Youngstown Radio Reading Service

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Youngstown Radio Reading Service, located at 2747 Belmont Avenue in Youngstown, Ohio, is one of nine Ohio Radio Reading Services (ORRS) member organizations [1]. A radio reading service exists to provide the blind and vision-impaired with daily readings of a wide variety of topical printed materials.

ORRS Radio Receiver

1 Services Provided
2 Staff
3 Funding
4 Resources and External Links

[edit] Services Provided

The Youngstown Radio Reading Service (YRRS) provides a special radio receiver at no cost to its vision-impaired listeners. The radio station operates with the use of an FM radio subcarrier. Its main channel is: WYSU-FM, 88.5 MHz, Youngstown [2]

YRRS operates 365 days a year, from noon to 11:40 p.m., out of the Belmont Avenue Goodwill Industries building. As a non-profit organization dedicated to "turning printed material into sound [3]" for vision-impaired listeners, YRRS has become a credit to the city of Youngstown. Its staff has earned several accolades for their dedication to service in the Youngstown area.

YRRS Coverage Area

Listeners are provided with daily broadcasts of local and national newspapers, magazines, advertisements, and books. The services of YRRS allow Youngstown's vision-impaired to be made aware of local, state, and national happenings, ads and sales at grocery and department stores, and special-interest topics such as recipes, comics, and popular book releases.

[edit] Staff

Mike Bosela, Radio Reading Coordinator (ORRS Vice President)
Michael Muder, Chief Broadcast Technician
Eric Stovall, Part-time Broadcast Technician
Don Reisinger, Part-time Broadcast Technician
Maria Pappas, Telecommunications Intern

Volunteers from the Youngstown area create audio recordings for future broadcast. The YRRS building contains three sound-proof booths used for pre-recording 30-minute blocks of audio, as well as two rooms used for live broadcast.

[edit] Funding

According to the ORRS website, monetary support for the YRRS and other radio reading services comes from the United Way, state and municipal funding, endowments, grants, corporate gifts, community service organizations, fund-raising events and listener contributions.