https://specialcollections.radio SPECIAL COLLECTIONS Mon, 07 Aug 2023 05:46:53 +0000 https://specialcollections.radio en https://specialcollections.radio/homepage Wed, 01 Jul 2020 19:28:35 +0000 SPECIAL COLLECTIONS https://specialcollections.radio/homepage https://specialcollections.radio/Recent-live-performaces Mon, 07 Aug 2023 05:46:53 +0000 SPECIAL COLLECTIONS https://specialcollections.radio/Recent-live-performaces Upcoming Live Performance Suspirium Space - August 20, 2023 Recent Live Performances Live at Zebulon - June 15, 2023 Live at Los Angeles Contemporary Archive - April 28, 2023 https://specialcollections.radio/A-Wild-and-Fearsome-Place Wed, 01 Jul 2020 19:39:38 +0000 SPECIAL COLLECTIONS https://specialcollections.radio/A-Wild-and-Fearsome-Place 6.25.19A Wild and Fearsome Place Established March 1st 1872, Yellowstone is the world’s first national park. &nbsp;Larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined, its area comprises almost 3500 square miles across Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. &nbsp; Yellowstone National Park sits atop four overlapping volcanic calderas. &nbsp;When the most recent eruption occurred, 630,000 years ago, it displaced enough rock to cover most of North America in 6 feet of volcanic ash. &nbsp; Half of the world’s documented geysers are within it’s boundaries as well as a host of hot springs, fumaroles, and mud pots. Thermally and seismically active as Yellowstone may be, it also teems with wildlife. The park provides a habitat to the largest concentration of mammals in the United States outside of Alaska. &nbsp;Sixty-seven mammals call the park home, including seven large predators species- black bears, lynx, coyotes, grizzly bears, mountain lions, wolves, and wolverines- and eight large ungulates- bison, moose, elk, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, and three species of deer. Bald eagles and falcons nest at Yellowstone, among 150 other species, and thirteen species of native fish dwell in its rivers and streams. This installation of Special Collections features sounds recorded at Yellowstone National Park as part of a collaboration between staff at the Natural Sounds and Night Skies division of the National Park Service and the Sound and Light Ecology team at Colorado State University. Recordings made of other national parks as part of this project are available at http://www.soundandlightecologyteam.colostate.edu/recordings.html listen ︎︎︎download (audio/mpeg) Broadcast date: June 25th 2019 KCHUNG Los Angeles 1630AM https://specialcollections.radio/Seismology-Listening-to-Earthquakes-from-Inside-the-Earth Fri, 03 Jul 2020 06:12:37 +0000 SPECIAL COLLECTIONS https://specialcollections.radio/Seismology-Listening-to-Earthquakes-from-Inside-the-Earth 5.28.19 Seismology: Listening to Earthquakes from Inside the Earth Seismology is the study of acoustic waves in the earth. The field of earthquake seismology monitors sounds created by the shifting of the tectonic plates to map out structures within the earth. This is accomplished through the use of machines called seismographs and seismometers. This edition of Special Collections will unite the work of some of the earliest researchers of seismology with those on the cutting edge today. In the 1950s, Dr. Hugo Benioff of CalTech University devised a seismograph that recorded its data onto analog tape at a speed of 0.02 inches per second, creating an audio recording on vinyl wherein the movement of the tonearm on one’s record player mimics the needle movement of the original seismograph. He released this recording on an album in 1953 called Out Of This World. <img width="600" height="626" width_o="600" height_o="626" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d241e1c875dc7eb1209b4374277ed7308285b8e078c3a6463a97e03364ee52af/seismology_ootw.jpg" data-mid="76643966" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/600/i/d241e1c875dc7eb1209b4374277ed7308285b8e078c3a6463a97e03364ee52af/seismology_ootw.jpg" /> The Sound of Seismic project consolidates realtime data from the Global Seismographic Network, a 150+ station digital seismic monitoring network, to broadcast continuous seismic sound generated from realtime global earthquake data. The algorithms developed by the SOS project “process seismic wave-form data collected by seismometers as grand Musique Concrète instruments performing a continuous and autonomous composition streamed across the internet 24/7 - 365 days per year.” Their live netcast and more in-depth information on this project is available at https://sos.allshookup.org. The Seismic Sound Lab is located at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, New York. Their project Seismodome, which took place at the Hayden Planetarium in San Fransisco, combines spatialization of sound and geodynamics to create a sonic map of worldwide earthquake activity as experienced from inside the Earth. Check out their videos, like the one above, and projects at http://www.seismicsoundlab.org. listen ︎︎︎download (audio/mpeg) Broadcast date: May 28th 2019 KCHUNG Los Angeles 1630AM https://specialcollections.radio/Space-Echoes-Radio-Observation-of-Meteors Wed, 01 Jul 2020 20:02:00 +0000 