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 APARTMENT TO ACREAGE
It’s official: CJSW – Calgary’s favorite community radio station has finally moved out of its cramped basement.
It is now airing from the third floor of the University of Calgary’s McEwan student centre right next to NUTV – the campus and community television station.
The new roomy (and visible) space is a breath of fresh air for all and the radio booths are being fully equipped with new shiny technology.
Although the new equipment is not cutting edge technology, it has made a significant impact on CJSW as a whole.
CJSW Station Manager Chad Saunders aired the first show in the new studio on November 13 2009. “I am very happy on how it all turned out,” he said.
Photo: Claire Miglionico
“CJSW will be solidifying its place as Canada’s flagship campus and community radio station. Volunteers will be more oxygenated and happier and more quality programming will be produced in better studios,” said CJSW’s station manager Chad Saunders.
Saunders has been involved with the station since 1990 and has been Station Manager since 2000. He says the expansion “has been on CJSW’s radar since 1987” and only in 2000 did the upstairs space become available.
WIRING IT UP
At this time, Mike Gratton – CJSW’s main engineer – shares that only one on-air booth has been completed.
Gilles Mossiere plays with the new shiny equipment for his show French Transe en Danse that airs every Monday from 6 to 7. The new CD players were manufactured by Denon.
Photo: Claire Miglionico
The new equipment Gratton chose is not based on aesthetics but on “its rugged construction and the manufacturer’s reputation for solid, dependable equipment,” he says.
Gratton says the one booth is equipped with an 18 channel console “to mix everything to air”, three CD players, one host mic and three guest mics with gating and compression “to give them more consistent sound levels”, two old broadcast turntables “for basic record playback”, two DJ turntables “for those who beat-match and mix”, two cassette players, an audio-over-ip source selector “for satellite feeds, remote broadcast feeds etc.”, a computer for playing pre-recorded programs, and another computer to surf the web.
TECH NEWNESS
It takes a quick peak inside the booth to notice the new equipment’s simplicity and similarity to the old on-air booth’s equipment. The main visible differences are the significant larger space hosts have to welcome guests and the shiny equipment in mint-condition.
“The biggest difference for us technical-wise is the ability to go fully digital if we ever need to,” says Gratton.
Gratton says he chose not to go “too space-age” with the new equipment simply because most of the programmers only spend about two hours a week in the booth.
“I wanted it to remain reasonably straight forward to operate, but still be flexible and upgradable for whatever future needs arise,” he says.
Gratton adds that the technological upgrades CJSW has made involves “new audio consoles that are capable of full analog or full digital operation” and the “audio-over-ip routing system that can take any audio signal, digitize it, put it on a network and convert it back to audio to make available to any studio”.
Engineer Mike Gratton is wiring up the new Technics turntables. “The most challenging thing about CJSW is the huge variation in programming styles, from people mixing an entire show on two turntables club-style to someone playing an all-cassette show”, explained Gratton.
Photo: Claire Miglionico
“This gives us a very flexible and expandable way of sharing audio signals between all of the studios,” he says.
A FEW BUMPS
There were a few bumps along the way but Gratton managed to satisfy everyone in a short period of time. He wired up the main on-air booth in a little over four days which is quite remarkable considering the installations were meant to happen over a period of two weeks.
The main challenge for Gratton was to keep in mind the huge variation in programming styles. CJSW programmers have contrasting styles from “people mixing club-style an entire show on two turntables to someone playing an all cassette tape show,” he says.
“A lot of time was spent incorporating all of these formats into one studio while maintaining decent ergonomics and an open workspace,” says Gratton.
GETTING USED TO
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About $850,000 spent to construct new space.
About $40,000 spent on equipment installation
Sponsors: the University of Calgary’s Students’ Union, a Community Facility Enhancement Program (CFEP) grant that covered 30% of the project, and most importantly, the listeners who donated to the annual funding drives .
Manufacturers used for new equipment: consoles: Wheatstone Audioarts, CD players: Denon, microphones: Rode and Shure, turntables: Technics
Space designers: Edge Design (in 2003) and Gibbs Gage (2005 onward)
Security measures have been enhanced to access CJSW studios. New security swipe cards are now in measure.
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Although the new equipment is fairly easy to use, some programmers are still getting used to feeling at home in the new CJSW studio.
Gilles Mossiere – host of French variety show French Transe en Danse said he was extremely nervous during the first airing of his show in the new booth.
“We have to readapt ourselves to the new studio layout. For me , it was like starting in radio all over again,” he says.
Nathan Taylor – programmer CJSW News and Filmclips and Kevin Woron – programmer for MegaWatt Mayhem said they were both fairly comfortable operating the new booth.
“It is a bit disorientating at first because we went from apartment to acreage. There is a lot more space and everything is a lot more clear than before,” he says.
Overly excited CJSW volunteers gathered to celebrate the first airing in the new studio . CJSW engineer -Mike Gratton (far left) was there to coordinate the big event.
Photo: Claire Miglionico
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