Nothing says "Merry Christmas" Like Victorian Baby Talk: Edison's Monstrous Talking Doll, circa 1890

Using miniature phonographs embedded inside, these “talking” baby dolls were toy manufacturers’ first attempt at using sound technology in toys. They marked a collaboration between Edison and William Jacques and Lowell Briggs, who worked to miniaturize the phonograph starting in 1878.

89.1 FM: The Place for Development: Power shifts and participatory spaces in ICTD

by Sophia Huyer, Ph.D. & Revi Sterling, Ph.D.

Kamba women in listening range of community radio station Radio Mang’elete have been able to hear themselves on the radio now for four years, providing market information, notification of social events, discussion forums and entertainment in the forms of radio vignettes and plays. These women are not broadcasters in the traditional sense – they provide their insights from their homes, social spaces and areas of work, using a technology system called Advancement through Interactive Radio, or AIR.

British Library Archival Sound Recordings

Explore 44,900 selected recordings of music, spoken word, and human and natural environments

how to build a Spy Transmitter

This simple 2 transistor audio transmitter will send the sounds picked up in a room to any FM radio tuned to the same frequency as the transmitter, somewhere between 80 and 100 Megahertz.

UNSHACKLED!

Since 1950, Pacific Garden Mission has produced this unique series, making "UNSHACKLED!" the longest-running radio drama in history. Still produced in the style of the "Golden Age" of radio, every element is live at the time of the production — the original music, the creative sound effects and, of course, the dynamic performances of talented professional actors.

Listening to the Deep Ocean

LIDO (Listening to the Deep Ocean environment) proposes to establish a first nucleus of a regional network of multidisciplinary seafloor observatories contributing to the coordination of high quality research in the ESONET NoE by allowing the long-term monitoring of Geohazards and Marine Ambient Noise in the Mediterranean Sea and the adjacent Atlantic waters. Specific activities are addressed by long-term monitoring of earthquakes and tsunamis and the characterisation of ambient noise induced by marine mammals (Bioacoustics) and anthropogenic noise.

Mysterious Russian 'Buzzer' radio broadcast changes

The output of a mysterious radio station in Russia, which has been broadcasting the same monotonous signal almost continuously for 20 years, has suddenly changed.

Deafness in Disguise

Deafness in Disguise presents images, illustrations, advertising pamphlets, trade catalogs, patents, rare books and other material pertaining to mechanical and electrical hearing devices from the 19th and 20th centuries. Of particular focus in this exhibit are hearing devices that were designed for concealment or camouflage within everyday items.

Radio, Art, Life: New Contexts by Helen Thorington

Helen Thorington contributes a feature article on the evolving context for sound and radio practice, exploring networked media, participatory platforms and the sonification of every-day objects. An introducing to a series of Radio Art including recent work by Christof Migone and Sarah Washington.

Investigative Report: Radio and U.S. Military Psypos

Clandestine radio is an extremely effective form of propaganda that oftentimes supports military operations. Along with other tactics, including the dropping of leaflets and the use of loudspeakers, radio can "win the hearts and minds" of the target audience and has, in the past, won compliance from hostile leaders. Although clandestine radio broadcasts are generally associated with intelligence agencies and guerilla groups, the U.S. Army has long used it for PSYPOS - Psychological Operations.

Combat Loudspeakers: Weapon of the Battlefield Evangelists

The purpose of this work is to provide historical evidence that the innovative use of tactical loudspeakers has been, and will continue to be, a viable and an essential "weapon" in the arsenal of U.S. military forces. Although loudspeaker teams have been employed for all peacekeeping operations in the past 50 years,including Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia/Kosovo, the focus of this work is their use on the battlefield against an enemy soldier.

The Wandering Soul PsyOp tape of Vienam

Helicopters were used to broadcast Vietnamese voices pretending to be from beyond the grave. They called on their "descendents" in the Vietcong to defect, to cease fighting. This campaign played the sounds and messages all night in order to spook the superstitious enemy. Despite eventually realizing that they were hearing a recording beamed from a helicopter, the enemy gunners could not help but fear that their souls would some day end up moaning and wailing in a similar fashion after death.

Radio Reference: live audio broadcasts of Police, Fire, EMS, and other associated communications.

RadioReference is also the largest broadcaster of public safety live audio communications feeds, hosting thousands of live audio broadcasts of Police, Fire, EMS, and other associated communications.

