Archiving local radio news and public affairs programs on the Mac

Another tidbit for use in our current school information and media project, and beyond. Brian Deith has some departmental research money and he's agreed to allocate us about $75 to test out a device that can be programmed to record local AM/FM radio broadcasts onto a Mac. It's called the RadioSHARK:

The RadioSHARK adds an AM/FM radio to any Mac or PC* — but that’s just the beginning.

The RadioSHARK can record any AM or FM radio broadcast in real time. You can also program it to record a scheduled show, or to ‘pause’ live radio so you can return right where you left off moments or even hours before (See ‘What is Time-Shift Recording?’ sidebar above).

RadioSHARK includes a full-featured application that controls all radio and recording functions. Favorite station presets can be set with the click of a mouse, and new stations can be scanned and tuned with ease. The application is also where you program Time-Shift Recording, either to take a break without missing any of a show or to record your favorite broadcast to listen to later.

We'll only be getting one to start, hopefully by next Monday, so we'll only be able to record one broadcast at a time. Anyone interested in covering local radio media for this school budget referendum study should let me know which stations/programs/times they would like to hear recorded. (Students who might want to use such a resource for an eventual thesis or dissertation will get first dibs.)

If this pilot test works out well, we can make a case for setting up an array of these devices to record simultaneous shows from different stations, and we'll have an ongoing local radio news, talk, and public affairs content archive to draw upon for this and other studies you might dream up.