The UVSC Radio Club Faculty has secured a Perkins Grant to further the club's goal of attaining a radio frequency for the campus.

Radio Club advisor Mike Wisland wrote the grant proposal and said it will help cover the cost of a three-phased plan he and the Radio Club have outlined for making a campus radio station a reality.

"Phase one of the club's drive to gain on-campus radio is purchasing a streaming server computer so we can podcast," Wisland said. So although this would not include a radio frequency broadcast that students and community members could listen to on their radios, people could download streaming programming to their iPods to listen at their convenience.

Phase two involves hiring an external research consultant to find and assess any available frequencies and possible locations for a radio tower. Wisland has already found a consulting firm he thinks could best serve the club's interests.

"If you go up and down the FM dial, there aren't really any gaps or blank stations," Wisland said. "This area along the Wasatch front is one of the most crowded FM spectrums in the nation."

FM radio stations are always odd-numbered. Each station that broadcasts also uses one frequency on either side as a buffer to guard against one frequency interfering with another broadcasting frequency. So for instance, if 103.5 is taken, as it is by KRSP, 103.3 and 103.7 are taken as well. These buffer frequencies are called guardbands.

A prospective radio station can only use an already used frequency or guardband if their transmitter is far enough away from the transmitter in question as to not cause interference.

Wisland hopes an outside research consultant can help UVSC understand better which frequencies are available and where. In addition, this consultant would be instrumental in walking UVSC through the licensing process.

Phase three tackles the licensing process with the FCC once a suitable frequency and transmitter location is found. "That licensing process can be a nightmare," said Lindsey Krey, Radio Club President.

Wisland envisions broadcasting a signal that could only be picked up on campus and in immediate surrounding areas so as not to interfere with other local stations.

The club is also looking at available AM stations as alternatives to limited FM availability.

In addition, Wisland and Krey are debating the merits of commercial versus non-commercial formatting and the legal differences those options would entail.

Krey says the club has currently about 200 students in it, making it one of the larger clubs on campus. Wisland also teaches a radio class on campus with about 25-30 students in it. It's cross-listed under COMM 3480 and MCT 3480.

Despite the club's burgeoning membership, Krey said, "We could use any help. A lot of people are interested in UVSC having a radio station, but very few people are lending a helping hand."

People interested in creating packages will get the opportunity to produce them independently. "No experience is required, there's no format to limit people," Krey said.

Club member Daryl Noguera already has a couple of ideas for documentary programming in mind, one covering the life of Utah Valley Latinos, another covering the personal stories of the several hundred hurricane victims recently relocated to Utah.

Club advisor Mike Wisland can be reached at (801) 863-8330 or wislanmi@uvsc.edu. Club President Lindsey Krey can be reached at (801) 623-1051 or kwlyuvsc@yahoo.com. Club Vice-President Lauren Handley can be reached at (801) 380-5347 or handlela@uvsc.edu.

As Utah Valley State College jumps through the various hoops required to get a fully functional radio station, Mike Wisland and Michael Harper, media and communications professors, are coming up with a different kind of offering.

Starting within the next few months, UVSC digital streaming radio will go online and become available to the general public, worldwide.

Wisland's radio class will have an opportunity to get their feet wet in broadcasting as soon as the server is made public. The class will be handling all the content for the station, which will include independent and local artists, special interest segments and school news. Phil Gordon's Multimedia and Communications radio class will also be collaborating on content for the new station.

"There's a gray area about how you pay royalties for streaming songs on-line," said Wisland. He plans on avoiding any potential legal problems by only playing content, which has been approved for broadcast by the copyright holder.

The plan is to "avoid playing pop music" altogether and to make the station not only run locally, but filled with local content.

In addition, the radio station will be capable of broadcasting live sports events and recitals.

Michael Harper and his streaming radio class will be handling all of the hardware requirements for the radio station. He is currently working with the school to obtain a grant for high tech equipment, which will allow the station to stream 24 hours a day at a high quality bit rate.

He also has plans to include the capability of providing on-demand audio and video content.

"The station will support the newest technologies that are standards-based," said Harper. This means the station will use the brand new mpeg4 codec so that the audio will stream at the maximum quality that each listener's computer is capable of. By the end of next year, Harper even plans to have the station Dolby 5.1 compatible, which means 5-channel surround sound will be supported.

The radio station "sounds like a good way to get local bands out in the open," said Wendy Gailey, a photography major, "instead of trying to find a place to play, they can just be heard on the school's internet [radio station]".

