connections, listeners are able to link to streams in both high and low quality mp3 or Ogg Vorbis utilities to obtain music feed. Other handy icons lead down a path to a press kit, which has contact information and the stations policies.
If someone wants to have a listen, Flash player 8 is required and it’s free to install. The site is still under some construction because of the establishing of this feature.
“We’re more focused on getting a solid stream going,” said Lemon
Whether you are in the mood for slow moving beats or wanting to dance the night away, finding and listening to the best music around is just a point and click away at City College.
