SquidlyAIR Volunteering
How You Can Help With SquidlyAIR v2
(Updated: 02 March 2010)
So, you want to help? OUTSTANDING! I can’t wait to work with you.
If you’ve listened to the last few episodes of SquidlyAIR you probably noticed that the podcast is in three sections. The section (after the intro) is the AIR portion, second is a Navy history tidbit and the third is the housekeeping portion.
If you’re interested in the AIR portion:
● Pick a topic that you can devote 7-12 minutes to. The topic must be something covered on a recent (ie: within the last 1-2 years) Navy Advancement Exam – and is UNCLASSIFIED. This should help us keep the amount of antiquated and useless topics down to a minimum, and stop someone from classifying my server (not a good thing).
● Said topic may be read verbatim from a Navy pub – or you may elect to paraphrase. But the details must be close enough to the original to be helpful on an exam.
If you’re interested in the Navy history portion:
● Any US Navy-related historical event will work. Try to keep your portion between 2 and 5 minutes in length.
● I’d prefer that you do some research (Wikipedia and the official Naval History & Heritage Command website are excellent sources), create a report, and use that as your script over reading from a history book. Reading from a copyrighted work is not acceptable. Litigation sucks. However, if a story is already well written from Wikipedia, or the Naval History & Heritage Command website (noted above), I believe we should be good to go if you want to read from the site.
If you want to help with either section (AIR or Navy History), contact me at squidlyair [@] gmail and give me the following details:
AIR Example:
Your topic title: Bluejacket’s Manual – Ch 7 Military Fundamentals – Military Drill
Roughly how long you anticipate your segment being: ~10 minutes
Rank, name and command: BM1 “Casty” Castillo, LCS-2, USS Independence
When you anticipate having your portion completed and sent my way: ~30 March
Navy History Example:
Your topic title: The Great White Fleet
Roughly how long you anticipate your segment being: ~3 minutes
How you want to be introduced: ENS Joann Langley, NCTAMS LANT
When you anticipate having your portion completed and sent my way: ~12 April
Source(s): Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_White_Fleet) and Naval Historical Center (http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq42-1.htm)
Recording Info:
Okay. Now that you’ve done the volunteering part, let’s get to the “doing” part…
Record your portion and edit it as much as you can. Generally, if you keep your background noise to a minimum, watch the breathiness of your consonants (killer “Ps”), and don’t overdrive the audio track with your voice you should be good. For editing just worry about kicking out any long silences and “uuuhhhh’s.” Save the final product as a WAV, MP3 or OGG and contact me when you’re ready. We’ll work out how to transfer the file over for inclusion in a future SquidlyAIR podcast episode.
Also, when recording, please preface your portion with how you want your name pronounced. I’d like NOT to mangle your name when I announce your portion : ).
Now, in order for all this magic to begin, you need software to record your voice – and allow you some control over editing it. I use Audacity. It’s FREE, works really well, and works on Windows, Mac OS X and various flavors of Linux and UNIX. Download it from: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/
If you would rather not have to transmit a big ole WAV file to me look into encoding your portion as an MP3 or OGG file.
For MP3 grab the encoder (LAME or LibLAME) for your operating system:
http://lame.sourceforge.net/links.php
For OGG:
http://www.vorbis.com/
You will also need a device to record your voice. I use a Logitech USB head set. Just make sure that when you are speaking that you’re not blowing out eardrums with the sound of your P’s – or any other sharp breathy pronunciation. Move the mic head away from your lips to minimize the sound of your breath as you speak.
That’s about it… Oh, and I will entertain volunteering efforts from enlisted as well as officers – I’m not picky.
Audacity Tutorial Links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXOOHOzCHHY (skip to after 1:20)
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/tutorials.html
