In an ideal world, members of every community would be able to build their own CR stations to suit their own unique and specific requirements. But it’s not an ideal world, and CR stations often have to adapt to whatever spaces are available to it – usually a rented or community donated pre-built space that may not entirely meet the station’s needs.
This makes understanding the station’s design and infrastructure doubly important, because it means we have to be clear about each of the adaptations we may have to make – why we need to do it, and how best to do it in order to make it meet our requirements. Let’s start by looking at some basic issues we need to address while setting up a community rardio station.
Having said that, we also have to ensure that there isn't too much noise around the CR station itself. Your recording areas and working areas may need to be comparatively noise free to ensure good audio quality. A noisy
marketplace, for instance, may force you to adopt much more extensive measures to isolate yourself from the noise than usual.
In most cases, the antenna/mast and the station are located in close proximity to each other for a variety of technical considerations. Since FM radio transmission is line of sight, the transmission can only reach areas that can electronically 'see' the transmitting antenna. This means we must choose a site that does not have too many natural or man made obstacles in the path of the radio signal - that is, it would be preferable to not choose a site where a hill, mountain or high-rise building could prevent some of our potential listeners from hearing the station's broadcast.
The line of sight principle, however, can present some direct benefits as well: CR stations generally have transmitters of limited output, as they are meant to service smaller areas - but selecting a good site for the station can maximize your transmission range. Just as standing on a tall hill can give you a commanding view of the surrounding area, placing your antenna at a high vantage point can increase your effective range, and let you broadcast to a larger audience.
Remember that these are just a few points you need to consider while selecting the site for your CRS: There's always a trade off between all these criteria, and a site that may be excellent from the point of view of one of these criteria may fail miserably on another. You will have to weigh your options and select a site which combines as many of these qualities as possible. Also keep in mind that the spaces and sites a community is able to create or develop for a CRS are often more a matter of convenience and ready availability
than any of these considerations - though it would be nice if the community as a whole can be sensitized to these issues so that its members can weigh possible options before taking a decision.
1.A broadcast studio: This is the primary studio space for the station, the place where the programme audio is broadcast from and the programme presenter (or compere) sits. This space is often used as the 'live' studio, from where audio is played out to the transmitter, and where one or two person interviews can be conducted by an interviewer.
2.A production studio: This is the space where recordings can be done, and programmes edited and refined for later broadcast. The production studio is usually equipped with a sound booth or recording floor, where sound can be recorded in carefully controlled conditions.
3.Office space: Somewhere where we can meet visitors who visit the station, and where the people working at the CR station can work together on production related or administrative tasks.
A small CR setup may actually have a single space that fulfills all these functions, and that's perfectly all right. The most common approach for middle level CR stations is to have a single space setup that combines the functions and necessities of both studio spaces - including a small recording floor - with a separate office cum meeting space.
If you have more funds and access to more space, you might like to define clearly demarcated spaces for all three; and there's really no limit to how large and well equipped each of these spaces can be.
Thus a simple setup for a single room CR station could be like like the one shown in Fig 2-2 (below).
The single room acts as both broadcast and production studio, or multipurpose studio, and is also used to store the studio materials and equipment. Realistically, this space should be at least 12 feet long and 12 feet wide: Any smaller, and it would really be cramped!
A two or three room CR station setup (Fig 2-3) on the other hand, gives us a little more flexibility to arrange our spaces. It could still have a single studio space that combines the production and broadcast units, but could include a separate space in which to meet people and run the administrative functions of the station.
A still more complex CR station setup could resemble something like this:
In this kind of setup, the main office and reception lead to the studio spaces, but can be kept quite separate in operation. More importantly, it means the production studio can carry on with its work of preparing features and 'canned' (pre-recorded) programmes for broadcast while programme hosts continue playing out programmes and doing the live programmes from the broadcast studio.
Note that the diagrams given here are suggestions based on existing CR setups - they are not meant for you to copy literally while setting up your own CR station! Use these as a reference to conceptualize your own setups, which will probably have to work with a different layout. It's often a good idea to start with whatever spaces are available and expand slowly rather than try and set up a sprawling multi-room set up right away.
The idea, after all, is to get programming on the air first, rather than see the station as an end in itself! As your community's programming needs increase and your volunteer base and staff increase, you can expand and equip your station spaces bit by bit. This will not only allow you keep your initial costs low, it will also allow you to think about each section of the station as you set it up.
