David Faucheux's hometown paper writes up radio-reading service plans

I'm amazed that the Lafayette (LA) Advertiser still hasn't done a feature on David Faucheux, whose Blind Chance audio blog, the one you're reading now, is even linked from the home page of AudioBlogger. But credit where due. Here's part of the paper's well-written story on a planned radio-reading service that David is helping to organize. Quick! Follow the link and enjoy the article in full before it goes behind a pay wall.

Radio reading seeks to bring news to blind

Marsha Sills
msills@theadvertiser.com

Imagine a computerized voice reading this sentence.

Word after word after word after word pronounced with a robot-like abruptness.

Local members of a chapter of the Louisiana Council of the Blind hope to bring a little life to reading services for the blind with a radio reading service.

The service will use volunteers -- community voices -- to read newspapers, magazine articles, books and items of local interest to listeners.

"It's to fill a gap not being met," said David Faucheux, president of the Acadiana Area Council of the Blind. Faucheux was born with a visual impairment and now has only light perception.

The effort is in the preliminary stages, with the group -- the Acadiana Area Council of the Blind -- working out how to establish a nonprofit and get off the ground with fundraising.

When eyes can't be borrowed to read mail letters or even books,technology has stepped in with scanners and software that translate text into a computerized voice. While some software can be modified to a more human-like voice, it's still not the same.

The word spatula may become "spat-oola" or the name Thibodeaux may become "Thibodoecks," laughed Vickie Carriere. Carriere is visually impaired and works at the Affiliated Blind of Louisiana Training Center in Lafayette as the coordinator of its Choices and Opportunities for the Elderly Blind program.

The program serves a growing number of the state's population suffering from eye diseases that lead to weakened or loss of vision.

A radio reading service wouldn't only benefit aging residents with weakened vision, Carriere said.

"Instead of my husband always reading the paper to me, it's something to enjoy together," she said. "When your vision starts going, you miss that social interaction with people. You don't want to be a bother. It would certainly be something."

The state has only one radio reading service -- 88.3 WRBH -- in New Orleans, which was the first full-time FM radio reading service in the country. The station remains one of the few FM radio reading services. Special receivers are needed to pick up other radio reading services broadcast on FM stations' subchannels.

The University of Louisiana's radio station -- 88.7 KRVS -- has offered the use of its subcarrier channel to broadcast the radio transmitter needed for the group to broadcast, said Dave Spizale, station manager.

"Our function will be relatively passive, in that we will supply basic engineering assistance and purchase the necessary transmitter equipment," Spizale said. "It's an important project. The radio reading service will become more important as our population ages"...