"I would definitely listen to it," said McCall Bateman, Integrated studies major, "it will be a good avenue for local bands to get exposure."

The station is up and running with a test play list now, and it will be released to the public as soon as it is fully capable and stable. Watch for more information in the College Times, or log on to www.netXnews.net.

As Utah Valley State College jumps through the various hoops required to get a fully functional radio station, Mike Wisland and Michael Harper, media and communications professors, are coming up with a different kind of offering.

Starting within the next few months, UVSC digital streaming radio will go online and become available to the general public, worldwide.

Wisland's radio class will have an opportunity to get their feet wet in broadcasting as soon as the server is made public. The class will be handling all the content for the station, which will include independent and local artists, special interest segments and school news. Phil Gordon's Multimedia and Communications radio class will also be collaborating on content for the new station.

"There's a gray area about how you pay royalties for streaming songs on-line," said Wisland. He plans on avoiding any potential legal problems by only playing content, which has been approved for broadcast by the copyright holder.

The plan is to "avoid playing pop music" altogether and to make the station not only run locally, but filled with local content.

In addition, the radio station will be capable of broadcasting live sports events and recitals.

Michael Harper and his streaming radio class will be handling all of the hardware requirements for the radio station. He is currently working with the school to obtain a grant for high tech equipment, which will allow the station to stream 24 hours a day at a high quality bit rate.

He also has plans to include the capability of providing on-demand audio and video content.

"The station will support the newest technologies that are standards-based," said Harper. This means the station will use the brand new mpeg4 codec so that the audio will stream at the maximum quality that each listener's computer is capable of. By the end of next year, Harper even plans to have the station Dolby 5.1 compatible, which means 5-channel surround sound will be supported.

The radio station "sounds like a good way to get local bands out in the open," said Wendy Gailey, a photography major, "instead of trying to find a place to play, they can just be heard on the school's internet [radio station]".

"I would definitely listen to it," said McCall Bateman, Integrated studies major, "it will be a good avenue for local bands to get exposure."

The station is up and running with a test play list now, and it will be released to the public as soon as it is fully capable and stable. Watch for more information in the College Times, or log on to www.netXnews.net.

"Hot Rod" Hundley, the voice of the Jazz, and many other notable radio guests spoke at the MATC building Thursday night for Greg Carlisle and UVSC students working on a documentary about the history of AM radio. The project focuses on the 1960's and 70s, and the impact most of the guests had on the development of radio during those early years.

Carlisle and Adam Nielson spearheaded the project. Nielson said, "MATC helped us with the funding, and some of the high school students helped us with the project." Nielson is referring to the high school students who attend multimedia classes at the MATC building. Nielson also took on the responsibility of getting the speakers to come out. The guest speakers shared their personal stories and opinions, and then answered questions for an hour. Carlisle will take these recordings and combine them with images, video clips and other material for his documentary. The documentary is titled "AM to FM", but no time is set for when it will be ready.

In addition to the event, UVSC students assisted in the setup of three rooms, which provided panel discussions for the documentary. James Crofts, a UVSC student said, "I'm here doing a bit of everything, doing the audible, running cable, setting up lights, setting up video." These tasks serve the purpose of hands-on experience that is vital in the multimedia world. "Especially in the fields of film and multimedia, the best thing to have is experience. People don't care if I have a PhD from Harvard, if I can do what they want me to do...that's the key," Crofts said.

Nielson supports Croft's claim and said, "The most important thing UVSC students have gained from this event is experience." He also said, "The coolest thing is that they actually showed up, I wasn't expecting so much help, but they turned out to be a real blessing."

The idea of UVSC having its very own radio station is not new. That idea may be realized as soon as March of next year. Numerous organizations on campus are pulling together to make the radio idea a reality.

The biggest reason that there is no radio station on campus already is funding. "Fundraising is just too slow," said Lindsey Krey, president of UVSC's radio club. Krey started working last summer towards getting the radio station started.

Krey and the continuing education department began looking for third party grants to fund the station. One interested party, the Public History Action Group, was presented last week with a proposal for the radio station. "I think they're very interested," Krey said.

With the funding issue solved, the next hurdle is finding a frequency for the station. Unfortunately, all frequencies in the Utah Valley area have been taken. Thanks to a new rule made by the FCC, however, the station will be able to run at low power if it remains not-for-profit.

