From: "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: fw: metaphorically speaking
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 00:59:14 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: <WSFAList at KeithLynch.net>
Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2002 12:17 AM
Subject: [WSFA] Re: fw: metaphorically speaking

> "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net> wrote:
> > I'm more concerned about the assinine attempt (which may
be
> > successful) to put internet radio out of business.  I've
been
> > guesting on Sunday nights over at Fairfax Public
Access's WEBR,
> > which stopped broadcasting on the internet this Monday
due to
> > insane royalty payments demanded -- retroactively, for
the
> > station's entire history, over and above normal radio
broadcasting
> > royalties (none of which will go to the musicians who
created the
> > music being broadcast).  Feh!
>
> I found their web site, and tried to find what frequency
they
> broadcast on, as I had never heard of that station.  They
never say.
> Am I to understand that that's an Internet-only "radio"
station?
>
> If so, why don't they go ahead and get a broadcast
license?  It's
> not that difficult, and there's plenty of room in both the
AM and
> FM bands.

They are a Public Access station, and can be heard on
Channel 37 of the Cox Cable system in Fairfax and Falls
Church, and Channel 20 in Reston.  They are not an
over-the-air station.  That would require a transmitter,
which is probably a greater expense than they can bear (all
their broadcasters are volunteers).

I have no idea where you got the notion that "there's plenty
of room in both the AM and FM bands" because there certainly
is not.  *All* FM slots in this area are *taken.*   (That's
why it burned many of us up when C-Span got 90.1, the old
WGTB and later WDCU frequency -- C-Span is all talk and
doesn't need an FM band.)   As for AM, it's lower-fi, and
only theoretically has stereo-broadcasting capabilities (the
FCC never approved a format for stereo AM, preferring to let
competing formats battle it out; instead they simply died
for lack of support -- back in the late '70s), and can't be
heard after dark unless you have a "clear channel" and lotsa
watts.

I hold a (now-obsolete and no longer required) FCC Third
Class Operator Permit which allows me to run a radio station
without assistance.  It was granted on May 17, 1977, after I
passed an exhaustive test for which I had done Serious
Studying.  It's a left-over from my days as a Radio Jock.  I
still keep in touch with other radio people, whose current
concern lies mostly with low-power neighborhood stations --
in which I have little interest.

--Ted White