SPECIAL COLLECTIONS https://specialcollections.radio/Space-Echoes-Radio-Observation-of-Meteors 4.23.19 Space Echoes: Radio Observation of Meteors Lyrid meteor shower 2012, taken by astronaut Don Petit from aboard the International Space Station, with audio from this episode of Special Collections... Meteor showers, or shooting stars, occur as dust and debris from space ignites as it collides with the Earth’s atmosphere. &nbsp;This ignition leaves behind a trail of ionization in the upper atmosphere that reflects and scatters radio waves back towards the earth. &nbsp;By tuning a radio to an empty part of the band one can hear the meteor tail reflect a distant radio signal that is normally out of range. &nbsp;This split second of signal reception from beyond the horizon manifests as a spooky echo. &nbsp;In this way even meteors which are unseen may be mapped and recorded. The Lyrid meteor shower occurs each April as the Earth travels through debris left behind by comet Thatcher, which last visited our solar system in 1861. &nbsp;This year the Lyrids are visiting from April 16-25 with the peak having occured this morning, April 23. &nbsp; This timely edition of Special Collections showcases meteor radio echoes of the Lyrid shower recorded in the early hours of this morning using Software Defined Radio tuned to the broadcast of CITO-TV, a VHF television station broadcasting at 55.2 MHz located in Timmins, Ontario, Canada. listen ︎︎︎download (audio/mpeg) Broadcast date: April 23rd 2019 KCHUNG Los Angeles 1630AM https://specialcollections.radio/Datarama-An-Ode-to-Radio-Data-Broadcast-Systems Wed, 01 Jul 2020 20:08:23 +0000 SPECIAL COLLECTIONS https://specialcollections.radio/Datarama-An-Ode-to-Radio-Data-Broadcast-Systems 3.26.19 Datarama: An Ode to Radio Data Broadcast Systems When home computers became available in the late 1970s they did not include what we have come to know as a “hard drive” and there were no affordable options for mass storage. &nbsp;Not only that, but a floppy disk drive could cost upwards of several thousand dollars. &nbsp; Enter the audio cassette. &nbsp;Tapes and cassette recorders were cheap, readily available to consumers, and soon became the preferred method of distribution for computer programs. &nbsp;The Apple II, TRS-80, Commodore 64, TI-99, and ZX Spectrum all supported cassettes. &nbsp;The first IBM PC, which came on the scene in 1981, also had a cassette deck. &nbsp;And since the internet did not exist at this time, the simplest way to share a program was to dupe a tape and put it in the mail or… broadcast it over the radio to listeners waiting by their tape decks. Since the data rates that computers could process at the time were very low, this transfer of 200 bits per second over the airwaves actually worked. &nbsp;In the 1980s shows such as Datarama (UK), Hobbyscoop (NL), and Ventilator 202 (Yugoslavia) broadcast 100s of computer programs over the air. This 8-bit wireless revolution was short lived. &nbsp;When the era of 16-bit computing was ushered in by the Intel 8086 processor in 1985, audio cassette storage became obsolete. &nbsp;A cassette simply could not hold enough data, and wireless downloading did not become possible again until the advent of IEEE 802.11, aka Wifi. &nbsp; This edition of Special Collections pays homage to the pioneers of digital audio broadcasting with a sound collage of early 80s computer data cassettes. listen ︎︎︎download (audio/mpeg) Broadcast date: March 26th 2019 KCHUNG Los Angeles 1630AM https://specialcollections.radio/Whose-Time-Is-It-Anyway Tue, 30 Jun 2020 22:17:31 +0000 SPECIAL COLLECTIONS https://specialcollections.radio/Whose-Time-Is-It-Anyway 2.26.19 Whose Time Is It Anyway? Spectrum images and sounds of time signal stations Time used to be a casual endeavor. &nbsp;Before the advent of electricity there was little need to codify the notion of time beyond the capabilities of astronomical measurement. &nbsp;Sun comes up, sun goes down- time standards were based on the length of the earth’s rotation. &nbsp; &nbsp; The solar measurement of a day can vary by tens of seconds over the agreed upon length of 24 hours, leading to a difference in ‘actual’ versus observed time of up to 16 minutes a year. Enter Greenwich Mean Time. &nbsp;Greenwich, England was decided as the location of the Prime Meridian at the International Meridian Conference of 1884. &nbsp;All calculations for Universal Time would be made from this one location, solving the issue of local observational relativity causing variance in astronomical time calculations but still not addressing how the issues of fluctuations in the Earth’s rotational angle affected the goal of establishing a worldwide time standard. The invention of atomic clocks provided a terrestrially observable time standard that would not vary based on an observer’s location. &nbsp;The functioning of atomic clocks is too complicated to get into here, but the sketch is an atom exposed to a particular wavelength of energy will release electrons at a particular frequency, which can then be observed. &nbsp;Think of it as a pendulum constructed with light and energy instead of weights and springs. &nbsp;The same amount of energy is detectable