In addition to our introduction of 1:1 computer access at Robin Hood School, we will also be starting our own school radio station. The development of this is something I will be document on this blog, as I hope this can allow us to share ideas with other schools looking at/already working on the same thing.
I gained a lot of experience working on student radio in my days at Sheffield University, from building the studio and presenting/producing shows to managing the station for two years. Therefore I feel fairly confident in terms of the technical and content sides of this project- I just need to translate this into the school setting, which I think will be quite a challenge.
For my first post I am going to run down the thinking behind our equipment choices, and advice I would offer regarding equipment to other schools looking to do the same thing
Radio Packages
It needn’t cost much to get started with a school radio project, and I have seen some schools do it with little more than a computer and a microphone. However, we really wanted to go for a fully featured radio station, so it was decided to set aside a room in school for a studio and kit it out comprehensively. There are several companies offering packages that cater for school radio, which provide all the equipment and software that you would need to start a station. These provide a great solution for schools wishing to build a studio, but who may not have the technical experience. Despite the fact I do have the experience I still felt that the P Squared ‘Small’ package was actually the best route to go down, as it provides very good value for money. One of the big deciders for that was the fact that P Squared provide with this package a license for their Myriad software, which is used by many stations in the industry, including the student station I managed. This comes as part of the package at a price well below what you would pay for it separately. This software will allow our pupils to try out lots of different types of radio production, as it allows for everything professional presenters use- from count downs to lyrics in songs, to full automation of jingles and sweepers. They also provide licences for two additonal PCs so you can prepare audio setups for shows without having to be sat in the studio- even when other shows are going out on air.
The package also includes everything from headphones, microphones, cd players, to the computer that runs the playout (playing audio such as music) and streaming (sending your show out to your listeners). Having dealt with them before they are also an excellent company, and offer some free training for a member of staff when you purchase the package.
Compression/Limiting equipment
The one thing I did order separately to the package was some a compressor/limiter. This is a unit which you run your entire radio programme through and it levels out the differences in volume between the presenters and the music, and generally gives it that punchy sound which you can hear if you compare BBC Radio 1 (VERY compressed) to Radio 4 (No compression used). The limiter also stops the signal from overloading the inputs on the computer if someone turns things up too loud, and stops it distorting on loud peaks, such as if someone shouts. These are often optional extras to these packages,l but the units offered are closer to £400 than the £70 the one we ordered cost. Whilst they are undoubtedly better quality I really think this is overkill for a school station, however, the model I have ordered is more configurable, but much less user friendly, and compression is not the easiest thing to get your head round at first.. so you might want to tread carefully if you are looking at buying something like this.
Mixing desk options
Some of the more expensive packages also come with ‘proper’ broadcast mixing desks. Personally, I also think these are overkill for a school radio station. They will undoubtedly be more durable than the cheaper alternatives, and they ‘look the part’ a little more. However, I ran a student station which broadcast 13 hours a day every day on a Spirit Soundcraft, and we never had a problem with it. As far as I know it is still in use now, 4 years later. One thing I would say is that you will need a desk with stereo channels, so that there is one fader controlling both the left and right of audio signals. Many mixing desks have mostly mono channels, which will mean you have one fader for the left and one for the right hand side of any audio source- which is ungainly for radio, and confusing for presenters.
Portablility vs. Usability
You can get this equipment in flightcases, allowing easy portability and storage, on it’s own, or built into a custom made desk. Whilst the flightcase option might sound attractive to schools who are short of space and want to use it with several classes, I would question how portable it really is. Between the CD players, mics, computer and mixing desk there are quite a lot of cables to connect together, and I would say the process of getting all the gear out and connecting all of these is likely to be quite daunting and time consuming to teachers who do not have experience of using professional studio equipment can see this resulting in some schools in this leading to the equipment sitting unused gathering dust, so I would seriously consider if this is a possibility before investing in a portable system. Personally I think a dedicated studio space is far more preferable, and any more portable broadcasting could be achieved with portable recorders, mobile phones, or even laptops running skype (more on this once I’ve tried it out!).
For our station we have a dedicated space, in a room which leads off one of our year 5 classrooms. We have also gone for the built in desk option, which will house the equipment in a well organised way, as well as making it look professional. I think having our dedicated space gives us lots of benefits besides the obvious practical ones, and I can see lots of potential for allowing the pupils to design branding for the station, and encouraging them to get into the right frame of mind when entering ‘the studio’.
I hope this post might be of use to anyone looking at starting a school radio station, and I would be happy to offer specific advice on equipment if anyone needs a hand. In future posts I will be looking at the organisational aspects of broadcasting in school, live broadcasting vs. ‘pre record’ or podcasting, and following the work we do on developing our station at Robin Hood School.
Links to schools already noted for their radio stations:
Ballsall Common Primary School
Please send me any more links to schools who are established in this area…
Oliver Quinlan's blog 