This would give the station a range of about three and a half miles, and would ultimately be a step in getting a more powerful frequency.

Under the FCC's new rule, UVSC's radio station would be likely to end up somewhere between 88 and 92 on your FM dial. Another option, according to Mike Wisland, is to put the station on the AM band. This would allow for a more powerful station, but it would lose some of the quality that a FM station would have.

Once funding and frequency have been taken care of, the only thing left is finding a place to put the station. The station will most likely be located in the Pioneer house, which is found east of the Liberal Arts building. The house was part of the farmland UVSC sits on, and was donated to the school to be used for academic purposes. "We have backing from the former owners of the house," Wisland said. "They liked the idea of having the radio station located there."

Some in the history department, although supportive of UVSC having a radio station, aren't so sure about using the pioneer house. "We were surprised they were thinking of using it as a radio station," Katherine Brown said, who works in the library as an archivist, and is interested in the preservation of the building. "There is some concern that renovating it for that purpose might be too hard on the building," she said.

The trades department, who will be working on the restoration of the building, will have to remove the entire roof as part of the renovation, and there is concern that the stucco may crumble. "It will need to be looked at by an architect before they go ahead," Brown said.

The Pioneer house will be renovated as part of UVSC's 30-year anniversary. "It's really a multi-department chore [and it's] coming together," said Ernest Krey, who works for the continuing education department.

Once in operation, the radio station will be run by the students and for the students. "It will be a crossbreed between NPR style and typical college radio formats," Wisland said. "It will "serve the community and the students."

NPR style means that the radio station will include no regular, paid advertising, similar to KOHS, the Provo high school radio station. It will, however, include a non-direct type of advertising such as that seen on public television. For example, "this program brought to you by..." In addition to the non-direct advertising the radio station would likely include public service announcements and government ads such as anti-drug commercials.

Any student will be allowed to work on the radio station. Students will even have an opportunity to have their own shows, Wisland said.

Those who wish to work for the station will need to "take an intro to radio class first to become familiar with FCC regulations and radio ethics," he said.

A unique class can add some spice to college life. One class that fits the bill is Digital Audio Restoration, taught by Mike Wisland, and it's the only class of its kind offered in the nation.

Wisland started teaching the two-credit class after working as an audio/video consultant for the U.S. government. During his tenure with the feds he did independent research on how to restore old recordings to a new, pristine, and archive ready form. He perfected these methods in an attempt to pitch his services to the FBI.

Wisland's course trains students on various methods to restore, preserve, and archive audio from a plethora of sources. These sources include vinyl records, reel-to-reel tapes, film soundtracks, and the list goes on. Wisland's students even work on restoring corrupted digital audio.

"I'm really excited to restore some old radio broadcasts," said Lindsey Krey, president of UVSC's Radio Club. "This guy could get sound out of dirt."

Audio restoration is not only fun and interesting, but "potentially lucrative for the students," Wisland said. "The business of restoration is going to be huge."

Digital audio restoration students will even have the opportunity to work with some one-of-a-kind recordings. This semester, Wisland plans on working with his students on old Spike Jones, Stan Freberg, and old psychedelic rock recordings.

One of UVSC's own, Prof. Dennis Lisonbee, will have recordings of his own 60's band, the Mustangs, restored by Wisland's class in one of the more exciting projects planned for this semester.

Wisland has made some interesting discoveries during his tenure as the Audio Restoration teacher. On one occasion, he restored a woman's trumpet recordings from the 1940's. On the other side of the record he found a recording of an unknown superman radio show episode that was backed up to avoid conflict with the LDS church's general conference.

"It's going to be the funnest class on campus," Wisland said to one of his students.

The class number is MCT 3480, and is available for any student who is interested. The class can count as an elective or towards a multimedia communications technology degree.

Students interested in joining the fun can contact Wisland directly in his office in room CS 619 or by phone at ext. 830. Wisland plans on changing the class to three credits next semester.

UVSC's Communications department has added a respected journalist and writer to their teaching roster. Scott Carrier, whose freelance radio reports have made him one of NPR's favorite sons, is co-teaching a radio production class with Mike Wisland.

If department chair Phil Gordon has his way Carrier will do more than add insight on recording interviews or give hints on gauging equipment. "I've made no secret that I'd love to have this guy teach here full-time," Gordon said.

Gordon played a pivotal role in recruiting Carrier to UVSC. "I think his wife is tired of him parachuting into war zones," he said.