each time an electron transition occurs, no matter where it occurs on this planet or in what way it is measured. Most countries run an atomic time service. A dedicated long wave radio transmitter connected to an atomic clock sends out a pulse-modulated time code signal which is used to synchronize clocks for military operations, computer networks, communications services, emergency response, and other essential services. Each country has its own specific transmission standard for time code. This next edition of Special Collections will present the clicks, beeps and bloops from time signal radio stations around the world. listen ︎︎︎download (audio/mpeg) Broadcast date: February 26th 2019 KCHUNG Los Angeles 1630AM https://specialcollections.radio/Fast-Radio-Bursts-Update Tue, 30 Jun 2020 22:39:34 +0000 SPECIAL COLLECTIONS https://specialcollections.radio/Fast-Radio-Bursts-Update 1.22.19 Fast Radio Bursts - Update Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are extremely brief and highly energetic cosmological radio transients. Lasting mere milliseconds and observable only through radio telescopes, fast radio burst signals are neither highly regular nor totally random. The first FRB was detected in 2007, and since then around two dozen have been detected. The origins of fast radio bursts are as yet unclear, though the signals have been determined to originate from galaxies over 3 billion light years away. Only one fast radio burst, FRB 121102, had ever been documented originating from the same location. On 09.26.2017, Special Collections featured the sounds of FRB 121102. Then came some really big news. The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment, Canada’s first radio telescope project in 30 years, began operation in the fall of 2018. Before it had even left the testing phase, CHIME detected 13 new fast radio bursts, including another repeating signal, FRB 180814. As opposed to other radio telescopes, CHIME has no moving parts and its lateral collecting area and extremely wide field-of-view make it ideal for FRB investigation. Special Collections celebrates this remarkable discovery with another take on the sounds of fast radio bursts. Since the longest FRB lasts only 5 milliseconds, the audio of these bursts is presented at original speed as well as various stages of deceleration.
 listen ︎︎︎download (audio/mpeg) Broadcast date: January 22th 2019 KCHUNG Los Angeles 1630AM https://specialcollections.radio/Aldous-Huxley-Mixtape Tue, 30 Jun 2020 23:32:58 +0000 SPECIAL COLLECTIONS https://specialcollections.radio/Aldous-Huxley-Mixtape 6.26.18 Aldous Huxley Mixtape Aldous Huxley was already a respected novelist and philosopher when he arrived in Southern California in 1938. &nbsp;A spiritual seeker, &nbsp;Huxley believed that human potential could be elevated through transcendence and the dystopian future he had foreseen in his book Brave New World avoided. &nbsp;An interest in Eastern Mysticism led him to friendships with Krishnamurti and Alan Watts, among others. In 1953 he read the work of Humphry Osmond, a psychiatrist who was studying the similarities between induced psychedelic experiences and schizophrenia. &nbsp;The two began a correspondence which culminated in a meeting at Huxley’s West Hollywood home during the course of which Osmond administered Huxley mescaline. &nbsp;In 1954, Huxley wrote about his experience in the groundbreaking book The Doors of Perception. &nbsp; He continued to experiment with psychedelics and reflect upon the benefits the accepted use of psychedelics could have upon society until his death in 1963. &nbsp; The Aldous Huxley Papers at UCLA contain over 500 records classified as audio, pulled from a collection of reel to reel tapes &nbsp;donated by the Huxley Trust to the university in 2009. &nbsp;Of those audio records, only 8 are tagged as ‘music’. &nbsp; Alongside lectures, interviews, guided meditations, and tapes titled ‘A&amp;L psilocybin 8 pills’, ‘Baba Ram Dass mostly empty’, and ‘John Lily: repetitive words and sentences’, are 4 reels labeled ‘Music, compilation of chants and nature sounds, collected by Aldous Huxley’. &nbsp; The sounds spliced together across these reels include chants of Tibetan monks, howls of wolves, Indian drumming, songs of Kalahari Bushmen, bells, and what is unmistakably the Ramayana Monkey Chant. &nbsp; Special Collections is very happy to present a collage of the music preserved in the Aldous Huxley archive. listen ︎︎︎download (audio/mpeg) Broadcast date: June 26th 2018 KCHUNG Los Angeles 1630AM https://specialcollections.radio/BUGS Tue, 30 Jun 2020 23:49:31 +0000 SPECIAL COLLECTIONS https://specialcollections.radio/BUGS 5.22.18 BUGS Your browser does not support the video tag. The sounds of bugs: flies, crickets, cicada, mosquito, wasps, weevils and more. From the audio collections of the following institutions:Reference Library of Digitized Insect Sounds, USDA Agricultural Research StationBritish LibrarySinging Insects of North America database, University of FloridaMacaulay Library, Cornell UniversitySmithsonian National Museum of Natural History Library listen ︎︎︎download (audio/mpeg) Broadcast date: May 22nd 2018 KCHUNG Los Angeles 1630AM