Did something a little different this year. For the 2 hrs allowed fro trick-or-treat, I ran a very short Zara playlist (I only have a few songs we've recorded that were in my opinion suitably "halloweeny") with short sound effects clips and also trick-or-treat safety messages. "Drive carefully, there are children out tonight.", "Remember to check all treats and discard any that *might* possibly have been tampered with. Better safe than sorry.", "Remember to be very careful crossing streets tonight, look both ways and then look again. Have a safe and happy halloween", and so on.
Then I set a boombox on the porch and two smaller portables in bushes in the yard. Volume wasn't loud, could only really hear it when right in front of the house. People did notice it and thought it was nifty. A few stood around on the sidewalk in front of the house for a few minutes listening.
A very short-range application for part15 (def yardcasting in the very literal sense), but it was something fun to do for the season and a bit different. Beats running a bunch of wires for speakers, and the bit of natural phase shift from walking by the rather widely separated speakers/receivers gave a nifty "spooky" sound to it. It wasn't loud, no neighbor complaints or police visits from it.
One person a few blocks up the street who does a LOT of yard decoration including one of those inflatable haunted houses thought it was highly interesting and asked if they can drop by sometime to see the station and get an idea of what gear it takes to put a little station on the air maybe for the assorted holidays.
An idea I've started stewing on for part15 FM would be maybe to get various people who decorate a lot for the holidays and do trick-or-treat and etc to get little stations up through a neighborhood.. Since the range is so short and with the capture effect, maybe it'd work to all run on the same frequency so there could be one frequency to tune to while driving around looking at decorations. Might be fun for Xmas.
Daniel
An idea I've started stewing on for part15 FM would be maybe to get various people who decorate a lot for the holidays and do trick-or-treat and etc to get little stations up through a neighborhood.. Since the range is so short and with the capture effect, maybe it'd work to all run on the same frequency so there could be one frequency to tune to while driving around looking at decorations. Might be fun for Xmas.
THat is a very cool idea - then folks who drive through the neighborhood would leave the radio on 88.3 (for example) and the content would change along with the view.
And for once, we'd be GLAD the range was short 🙂
Experimental broadcasting for a better tomorrow!
I can see it now....someone is driving down Daniel's street and enjoying his programming. They drive into the "zone" of one of his neighbors and the programming switches. They like it. But they drive into a third "zone" and would prefer to listen to Daniel's station. So they back down the street or go forward to select their listening preferences.
Now, that was all said just for fun and once again Daniel has shared with us his positive attitude and imaginative experience with part 15 FM. It is a good idea.
His visibility in his community will probably inspire some young person to get on the air also and there very well could be a radio professional in the making due to a part 15 good experience.
Thanks Daniel.
Neil