A Week At The TWIAR Studios

Here is a quick look at a week here at the TWIAR studios.

Sunday is usually a recovery day from the production process. Newsgathering (web browsing) is usually done (as it is every evening), and I sometimes actually get home from work to hear International on WBCQ. (If the propagation is good).

Monday evening usually involves downloading material from Leo. Editing begins on Leo's segment. Newsgathering continues.

Tuesday evenings activities include finishing the editing on Leo's segments (two are produced, one for International and one for the ham services). Anchor rotation schedules are reviewed, and e-mails for anchor participation are sent. Newsgathering continues.

Wednesday evening involves the production of segments for International, which usually includes, the final story edit, the closing edit with new production music beds, and the selection and "sweetening" of the music used in the program. Newsgathering for the ham service continues. Anchor e-mail responses come in. Any new anchor interviews, remote interviews and logistics are usually done on Wednesday evenings.

Thursday evening finds N2FNH uploading his popular "Random Access Thought" segments for both the broadcast and ham services. These are downloaded from our server, and master editing is done for International. News files from the previous weeks ham service are selected for the program. Incidental wave files are edited in along with PSA's and promos, and the final master is saved.

International is edited on Adobe Audition in three multi-track segments. The first segment produced is actually the last heard. the final half hour of the program is reverse assemble edited. That means the first piece placed on the file is the closing, and work proceeds backwards from the closing to the bottom of the hour. The middle segment is produced normally. Times for the middle and bottom segments are noted. The beginning of the program is produced last, multi-track, and us usually cut to time the entire program. We aim to hit 59:45 if possible.

The final master wav file is saved and then converted to MP3 and WMA files. These are tagged and then uploaded to our server for release to the world, and uploaded to WBCQ. Back up copies are burned on to archive CD.

While the program is uploading, contact is made with all anchors for reading for the ham service on Friday evening, and the newsgathering continues.

Friday evening is devoted to the ham service. All incoming news audio is downloaded (if I have to work late, I take the laptop to Penara Bread and use their open wi-fi during a work lunch hour to get a little ahead).

In the studio I fire up an old Digital 486 laptop running DOS and use an old text editor in Procomm (remember that?) to write about 20 to 26 news stories. This usually winds up being between 900 to 1200 lines.

The finished script is e-mailed to the anchors and uploaded to our server in case of e-mail failure. Meanwhile, the following segments are edited for air: Handi-Hams, KK5DO Satellite, The Ancient Amateur Archives (if needed that week), and the propagation report. Around 1am eastern Vern Jackson WA0RCR phones his convention/contesting segment in to the studio. This is recorded through our phone patch, and edited.

Saturday morning finds me downloading the files from the anchors off the server. The promo is produced and uploaded. Both the full version and the headline version are produced simultaneously. When both versions of the program are finished and saved as master wav files, they are converted to MP3, AAC, WMA, and low bit rate RealAudio. These are then tagged and uploaded to the server usually around 5pm.

The editing process usually takes most of the day. Back up archive CD's are burned for posterity.

From there, Dale our file guy in Iowa downloads and re-packages the files and uploads them to our site server for you to download, or receive via our RSS feed.

Local playout of TWIAR sometimes occurs on Saturday evenings.

REPEAT PROCESS . (and I haven't had a weekend off in 15.46 years)