microradio.org

This post is for testing the layout of the site. You can take it to trash while uploading the related post.

It’s a good question to ask at the beginning of a Blogging for Beginners Series as it is a question I am asked every week.

There are a number of ways I could answer this question ranging from the broad to the highly technical.

Here are a few definitions from other much wiser people on the ‘what is a blog?’ question to get us started (and once you’ve seen what they have to say on the topic I’ll share my own thoughts):

‘A blog is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called “blogging”. Individual articles on a blog are called “blog posts,” “posts” or “entries”. A person who posts these entries is called a “blogger”. A blog comprises text, hypertext, images, and links (to other web pages and to video, audio and other files). Blogs use a conversational style of documentation. Often blogs focus on a particular “area of interest”, such as Washington, D.C.’s political goings-on. Some blogs discuss personal experiences.’

‘A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.” Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Postings on a blog are almost always arranged in cronological order with the most recent additions featured most prominantly.’

‘A weblog is kind of a continual tour, with a human guide who you get to know. There are many guides to choose from, each develops an audience, and there’s also comraderie and politics between the people who run weblogs, they point to each other, in all kinds of structures, graphs, loops, etc.’

Micro radio, sometimes called pirate radio, is essentially low power radio broadcasting. It is used to provide a path for smaller groups and individuals who want to offer opportunities for small-scale community and neighborhood broadcasts. These micro broadcasts provide pertinent information to the small band of listeners as well as being a platform for specific entertainment and diverse programming.

In this day and age of technology, radio has expanded right along with television, satellite and internet. Many radio stations are bigger and better than ever before. Their power capacity grows by leaps and bounds it seems. Where there used to be no local radio service or only micro radio here and there, now big radio stations from nearby cities can be heard all the way out into the fields and back roads in the surrounding areas. There are still smaller radio stations that are more of a local town station that can be found, just not as many as used to be due to the expansions of power in the larger stations. Smaller stations are easily swallowed up and disappear due to being broadcast over, if not bought out. This is a case where micro radio can flourish, if the news is out.

Micro radio often finds a niche in random areas, regardless of the radio service that can be received there. It does not usually matter if there is good radio to be found, the micro radio users have specific interests in tiny broadcasts that are tailored to specific audiences. Tailored to certain music tastes, to community-specific news, whatever the case may be. Typically micro radio is commercial free except for announcements the niche market would want to hear about. These are not the type of radio stations listeners will hear animated pet insurance commercials broadcast from. Micro radio is called pirate radio for good reason, as there are no real guidelines in place to allow broadcast at this point.