Poem by TS Elliot, To Walter De La Mare

In my head-in-the-clouds mood of late, I spent time before and after some shifts in the library in Radio New Zealand. Among the books is a collection of TS Elliot poetry, and one in particular struck me. It's called To Walter de la Mare.
Not meaning to infringe copyright, I'll just quote some of the parts which I think talk perfectly to those of us in radio:

When the familiar scene is suddenly strange
Or the well known is what we have yet to learn,
And two worlds meet, and intersect, and change;

…

By whom, and by what means, was this designed?
The whispered incantation which allows
Free passage to the phantoms of the mind?

By you; by those deceptive cadences
Wherewith the common measure is refined;
By conscious art practised with natural ease;

By the delicate, invisible web you wove –
The inexplicable mystery of sound.

Leaving RNZ

I've left Radio New Zealand: it's been fun!

T'would be silly to start naming the names of who I'll miss, who's been good to me – they are a lovely bunch. I've fulfilled most of my goals in Radio NZ, which is most satisfying. I've made features with Jack Perkins, I've seen Sadie in action – unfortunately not had the chance to learn how to use it – and I've worked in Radio New Zealand International! Getting back on shortwave was fab I have to say.

I must also admit that for about the last week in RNZ, I was getting into a more features frame of mind. Shame every shift I did was news then! So I managed to use phrases like "kneck and kneck", and, I suspect, put through a few more, well, "entertaining" stories than usual. It's not much of a revelation to say I'm more of a features man than news.

In the two weeks since I left, I've been travelling around New Zealand's South Island. It's been a surprise to find how there is no FM coverage of Radio New Zealand in many of the tourist settlements, and only poor mediumwave – sometimes none at all.

However, contrary to the situation in some other countries, the commercial stations do provide coverage, where the state broadcaster doesn't.

Assumedly, they see the commercial benefits of local advertising and programming mixed in with the networked output.

Wouldn't it be fair to expect that enough people to constitute a "market" also deserve to be served by a service paid for out of taxes? I expect the RNZ response would be that the money is limited – it certainly is, and they do an exemplary job with that they have – and that providing the best possible content is a priority. It is available on DTH satellite over basically the whole country after all.

Can't access blogger at home!

Added to RNZI.com, it's just not working at home! So I have to use a proxy…

London Huayu on the Olympic flame in London

If you want to hear what it was like on the ground in London when the Olympic flame visited, then London Huayu Chinese Radio's page is excellent.

The blue text in the middle is a selection of audio links.

Some of it is lovely, some of it is sad.

There are no pictures of Konnie Huq but it's still worth a listen!

Antarctic hydrophone

Forget my paltry attempts with a hydrophone – this is awesome!

PALAOA - Transmitting live from the Ocean below the Antarctic Ice


Overview PALAOA area
You can listen to the underwater sound of the Antarctic Ocean with a delay of a few seconds here.


Please note, this transmission is not meant for entertainment primilary, but for scientific research. It is highly compressed (24kBit Ogg-Vorbis), so sound quality is not perfect. Additionally, sounds may be very faint. The amplifier settings are a compromise between picking up distant animal voices and not overcharging the system by nearby calving icebergs. So please beware of sudden extreamely loud events.

Providing an acoustic live stream of the Antarctic underwater soundscape is a formidable challange. After all, more than 15000 km lie between Antarctica and our institute in Germany. Underwater sound is recorded by means of two hydrophones by PALAOA, an autonomous, wind and solar powered observatory located on the Ekström ice shelf (Boebel et al., 2006). The data stream is transmitted via wireless LAN from PALAOA to the German Neumayer Base. From there, a permanent satellite link transmits the data to the AWI in Germany. A constant hiss pervading the signal is the natural, isotropic background noise made audible here through the use of ultra sensitive hydrophones. Additional broad band noise caused by wind, waves and currents adds to it on occasion. Due to the limited bandwith of the satellite link, jamming of the WLAN link due to storms, or energy shortage, the connection might temporarily be down or scrammed. In this case, please dial in later!