SUMMARY

The report focusses on setting up a radio station, run by college students, and the wide host of possibilities involved in such an initiative. A survey was conducted in the college to get a general idea of the interest and enthusiasm amongst students. Technical aspects like licensing and hardware were covered, alongwith non-technical aspects like content of the broadcasts and administration of the station. The findings indicated that such a venture would be popular amongst students, with the participants looking forward to guidance about higher studies from experienced individuals, as also discussions regarding extra-curricular activities. There was an overwhelming response for participation in the station team. It has been concluded that setting up a student radio station is a viable option provided certain requirements are met.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Sr. No. 1. 2. Introduction Methodology 2.1. Technical Aspects

Section

Page No. 1 2 2 2-3 4 5 5 6-9 10 11

2.2. Non-technical Aspects 3. 4. Analysis Findings 4.1. Technical Aspects 4.2. Non-technical Aspects 5. 6. 7. Conclusion References Appendix

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INTRODUCTION

This report is submitted in partial fulfilment of the course requirements for the Technical Communications Principles and Practices course which is a part of the Second Year Computer Engineering curriculum. It was requested on the April 11, 2012 by the faculty, Prof. Aparna Khandekar. This report examines the requirements for starting up a student FM. It does not examine details like existing infrastructure suitable for this purpose.

METHODOLOGY
The prospect of starting up a student FM (radio station) was divided into two major parts: 1. Technical aspects 2. Non-technical aspects 1. Technical aspects: The technical aspects involve mainly the hardware and infrastructure requirements. This part also involves procurement of detailed information relating to the guidelines set out by the government for setting up a community radio station. The student FM to be set up falls under this category since it will be concerned with the students of an educational institute. 2. Non-technical aspects: This mainly includes deciding the content and administration. a. Content: For the purpose of deciding the content, we conducted a survey in the College of Engineering, Pune. This survey consisted of more than forty individuals who were asked to fill out the questionnaire (as given in the Appendix). We divide the content into two broad groups, namely, broadcast and interaction. i) Broadcast: By broadcast we mean, a one-way communication directed at the students. This part comprised of details specifying what the students would like to listen to. In this section we asked the participants about their interest in the various flavours of the content of the radio broadcasts. This section was further divided into two categories: academic and non-academic. The academic part focussed on topics such as improving academic performance, guidance about higher studies, etc. The non-academic part covered other interests such as upcoming events and music. ii) Interaction By interaction, we mean a two-way communication between the station and the audience. The idea behind this is to lead to a positive change in the students' environment (on as well as off-campus) through a neutral system which will encourage the students to openly discuss the problems that they face and also to contribute with viable solutions.

Once again, this section was further divided into academic and non-academic parts. The academic part focussed on students' issues relating to the teaching methods, evaluation methods, etc., whereas the non-academic part focussed on other issues such as accommodation, extra-curricular activites, etc. We also asked our participants their views on having counselling sessions. As the last part of our survey, we tried to estimate the number of students who would like to be a part of the radio station's working team.

b. Administration: The administration part consists of important details such as scheduling, co-ordinating amongst the hosts of the various shows as well as their guests (as and when applicable). It also involves playing an active role in deciding the content of the radio shows. As per requirements, if famous personalities/guests are to be invited to speak to the students, the coordination required is to be handled by the administration team. Another major responsibility of the administration team will be to ensure that the broadcasts and overall working of the radio station conform to the guidelines set out by the Government of India.

