Liminal Transmission is a theoretical and experiential research-based project concerned with testing the limits of FM radio's frequency response (30Hz - 15kHz). Using tone generators and sound art works that employ frequencies situated along the upper and lower ranges of human auditory perception, this broadcast will probe the poles of the FM frequency response spectrum through a live experiment conducted on WGXC.

Writes Cornell, "The hypothesis for the experiment is as follows:

If FM radio operates within a set frequency response range, then frequencies that are situated outside of that range are transmitted as "silence". If not silence, then what sounds will fluctuate the carrier wave?

WGXC is licensed to frequency modulate 90.7KHz with 3, 300 watts of power. If this station is transmitting sounds that fall outside of the FM frequency response range: 20-29Hz and 16-20KHz, what will be audible through the radio receivers tuned to WCGX's Frequency? Does the 2,300 watt 90.7 carrier wave contain noise? Would the result be still silence? Would a low 20 Hertz rumbling tone generate overtones that would be fed into the signal? Would harmonics or beat frequencies emerge through the ether when several sine waves between the ranges of 20-29Hz and 16-20KHz are sounding simultaneously?

It is highly possible that radio programmers with a penchant for experimental sounds may inadvertently be broadcasting "silence", because of the disconnect between radio as heard through terrestrial transmission-reception and radio as heard from within the studio, whose monitoring equipment generally has a greater frequency response than the FM spectrum. A radio tuned to WGXC's frequency in the studio during the broadcast, will facilitate the comparison between sounds heard in the studio with those received through the terrestrial transmission.