brett.jenkins

Please note: This article was requested to be written for the Swansea University newspaper The Waterfront, I’ve just reposted it here, as my blog hasn’t been getting much loving recently

On Tuesday the 24^th November 2009, I was lucky enough to have one of the best, even if a bit surreal, days of my life. I was nominated for Best Technical Achievement at the Student Radio Awards 2009, so I got invites for tours around BBC Radio 1 and Global Radio, as well as an invite to the Student Radio Awards in the indigO2 in the O2 Arena (Millennium Dome).

When I arrived in London, I went straight to Radio 1! So I get my guest pass, and wait outside, then I hear someone say “Excuse me” to us students, so we move out the way, and Fearne Cotton walks past, everyday stuff! Then I walked up the stairs, and look up and get passed on the stairs by Al Murray, very surreal! Anyway when we were in Radio 1 we had talks about Radio 1, how to get a job there, and stuff like that and a tour around the studios; it was awesome and we got to watch Greg James do some of his show, and were shown around by his producer, Neil Sloan! We got a tour around Chris Moyles’ studio, and basically had a lot of fun, we even got mentioned on Radio 1 by Greg James, while we were in the studio next door listening in, can’t get much cooler than that!

Then it was off to Global, for more of the same – and seeing their studios was also fantastic and met some really nice people, and saw the studios of all of their radio stations, including Galaxy and XFM.

Then it was time for the main event, the Awards, hosted by Scott Mills, Fearne Cotton and Greg James. Loads of famous faces were giving out awards, including Zoe Ball, Westwood, and Richard Park. Then my award came up… and I won Silver! Was very happy to win Silver, very chuffed!

Then was time for the mash up! Global Radio vs BBC Radio 1, this was awesome! Basically DJs representing both sides, with a bit of friendly banter thrown in! The likes of Scott Mills, Sacha Brooks, Greg James, Dave Pearce, Huw Stephens and Steve Lamacq, all had a go, and by the end of the night, we were all, slightly tired and emotional, really loving the music, and having fun with all the other radio folk.

All in all a great night, hopefully we can go again next year!
Big thanks to BBC Radio 1, Global Radio, the Student Radio Association and all the folks that I met on Tuesday!

Hey,

I’ve had some interest in my icecast script over at the SRA forums, so I thought i’d post it here so that anyone who cares can read and do what they want with it!

This is my listener_join.php:

http://brettjenkins.co.uk/code/icecast/listener_join.txt

This is listener_leave.php:

http://brettjenkins.co.uk/code/icecast/listener_leave.txt

This is the SQL database structure:
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `icecast` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
`icecast_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`datetime_start` datetime NOT NULL,
`datetime_end` datetime default NULL,
`ip` varchar(20) NOT NULL,
`mount` varchar(20) NOT NULL,
`duration` int(11) default NULL,
`agent` varchar(200) default NULL,
`server` varchar(50) default NULL,
`port` int(11) default NULL,
`user` varchar(20) default NULL,
`pass` varchar(20) default NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=3087 ;

Some of the code probably isn’t as efficient as it could be, and if you want to tidy it up yourself thats cool, but I just programmed this fast.

This is a template for the icecast.xml file in the icecast server directory:

http://brettjenkins.co.uk/code/icecast.xml

Thats the backend sorted, there needs to be a front end to display the data, this is our main frontend stuff:
http://brettjenkins.co.uk/code/icecast-admin/

I’ll just repeat that most of this was programmed quickly and wasn’t necessarily programmed with best practise in mind – the front end is very basic and there is a lot of scope for improvement if someone wanted to improve it.

Hope this helps!

P.S. Big thanks to the SRA for nominating me/xtreme for Best Technical Achievement Award

I love working in radio, okay i’m only doing community and student radio, but I still love it. Why?

Well I’m a Computer Science student, but I don’t think I could sit in front of a computer for the rest of my life programming. I like being an engineer at Xtreme Radio because one day I could be fiddling with the mixer, one day I could be programming the website, one day I could be in the attic fiddling with cables, one day I could be on the computers fiddling with playout systems. It’s varied, it’s interesting, it’s fun.

I also get to broadcast! Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’m the next Chris Moyles, Jonathan Ross, Richard Bacon or even Terry Wogan. But I enjoy it, and I put quite a bit of effort into it, and to trying to improve myself. It also comes back to my point eariler, I can do tech stuff and I can even broadcast… brilliant

Now i’ve recently become involved in Afan FM, a community radio station covering Port Talbot & Neath, and it’s great fun. The first live show I did there was very nervewracking, as it was the first time i’d broadcasted live on FM radio, a pretty big moment for me, and I was paranoid I was going to do something which I’d regret. Anyway hopefully i’m starting to loosen up a bit now, as i’m getting more used to the station, and i’m starting to “forget” about being on FM in a weird way, and just thinking about creating good radio. But on the same token, as i’m starting to become an IT Technician/Webmaster for the station, I can also fiddle with code, fiddle with websites and other stuff as well as be a DJ! What other job lets you have this much freedom?

I’m hoping to go into radio as a career when I leave university, but who knows where i’ll end up. Radio isn’t the best paid job in the world, hell i’ve not made a penny from Radio as yet, but I enjoy it, and i’d rather do something I enjoy but take a bit of a pay cut, then do something I hate but get more money, I mean whats the point in spending ~8 hours a day doing something you hate, just for more money?! Life is too short!