This makes understanding the station’s design and infrastructure doubly important, because it means we have to be clear about each of the adaptations we may have to make – why we need to do it, and how best to do it in order to make it meet our requirements. Let’s start by looking at some basic issues we need to address while setting up a community rardio station.
Section A: Siting the CR station
There are four primary criteria for selecting a site for your CR station:- Local geography and terrain;
- The physical distribution of the community your station will be broadcasting to;
- The strength of the radio signal you will be transmitting;
- Local noise levels
Having said that, we also have to ensure that there isn't too much noise around the CR station itself. Your recording areas and working areas may need to be comparatively noise free to ensure good audio quality. A noisy
marketplace, for instance, may force you to adopt much more extensive measures to isolate yourself from the noise than usual.
In most cases, the antenna/mast and the station are located in close proximity to each other for a variety of technical considerations. Since FM radio transmission is line of sight, the transmission can only reach areas that can electronically 'see' the transmitting antenna. This means we must choose a site that does not have too many natural or man made obstacles in the path of the radio signal - that is, it would be preferable to not choose a site where a hill, mountain or high-rise building could prevent some of our potential listeners from hearing the station's broadcast.
The line of sight principle, however, can present some direct benefits as well: CR stations generally have transmitters of limited output, as they are meant to service smaller areas - but selecting a good site for the station can maximize your transmission range. Just as standing on a tall hill can give you a commanding view of the surrounding area, placing your antenna at a high vantage point can increase your effective range, and let you broadcast to a larger audience.
Remember that these are just a few points you need to consider while selecting the site for your CRS: There's always a trade off between all these criteria, and a site that may be excellent from the point of view of one of these criteria may fail miserably on another. You will have to weigh your options and select a site which combines as many of these qualities as possible. Also keep in mind that the spaces and sites a community is able to create or develop for a CRS are often more a matter of convenience and ready availability
than any of these considerations - though it would be nice if the community as a whole can be sensitized to these issues so that its members can weigh possible options before taking a decision.
Section B: Defining the spaces
There are three types of spaces that a community radio station generally needs:1.A broadcast studio: This is the primary studio space for the station, the place where the programme audio is broadcast from and the programme presenter (or compere) sits. This space is often used as the 'live' studio, from where audio is played out to the transmitter, and where one or two person interviews can be conducted by an interviewer.
2.A production studio: This is the space where recordings can be done, and programmes edited and refined for later broadcast. The production studio is usually equipped with a sound booth or recording floor, where sound can be recorded in carefully controlled conditions.
3.Office space: Somewhere where we can meet visitors who visit the station, and where the people working at the CR station can work together on production related or administrative tasks.
A small CR setup may actually have a single space that fulfills all these functions, and that's perfectly all right. The most common approach for middle level CR stations is to have a single space setup that combines the functions and necessities of both studio spaces - including a small recording floor - with a separate office cum meeting space.
If you have more funds and access to more space, you might like to define clearly demarcated spaces for all three; and there's really no limit to how large and well equipped each of these spaces can be.
Thus a simple setup for a single room CR station could be like like the one shown in Fig 2-2 (below).
The single room acts as both broadcast and production studio, or multipurpose studio, and is also used to store the studio materials and equipment. Realistically, this space should be at least 12 feet long and 12 feet wide: Any smaller, and it would really be cramped!
A two or three room CR station setup (Fig 2-3) on the other hand, gives us a little more flexibility to arrange our spaces. It could still have a single studio space that combines the production and broadcast units, but could include a separate space in which to meet people and run the administrative functions of the station.
A still more complex CR station setup could resemble something like this:
In this kind of setup, the main office and reception lead to the studio spaces, but can be kept quite separate in operation. More importantly, it means the production studio can carry on with its work of preparing features and 'canned' (pre-recorded) programmes for broadcast while programme hosts continue playing out programmes and doing the live programmes from the broadcast studio.
Note that the diagrams given here are suggestions based on existing CR setups - they are not meant for you to copy literally while setting up your own CR station! Use these as a reference to conceptualize your own setups, which will probably have to work with a different layout. It's often a good idea to start with whatever spaces are available and expand slowly rather than try and set up a sprawling multi-room set up right away.
The idea, after all, is to get programming on the air first, rather than see the station as an end in itself! As your community's programming needs increase and your volunteer base and staff increase, you can expand and equip your station spaces bit by bit. This will not only allow you keep your initial costs low, it will also allow you to think about each section of the station as you set it up.
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