WUOG 90.5 FM DJ TRAINING MANUAL @ Fall 2017 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. DJ TRAINING................... § Pg. 3 2. TRADITION..................... § Pg. 4 3. WUOG VALUES................... § Pg. 5 4. DJ BOOTH...................... § Pg. 6 5. CD PLAYER..................... § Pg. 9 6. RECORDS....................... § Pg. 10 7. TASCAM........................ § Pg. 13 8. MIXER/PA...................... § Pg. 13 9. SHOWS......................... § Pg. 15 10.DISCIPLINE.................... § Pg. 17 11.FCC RULES..................... § Pg. 18 12.AIRPLAY GUIDELINES............ § Pg. 21 13.VENUE PASSES.................. § Pg. 24 14.HOT CLOCK..................... § Pg. 26 15.PHONE......................... § Pg. 30 16.DJ PROTOCAL................... § Pg. 32 17.DJ RESPONSIBILITES............ § Pg. 34 18.OUR SPACE..................... § Pg. 35 19.OPS LOGS...................... § Pg. 37 20.SPINITRON...................... § Pg. 40 21.PRO TIPS...................... § Pg. 42 2 DJ TRAINING 1 BEING A WUOG DJ ISN’T… BEING A WUOG DJ IS… • Having your own radio show every week at a scheduled time • Playing music from CDs, records, or computers throughout your shift • Making announcements every fifteen minutes during your shift • Exposing the Athens community to new and undiscovered music • Preserving Athens’ local music traditions • Following FCC and WUOG policies at all times • Representing WUOG and UGA responsibly over the air, in the station, and at events • Bringing your own personality and experiences to our airwaves 3 GOALS 1. We want you to become a great WUOG DJ 2. We want you to feel comfortable and confident on air 3. We want you to get to know other awesome wuoggers at training meetings and during sit-ins TRADITION 2 ABOUT WUOG • WUOG broadcasts at 90.5FM at 26,000 watts • Our transmitter is in the basement of Brumby hall, and our radio tower stands 200 feet high from the roof of the building • Our signal reaches an average radius of 50 miles—into the mountains of North Carolina, into South Carolina, to the outer limits of Atlanta. • WUOG is staffed, operated, and funded by UGA students. Every WUOG volunteer must be enrolled in classes at UGA. With over 200 members, we are one of the largest college radio stations in the country. • Any UGA undergrad student can join one of WUOG’s nine staffs—music, local, operations, public affairs, promotions, publications, sports, news, or digital media—and after serving one semester on a staff, is eligible to become a DJ QUICK HISTORY Ø October 16, 1972: WUOG signs onto the air for the first time air at 90.5MHz with 3,200 watts Ø 1977: Our power is boosted to 10,000 watts 4 Ø February 18, 1981: Station is shut down for FCC non-compliance, and all but one of the 80 employees are fired Ø Early 80s: WUOG helps the career of now Mega-band R.E.M. Ø April 6, 1981: Station is back on air, and our programming has been continuous since then Ø January 11, 1994: Our power is boosted to the current 26,000 watts WUOG VALUES 3 MISSION • WUOG is an alternative media outlet, a home for music that is not played elsewhere • To ensure that we stay true to this vision, DJs adhere to a music philosophy designed to give exposure to lesser-known artists that may be neglected by mainstream media • DJs must internalize and promote this philosophy. It’s important to not only follow the music philosophy during your shift, but to be able to explain the music philosophy to potential callers PHILOSOPHY Many artists no longer benefit from the exposure WUOG provides. Artists “graduate” from WUOG when they meet either of the following criteria: 1. The artist has or had a song chart on the The Billboard Hot 100 in the past 20 years.1 2. The artist has an album that has entered the Top 20 of the Billboard 200.1 • When an artist graduates from WUOG, they cannot reenter our programming as part of regular rotation • It is the responsibility of the Music Directors to remove CDs from rotation. If you feel that an artist is no longer in need of WUOG for one of the reasons above, please let a Music Director know • The music philosophy applies to all tracks played during rotation shifts, including open 5 selections. It is suggested that specialty shows also adhere to the music philosophy 1: This information can be found on allmusic.com. Search the artist’s name and select “Awards” to see the peak ranking of each of their albums/singles. If the artist does not have an “Awards” tab listed, you can be confident none of their albums/singles have charted. DJ BOOTH 4 ESSENTIALS • Treat WUOG equipment well; everyone at the station has to use it • The nicer we treat