HFU HF Underground
General Category => General Radio Discussion => Topic started by: ka1iic on January 15, 2018, 1931 UTC
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Has anyone seen a decrease in US Comm. SWBC since Bro. Stair has gone?
Don't get me wrong I sure as hell don't miss the creep but I would feel badly if some of the US stations were to suffer because he has gone. Hopefully they (the SW stations) have found something or other to fill the gap.
What say folks!
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Well, most of the other programs that were on WBCQ and WRMI are still on. WRMI has reshuffled their schedule and recently QSY'd their entire 11580 broadcast schedule to 7780, but WBCQ is WBCQ. I had a really solid copy of Marion's Attic and Uncle Bill's Melting Pot yesterday out here in the west. Fred Flintstone's Music Show (Saturdays at 0000 UTC, or Friday evening for most of us, on WBCQ) is sadly no more, though, but I don't think that has much to do with Stair being almost totally gone from HF.
If the airwaves do seem emptier, it's no illusion. I remember about a year ago, Stair was the topic here (maybe in the Ryver chat), and I went out to short-wave.info to do a quick estimation of how much he was on the air. (This was prior to his drastic cutback in hours that happened around March.) It looked to me as if he had something like 275 air hours every single day on average, and could be on as many as 15 different frequencies at certain times of the day. If you looked at WRMI's programming schedule spreadsheet at the time, it was all full and at least 75% of it was Stair (excluding 9955, which has a ton of different shows and requires them to keep a separate schedule). Take that away, and everyone will notice the difference.
I hope WRMI at least finds new customers. If I were them, I'd contact every national radio service with English, Spanish, and French broadcasts and offer to relay in North America. I'd try to lure them away from WHRI (who has Voice of Vietnam in EE and SS, and KBS World in SS) and even Cuba (their CRI relay is a joke anyway). It was cool that the added RAE and Radio Tirana last summer, and the fact that Radio Prague does it this way, which I think is their only SW broadcast, shows that other countries that don't transmit on their own aren't necessarily opposed to relays. Of course, I'm assuming that they want this. I've heard that they have a large cattle ranch that helps fund the cost of operating it, and I wouldn't be surprised if operating the station at a loss helps at tax time. BUT... that's just a rumor as far as I know. If they want to keep the transmitters humming, that's what I would advise them to do.
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Hmmm, wonder if Hannity or Breitbart are interested in sw broadcasting.
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I wish the commission would allow US broadcasters to do what the Canadians do; relay some of their programming on SW for domestic purposes. 1-5 KW would be enough to blanket the US in most cases on a reliable basis.
This whole business of 50KW MINIMUM beamed to places afar seems disingenuous to me. Give the folks here something to listen to as well, and at a low cost!
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I wish the commission would allow US broadcasters to do what the Canadians do; relay some of their programming on SW for domestic purposes. 1-5 KW would be enough to blanket the US in most cases on a reliable basis.
This whole business of 50KW MINIMUM beamed to places afar seems disingenuous to me. Give the folks here something to listen to as well, and at a low cost!
+-RH
The reason for the 50kw and no internal audience target is due the desired monopoly on the views of the US for VOA. They're worse than npr as far as bias.
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The reason for the 50kw and no internal audience target is due the desired monopoly on the views of the US for VOA. They're worse than npr as far as bias.
You misspelled Fox and CNN.
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I wish the commission would allow US broadcasters to do what the Canadians do; relay some of their programming on SW for domestic purposes. 1-5 KW would be enough to blanket the US in most cases on a reliable basis.
Good idea. The AM broadcast band has become wall to wall QRM at night.
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I say that I hope for the best, but fear for the worst. Propagation isn't helping things much.
Agree on the stupidity of demanding that SW stations run 50 KW minimum. Lower powers can work well with the antennas many of these stations have.