Minniapple's Mini Radio Stations

[CVX]

Minniapple's Mini Radio Stations

MINNEAPOLIS -- Wires, batteries, plastic containers, cardboard boxes, drills, glue guns, a single-watt FM transmitter, perhaps a toy truck or a stuffed rabbit -- put these together and you have a personal radio station that could start a public revolution.

At least that's the idea behind Radio Re-Volt: One Person .00One Watt, a project by Minneapolis' Walker Art Center that intends to open the radio airwaves to the general public, one small radio station at a time.

The Walker Art Center is sponsoring Radio Re-Volt workshops all over Minneapolis through the month of October. At the workshops, people are given free radio-transmitter kits and are taught how to build their own mobile radio station and how to broadcast with it.

The kits, which cost about $20, include a transmitter and circuit board about the size of a credit card, a built-in microphone and a jack to plug in a CD or MP3 player. Music from the device can be transmitted over the radio, or a broadcaster can talk, whistle, hum, sing or whatever into the microphone. The transmitters are powered by four AA batteries, and the entire setup can fit into a pocket or the palm of someone's hand.

There's one catch: Broadcasts from the tiny transmitters can only be heard for about a city block -- about 200 feet.

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