Domestic Weather is the latest programme in the ‘Climactic Climate’ series curated by Wave Farm and commissioned by ORF Kunstradio – Radiokunst. Produced by Mark Vernon, the programme features interviews with members of Glasgow’s West Of Scotland Amateur Radio Society (WOSARS) and will be aired on:
Sunday, 31st May, 2015, 11pm – 11.55pm (10pm – 10.55pm GMT) on ORF1, Kunstradio, Vienna.
Saturday, June 13th, 2015, 11am – 12pm (6am – 7am GMT) on WGXC 90.7 FM in the Greene and Columbia counties, USA.
To listen live to WGXC online follow the instructions here
“Can this cold weather possibly be caused by the wireless waves which, I understand, travel at 186,000 miles per second? You see, if the ether waves travel at such a prodigious speed through the air, they surely must create quite a stir and a draught, especially as I understand that they pass through, and not round the house.”
(from Technical Talks To ‘Listeners’, Popular Wireless, Jan 5th,1924)
Domestic Weather is a parallel exploration of radio transmissions as carriers of meteorological data and the effects of weather on the propagation of radio signals. Through a series of interviews ham radio operators describe the positive and negative effects that atmospheric conditions have on their broadcasts. Their voices are interwoven with examples of meteorological information conveyed through radio such as weather, shipping and aviation forecasts and transmissions intercepted from Radiosondes – small weather probes that are sent into the atmosphere by balloon. Also interspersed throughout the programme are a number of ‘Domestic Weather’ experiments. Using household appliances as analogies of various weather conditions, real audio recordings of weather are micro-broadcast to small radios inside or in the vicinity of these devices with the resulting duet recorded – for example, the sound of a tornado coming from inside a tumble dryer, heavy rain in the shower or howling winds alongside a hairdryer – thus drawing attention to the micro-climate of our own domestic environment.
Special thanks to Gavin Mitchell and all members of the West Of Scotland Amateur Radio Society.
Supported by Creative Scotland.