Studio Computer was Re: [BC] Sony CDP-D11 Puzzle

[Mark W. Croom]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <WFIFeng at aol.com>
To: <broadcast at radiolists.net>
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2006 11:42 AM
Subject: Re: [BC] Sony CDP-D11 Puzzle


> In a message dated 02/15/2006 12:38:30 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> markc at kjly.com writes:
>
>> We've got a station in one of our markets that is run primarily by
>>  volunteers--sort of church-based community radio. They have no computer
>>  system in their studio. Just turntables, CD players, minidisc, and DAT.
> They
>>  also don't think they'll be adding a computer any time soon.
>
> My goodness... they should be able to get their hands on a halfway decent
> used system for dirt cheap! (Or even FREE!)
>
> Nowadays, there really is no good reason NOT to have a computer as an 
> audio
> source.
>
> Willie...

The reason this is fresh in my mind is that one of the heavily-involved 
staff volunteers over there stopped in this week with a community calendar 
announcement for his church (the one that runs the station, apparently). He 
told me about all this gear they have, and stated their hesitancy to have to 
teach a large group of volunteers to use something as fragile and complex as 
a computer system. This guy looks to be in his early 60s or so and I'm 
guessing that comfortable and computer don't co-exist in his life, either. 
My perception of our conversation would be that they just don't want the 
responsibility of having to keep up a PC and train operators in its use if 
they put it in the studio.

Our last three hires here were all under-literate in the computer area, and 
it has been a real handicap in their training processes. One guy could 
barely do e-mail when we started, and considering he had no radio experience 
it's been a tough training process all the way around. He's catching on, but 
it's been tough for him (and for us). Another of those three has lots of 
radio experience, but it ended over 15 years ago, in the pre-PC age of 
broadcast studios. So he's learning the PC-based way of doing radio from the 
ground up, but at least we don't have to teach him how to read news and 
weather intelligently.  The last of these three had some radio experience, 
and some computer experience. He's doing OK, but progress is pretty slow.

I say all that to emphasize that I'm a little sympathetic with those guys on 
the training issue.

Mark
MN