our equipment, the nicer equipment we can have in the future • If there is an equipment problem, call the Ops directors immediately, regardless of what time it is • Equipment updates will be presented at the mandatory biannual Booth Meeting and posted about in the WUOG DJ Facebook group CONTROL BOARD BASICS • The control board manages various input streams into a main output stream • Inputs like the CD players, the record players, the computer, the microphone, and automation are joined into an output over the radio (90.5FM), the livestream (wuog.org/live), and in the DJ booth INPUTS • Each input has its own control strip that allows you to control the volume of the input and whether or not that input is going over the air • The control strips for each input are labeled on the control board. CD1 and CD2 are the CD players, MIC is the DJ microphone, PHONO/iPODMIXER manages the record players and line-in for laptops and iPods, PC is the computer, and AUTO is the automation program that plays music when nobody is DJing. • A control strip consists of a yellow button, a red button, a slider, and a cue button • The yellow and the red button control whether or not that input is being played over the air. If the yellow button is lit up, that input is not going over the air. If the red button is lit up, that control strip is engaged, and any sound on that input (e.g. any 6 CDs played or any noise picked up from the microphone) will be going over the airwaves • The slider controls the volume level of the input. This volume level will adjust the total volume level of what is being output over the airwaves and should be adjusted as necessary • As long as you are careful about which inputs are playing music, it is okay to have multiple control strips engaged and with the volume up. For example, many DJs leave both CD player sliders engaged but ensure that only one CD player is playing at a time LEVELS • The output meter is located on the left at the top of the control board, labeled “Program VU” • The output meter reflects the total volume you are broadcasting, which is affected by the volume of any engaged inputs currently playing music • The output meter should always show levels that are “just touching gold” • If the output meter gets too high, the sound being played through the radio will clip, causing distortion (the music will sound scratchy). You should turn down the volume on the engaged sliders. 7 BOOTH LEVELS • On the right side of the control board, there are three knobs that control volume in the DJ booth without affecting broadcast volume • The lowest knob, labeled “CR,” controls the volume over the speakers in the booth • The middle knob, labeled “HDPN,” controls the volume in the headphones by the mic • The top knob, labeled “CUE,” controls the volume over the speakers when cueing CUEING • The cue button allows you to listen to an input in the DJ booth without that input going over the air • This allows you to listen to something in the DJ booth that is different than what is currently playing on air • Before engaging the cue button, ensure that the yellow button is lit up (so that the input will not go over the air) and that the volume on the slider is turned all the way down • Once the cue button is engaged, it will light up and anything you play on that input will only be heard in the DJ booth. That input’s volume will be controlled by the “Cue” volume knob on the right side of the control board • You can put on the headphones near the DJ mic to hear what is going over the air at any time to ensure that you have cued correctly • Remember to disengage the cue button and reengage the control strip when you have completed cueing because anything that is left in cue mode will not be broadcast OUTPUTS • There are four lights at the top of each control strip which affect which outputs the input streams are going to • These are: PGM, which controls what is actually broadcast over the air, AUD, which controls what is heard in the headphones by the DJ mic, AUX, which controls what is broadcast over the livestream online, and UTL • All four lights should be lit at all times for normal DJing, i.e. “broadcast mode” • For a split broadcast, where something different is broadcast over the web than on the air, you may need to disengage the appropriate button MISCELLANY RADIO RECEIVER • There is a radio receiver in the booth (middle picture above) that has three gold bars indicating our signal over the air. If we are broadcasting static, these bars will be red 8 • There is a headphone jack on this radio receiver where you can plug in booth headphones and hear the broadcast.