Scott Carrier doesn't disagree with Gordon's analysis. "My wife," was the answer Carrier gave when asked what brought him to UVSC. He also mentioned treasured friendships he shares with faculty members Scott Abbott, Sam Rushforth and Alex Caldiero. "I'm in Alex's gang," Carrier said.

The worldwide web is full of gushing reviews of Carrier's interviews and essays. "Maybe I need to start my own webpage," he said, explaining that he'd like some control over his name's online references.

Carrier's career has been varied, and unorthodox. He studied anthropology and documentary filmmaking as an undergraduate student at the University of Colorado. His journey into public radio fame started when he trekked across the U.S. with tape recorder in hand. After hitchhiking thousands of miles, Carrier collected the stories of different characters linked together only by their shared humanity. Those interviews served as a launching pad for him.

He has also earned a reputation as a very capable writer. A collection of some of his essays, "Running After Antelope", was well received by the critics. Additionally he has penned articles for magazines like Esquire and Harper's.

His subsequent work has been true to the previous arbitrary honesty he started out to capture years ago. "He is an independent adventurer gonzo journalist," Gordon said. "He flies into dangerous places, war zones, with only a camera, a tape recorder and a few hundred bucks."

One of those trips took Carrier into the heart of rural Pakistan and face to face with Al Qaeda members. "A CIA type guy told me not to go there (specific part of Pakistan)." Bombs detonated outside the place where he slept. Carrier took that as an invitation to leave. It was one of the few times where he thought he could be killed. "What troubles me more is that other people could get killed," Carrier said of the danger. The locals who help him on his trips do it for more than cash he explained. They do it to draw attention to their respective people's plights.

When asked to boil down years worth of observing human beings of every ilk and creed into a few words, Carrier was succinct. "There's not that much difference between us, between people...There is always more in common than the things that separate people. You can cut through an awful lot just with a sense of compassion, the idea that you are not that different."

Carrier has talked to a lot of people. He hasn't mentioned his subject matter ever being boring. "People are infinitely strange."

He asserts his education has always been relevant. "That (anthropology) is what I'm doing. I'm a modern culture guy."

Carrier didn't point out exactly what made him such a student of humanity but he dropped hints. "I've felt excluded." He used his sense of alienation like a tool. Convention never has been his trademark. "I'm a bad machine."

This won't be Scott Carrier's first go-round with teaching. While getting his Master's degree from the University of Utah (in Communications) he did some graduate assistant teaching.

"I'm excited to be here [at UVSC]," he said.

UVSC is excited to have him. "Scott Carrier can be a role model for students involved in student media. He can inspire them to use their journalistic sense to find stories that are right there," Gordon said.

With Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq already in his travel log, Carrier is ready for Orem, Utah. And he is ready to do what he does best, connect with people.

It's called KWLY (K-Willy) and it should be up some time next semester.

"We hope to have something up-and-running by mid-semester next year," said Mike Wisland, Co-Adviser of the new Radio Club and Assistant Professor of the Multimedia Communication Technology (MCT) department.

"Right now some of the Radio class students have some programs running in the student center over the speakers - that's a start," said Wisland when discussing the progression of the station's future. "Professor Mike Harper is going to help us with getting a streaming internet station on the air eventually." Wisland then went on to talk about the problems of getting a frequency on FM due to the fact that most of the frequencies are already taken.

"That's not to say that we can't get a low-power FM station on the air," said Wisland. "One that broadcasts over the campus and maybe a few houses beyond. We could get on the air with one of those almost as quickly as we could find a home for the equipment to broadcast with. Any department out there has a spare closet we could broadcast from?"

"I would like to see a broad representation from all ethnic and interest groups around campus," said Wisland, referring to the types of shows that will be broadcast. "There will be some restrictions - I don't want radio KAOS - but it'll be freeform to be for sure!"

"One goal [for the station] would be total campus involvement," said Wisland. "DJ's are only a very small part of the radio equation."

Wisland explained some of the other jobs of the station, "There needs to be station engineers to oversee the equipment maintenance. There is also the program manager who is responsible for overseeing the program material and time-slot of all of the shows. The promotions manager gets the word out about the station and the activities. There will also be a production department that will produce campus activity ads and news segments. Anybody interested in doing any of those jobs should be able to participate."

If you are interested in being involved with the Radio Club or the future station you can get a hold of Mike Wisland at wislanmi@uvsc.edu or at his office, CS 619. His campus extension is 8330.