On Feb 4, 8:03 pm, Bill Horne wrote:
On 2/3/2010 12:43 AM, Michael J. Coslo wrote:

On Jan 31, 8:19 pm, wrote:

Over a number of years they succeeded in all but eliminating the
concept of the skilled, knowledgeable, *licensed* Radio Operator.

[snip]

On the commercial radio operator demise part, I'd have to say that you
want to listen in my area to hear the results. One company owns all
the radio stations in my area, with the exception of the Public
station.. The only one I bother to listen to other than the Public
station is the local ESPN sports station. They regularly go off the
air for long periods of time, play the satellite feed message, or my
favorite, play two feeds at once. The funny thing is that the most
listened to station in the area is guess who, the public station. They
still have engineers, they still monitor their output, and they
actually take input from their listeners.

That deregulation, that getting rid of skilled employees, did it work
when we have 8 or 9 stations that are horribly undependable, and most
everyone, even people who hate to admit it, listen to the public radio
station?

Ah, but you _CAN_ hear all the "undependable" stations, right? Are they
still able to play whatever they choose, free from interference caused
by other stations?

Actually, no. Some go away for while, then come back. One of them is
fond of playing two feeds simultaneously. I think the term is "racing
to the bottom". In any event, they are not available all the time.

The really interesting part (and this isn't regulations, but just a
funny contract quirk, is that when the local football team is playing,
most of them have the exact same signal.


By brother, W3TDH, is fond of saying that "The government's job is to
protect you from your neighbor's folly, not your own." So long as each
station is within it's assigned channel and producing acceptable
signals, the rest is a commercial matter that the public will decide
indue course.

I mostly agree, at least in principle. My only problem is that some
times people will speak of deregulation when they actually mean a
shift of resources from one end to another. In the case of commercial
radio, we've gone from one monopoly of control by the F.C.C. to just a
couple of groups owning almost all the stations. So it's a monopoly of
regulations, to a monopoly of something else. The quality of the
product has deteriorated immensely. The question is that when a large
group of stations fail, and after all who is going to listen to two
feeds at the same time, how many will come back?


This _IS_ related to Amateur Radio: if my neighbor complains of RFI,
and I'm sure that my station isn't at fault, I get to tell him to buy
better equipment. I'd always do what I could to eliminate the problem
first, by recommending filters, etc., but in the end the government
protects _me_ from my _neighbor's_ folly when he bought cheap carp at a
discount.

I don't usually comment on typos, Bill, but I was scratching my head
for a while on this one. Carp? Fish?

I'm not the sharpest pencil in the box, and I just had to laugh at my
first interpretation. I'm in need of a dope slap..... 8^)

- 73 de Mike N3LI -