In Between Radio Stations (Arduino hacked FM receiver) from PedroLopes on Vimeo.

Using the Lisbon FM spectrum seems appropriate towards a project-specific piece, designed around the
leitmotiv given by curator Manuela São Simão, a one minute project to be broadcast in RadiaLx 2010 –
Radio Zero’s international radio art festival – between scheduled programs.

Last year a friend gave me a Quartz Synthesizer FM Receiver, he found it next to a garbage bin. No
news flash here, the social value of radio waves have been shifting severely since the spread of public
TV broadcasting and recently has been digitalized in the many forms of the web chimera: “Internet
Radio”, “Podcasts”, “Streams on Demand”… just to name a few.

Paired with a old TV antenna, this FM radio receiver scanned the Lisbon radio stations, discarding the
frequencies where the stations locked the Quartz, thus their listening frequency. By disregarding the
correct tuned frequencies, this piece invites the listener to a stroll through the in-betweens of Lisbon
based radio stations.

No sound processing was used, except from recording the receiver sweeping the spectrum with a 0.05
Mhz interval, ranging from 88.00 Mhz to 108.00 Mhz in Lisbon surroundings, circa 16:44 on your typical
June’s Friday, 2010.

Aesthetically its a true challenge for myself. Mainly, because I’m used to creating the sound, shaping it,
altering it or to say the least interact with it, but here – in this piece – my presence is passive, exactly like
your typical radio-listener. In the city you can tune 40 or more stations, this making this some densely
very populated radio waves. Because this FM receiver has a high resolution we can listen to 410 different
radio tunes, mainly comprised of static, near-silence crispy noises or neighbourhooding frequencies of
the main radio stations but nonetheless an impressive range of artistic material, that was comprised into a
one-minute journey for this RadiaLx true “Radio Edit”

Note: The video is a bit off synced with audio, since they we’re recorded separately. The video is just for demonstrations purpose.