What’s in a radio?

Radio is something that doesn’t really cross my mind that much anymore. Just about the only time I ever listen to the radio is when I climb into my car and realize that I’ve forgotten  my iPod.

But I’m currently looking at a special radio, one that is about to be set free onto the world by OMPT, or One Media Player per Teacher, an initiative spearheaded by our publisher, Matt York. He’s got some volunteers who have put together an interesting prototype of a radio that is rugged, fairly portable, and includes a media player (it’s glued on, but still.)

While it’s intended to play programming distributed via Micro SD cards, it does include an AM/FM/shortwave/weather radio tuner. Playing with a tuner really takes me back. It also made me think about how I can test the device–I ended up using some field strength calculations from fmfool.com to figure out how good the tuner is. I love projects like this–makes me think of new ways to evaluate a product.

We’re proud to be part of this project–we look forward to seeing the change that education brings to the world.