Zimoun

Zimoun : 25 woodworms, wood, microphone, sound system, 2009 from Zimoun video archive

Zimoun

Radio Icon Norman Corwin's Splendid Century

From NPR:

"Back in the days when Americans gathered around their radio sets every night, Corwin — a young newspaperman from Boston — showed up at CBS and pushed the boundaries of what radio could do. And before long, he had a list of well-known admirers.

Song sparrows adjust their songs to fit in with urban noise

While at Reed College in Oregon, Yezerinac and student William E. Wood examined the effects of urban noise on the song sparrow songs of Portland. They recorded 28 birds in areas with various levels of background noise, carefully measuring frequency (pitch) and amplitude (volume; the amount of energy invested in making a sound).

Birds in the noisiest spots were more likely to cede some of their lower frequencies to background noise, while their songs' higher-frequency notes remained constant.

The Alchemists of Sound

2003 Documentary on the BBC Radiophonic Workshop

Ken Nordine

from WBEZ's 848

Longtime Chicagoan Ken Nordine has a voice that can be mistaken for no other. The man behind Word Jazz and commercial voiceover artist turns 90 today. WBEZ’s Steve Edwards recently visited Nordine to talk about his life and career. Nordine told Steve he got the performing bug thanks to his mom’s religion.

The 'Pursuit Of Silence' In A World Full of Noise

From NPR

In his new book, In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise, Prochnik leaves the noisy confines of New York City and goes on a global quest to find those who still value silence. He examines the never-ending series of sounds that pervade his thoughts on a daily basis — the traffic helicopters, the leaky iPods, the neighbors who hold loud parties — and researches the scientific effects of noise on our bodies.

London Pirate Radio

Pirate radio is everywhere in London, born in the 60’s from rusting anti-aircraft towers in the mouth of the Thames. Today’s broadcasts are hidden in plain sight, transmitting from secret tower block studios via homemade rooftop antennas.

The BBC Radiophonic Workshop

RADIOPHONIC GALLERY

Record grooves under an electron microscope

Chris Supranowitz is a researcher at The Insitute of Optics at the University of Rochester. Along with a number of other spectacular studies (such as quantum optics, trapping of atoms, dark states and entanglement), Chris has decided to look at the relatively boring grooves of a vinyl record using the institute’s electron microscope. Well, not boring for me.

MW Burns

website of artist MW Burns

One Square Inch of Silence

One Square Inch of Silence is the quietest place in the United States.

One Square Inch of Silence was designated on Earth Day 2005 (April 22, 2005) to protect and manage the natural soundscape in Olympic Park’s backcountry wilderness. The logic is simple; if a loud noise, such as the passing of an aircraft, can impact many square miles, then a natural place, if maintained in a 100% noise-free condition, will also impact many square miles around it. It is predicted that protecting a single square inch of land from noise pollution will benefit large areas of the park.

Local radio proves a lifeline in Haiti

from PRI's The World

Communications are still disrupted in Haiti, hampering relief efforts. Cell phone service, is, however, slowly being restored, as are Internet connections. But in the aftermath of the earthquake, many Haitians have turned to local radio as a way to get, and share, information. We hear from Mario Viau, director of SignalFM in Port-au-Prince, which has somehow managed to keep broadcasting, on the airwaves and online, since the earthquake struck.

Acoustic Levitation Chamber

by Dr. David Deak:

This is an acoustic levitation chamber I designed and built in 1987 as a micro-gravity experiment for NASA related subject matter.
The 12 inch cubed plexiglas Helmholtz Resonant Cavity has 3 speakers attached to the cube by aluminium acoustic waveguides.
By applying a continuous resonant(600Hertz) sound wave, and by adjusting the amplitude and phase relationship amongst the 3 speakers; I was able to control levitation and movement in all 3 (x,y,z) axis of the ambient space.

Seed Magazine segment on Acoustic Ecology

Seed Magazine segment on Acoustic Ecology

Peoples Temple Radio Codebook

Peoples Temple used coded messages in shortwave broadcasts between Jonestown, Georgetown and San Francisco, in part to circumvent FCC regulations on conducting business over amateur airwaves. In the first section of codes, for example, Peoples Temple cloaked its legal discussions – which were not permitted under its HAM radio license – with references to medical procedures.

To ensure that different radio operators understood each other, the Temple created a code book of aliases and cryptic phrases, the contents of which are published below.