ANALYSIS

The survey consisted of over forty individuals who were asked to fill out the aforementioned questionnaire. The findings of the survey follow in the next section. The method of analysis is detailed below. The participants were encouraged to check multiple options per question. Thus, an option could not be compared with another. The findings, rather, gave us an idea about the overall popularity of that particular choice. // We could not treat the choices as one being preferred over the other, but rather as each choice selected being individually preferred. // No option had preference over another, rather, the options were selected as per the preferences of the concerned individual. Hence, for the purpose of analysis, the raw counts themselves were used to indicate the participants' level of interest in that particular choice. These raw counts were then analysed further to draw conclusions about the content of broadcast and discussion sections as described earlier. The higher the raw count, the more the preference given to that particular option. //We could assign weights to the individual parameters (for example, we give the academic sections a weight of 2, and thus all raw scores will be multiplied by 2 before being compared with others to decide preference of content); however here we have considered all parameters to be equally imortant, since our main idea is to cater to the students' prefernces. // All parameters have been considered to be equally important, since the main idea is to gauge the requirements of the students and cater to their preferences.

FINDINGS

1. Technical Aspects: Policy Guidelines for setting up community radio stations in India states that In December 2002, the Government of India approved a policy for the grant of licenses for setting up of Community Radio Stations to well established educational institutions including IITs/IIMs. As per the Policy Guidelines for setting up community radio stations in India, educational institutions are eligible to set up a community radio station. Applications to set up a radio station are invited by the Information and Broadcast Ministry every year. As per the guidelines, the content of the programmes must be of immediate relevance to the concerned community, and atleast fifty per cent of the content must be generated by the participation of the local community. For detailed rules, please refer to the Policy Guidelines hyperlink given in the References section. Major hardware requirements include FM transmitters, mixers, antennas as also portable recorders with microphones etc. Apart from this, a dedicated place equipped with broadcast equipment is essential.

2. Non-technical Aspects: Table of raw counts:

Section Broadcast Sub-section Non-academic Option English Music Hindi Music Regional Music Upcoming Events Campus Events Other News Interaction with seniors, alumni Guidance about higher studies Tips for improving academic performance Count 27 34 7 28 41 23

Academic

31 39 24

Discussion

Academic

Curriculum Teaching Methods Evaluation Methods College Infrastructure Hostel/accommoda tion issues Cleanliness Extra-curricular activites Personal Academic

27 33 31

Non-academic

25 27 33 38 20 30

Counselling

Interest in participation

Yes No

38 18

CHART 1: Preferences about Broadcast The first six entries represent non-academic choices; the last three represent academic possibilities.

English Music Hindi Music Regional Music Upcoming Events Campus News Other News

Interaction Guidance Acad. Performance 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

Among non-academic choices, it was found that campus news was a popular choice, followed by music (Hindi music was most preferred). Among academic choices, many students favoured guidance for higher education as also interaction with seniors and alumni. Apart from these options, the suggestions received also included broadcast of jokes, movie reviews, etc.

CHART 2: Preferences related to Discussion The first three entries represent the academic options; the next four represent non-academic choices; and last two entries represent the counselling choices students preferred.

Curriculum Teaching Evaluation

College Infra. Hostel/Accom. Cleanliness Extra-curricular

Personal Academic 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Among academic issues, it was found that the participants considered discussion of Teaching methods important, followed by discussion of Evaluation methods. In the non-academic choices, discussion of extra-curricular activities was most popular. It was found that considerable number of participants would like to have academic counselling.

CHART 3: Participation Preference In the last section of the survey, the participants were asked whether they would like to be a part of such an initiative.
40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Yes No

A majority of students said that they would indeed like to be part of it.

CONCLUSION

Considering the data, we find that starting up a student FM would be viable, especially considering the enthusiastic response of the students. An efficient administrative team will definitely prove beneficial toward making this a successful venture. An enthusiastic broadcast and discussion team will be of equal importance. The varied schedules of the various branches may make it difficult for the students to co-ordinate the various broadcasts. The consistency in broadcasts will go a long way in deciding the integrity of this initiative. The support of the college, of course will be extremely important, and will most probably prove to be an important deciding factor.

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REFERENCES

Policy Guidelines for setting up community radio stations in India http://mib.nic.in/writereaddata/html_en_files/crs/CRBGUIDELINES041206.pdf Hardware Requirements http://gramvaani.org/docs/hardware.html http://funferal.org/blog/2003/01/08/setting-up-a-radio-station

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