mbeam

I’ve been pretty busy over the last year or so…

The first year of graduate school was a huge change of pace for me. My career in IT was something that I didn’t take home with me: once I was home, I had time to dive into other interests. Graduate school is a lot more consuming, but by now I feel like I’ve gotten the hang of it. This weekend I put the final touches on my MA thesis and my plan is to start taking classes towards my doctorate next quarter. (Once I figure out why the University has frozen my account, that is).

When I first moved to Columbus I was excited that there was an FCC construction permit for a LPFM station, WCRS. That summer (’06), I chatted with some of the people involved with setting the station up, but soon grad school took away all my attention for a year.

Fast forward to December ‘07: My friend Joseph e-mails me a link to a Craigslist posting by a WCRS program recruiter looking for DJs and volunteers interested in working at the station. Joseph and I went in to talk to Zach Henkel, the Americore sponsored station manager and discovered the station was finally on the air, playing a variety of syndicated Pacifica programming. They are looking for local DJs as well as help with a variety of other station-related activities. We decided to take The Beat Oracle out of hiatus and began programming last month.

We’re broadcasting in a drive-time slot, from 6-7pm Tuesday nights on 98.3 & 102.1lpFM and podcasting again from beatoracle.net.

Last year I was too busy to really miss radio, but it’s really invigorating to be back in the DJ booth (actually, the home studio). Not only is being forced to stay abreast with breaking experimental music and learn from my co-hosts weekly about underground music, working with community media has helped me in thinking about future research as well; hopefully I can work on a project soon with policy ramifications for community projects like WCRS.