[Chicago] OT: starting a radio station (hackers needed)

[Kumar McMillan]

On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 1:37 PM, selizondo <selizondo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Kumar,
>
> sounds like fun, when is the next code meetup?
>
> Thanks,
> Salomon

Hey Salomon,
We're going to have an informal meetup for those of us on the tech
angle (6 or so people) Sunday December 6th.  Please come by if you are
remotely interested, just to listen in and hear a bit about what we're
focusing on next.  This is open to anyone else too, just let me know
off list and I'll send you the details when they are available.

>
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 12:50 PM, Kumar McMillan
> <kumar.mcmillan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hey Pythonistas!  I probably mentioned this before but here it is
>> again.  I'm part of this really amazing volunteer group in Chicago
>> called CHIRP and we're starting an honest to god real community radio
>> station in Chicago.  Here's an earlier pic of our broadcast studio
>> before it was finished:
>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/thursdayinjune/3945357881/in/pool-chirp
>> We are launching the Web only stream on January 15th at
>> http://chirpradio.org/ (woo!)  In the meantime you can find out more
>> about the station at http://www.chicagoindependentradioproject.org/
>> We should have an Low Power FM station within the next year or two
>> since the bill to allow urban LPFM is actually making some headway in
>> congress after 9 years of bouncing around.  It passed the House vote
>> this month.
>>
>> Why am I telling you all this?  Because even though we have a ton of
>> people volunteering (nearly 65 *active* volunteers, 100+ total) there
>> are only two programmers, d'oh! myself and Jon Trowbridge from Google.
>>  We're pretty psyched about the software we are building.  There are a
>> couple apps and they run in Django on the Google App Engine.
>> Everything is open source and you can check out the code, run the
>> tests, run the dev server or whatever from here:
>> http://code.google.com/p/chirpradio/  It's not really meant to be an
>> open source tool for *other* stations to use but with a little extra
>> effort and documentation it could be.
>>
>> We could desperately use some help though because Jan 15th is rapidly
>> approaching.  It's a really fun group to be a part of and I think
>> Chicago isn't even prepared for how much COOLER it will be when this
>> radio station starts broadcasting 24 hours a day.
>>
>> Are you interested in becoming part of the magic?  We're looking for
>> someone who might be psyched to hack on some Python / Django code with
>> us, most likely on the weekend or in the evenings while drinking beer
>> with us.
>>
>> More specifically, we could really use someone who might be able to
>> take on ownership of the Traffic Log application, here:
>> http://code.google.com/p/chirpradio/source/browse/#hg/traffic_log
>> This app is used to rotate the PSAs that DJs will need to read while on the air.
>>
>> Here is a run down of the other apps we have been working on:
>>
>> DJ Database -- this allows DJs to browse the digital mp3 library
>> (currently 2TB) that the station will use for daily operation.  The
>> Music Director also needs to manage heavy rotation and light rotation
>> and DJs need to mark tracks for profanity and write short reviews of
>> the good stuff to help other DJs.
>>
>> Playlist Tracker -- this is what DJs use while on the air in the
>> studio to enter in what they play, complete with some Ajax goodnesss
>> to autocomplete against the digital library and keep data entry quick
>> and painless.
>>
>> All of this still needs work!!
>>
>> If you want to be a DJ on the station then helping out with the code
>> is a great way to get started on your volunteer hours.  Each DJ needs
>> to put in about 20 hours per quarter of volunteer time (something like
>> that).  I will warn you that people have been working really hard on
>> this for several years so it might take a while to get a DJ slot.  You
>> will need to go through an audition and may also need to undergo
>> training (but that's provided).
>>
>> Kumar
>> _______________________________________________
>> Chicago mailing list
>> Chicago at python.org
>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/chicago
>>
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