HFU HF Underground
General Category => General Radio Discussion => Topic started by: MDK2 on April 04, 2021, 2233 UTC
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https://www.live5news.com/2021/04/04/colleton-county-pastor-ralph-stair-dies/
Will his ministry live on in syndication? Honestly I don't know, his version of things depended a lot on commenting on current events, which is different from most of the other dead preachers whose old sermons have been rebroadcast for decades. Let's hope that if they do disappear it's not bad news for WRMI and other stations that sold lots of airtime to him.
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He was a pedophile, a sexual predator. He was pure evil. Few will miss him.
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You have to give him credit for having the cajones to say "when I committed adultery the women were old enough and we had a good time" lol.
This is good news for humanity but not great news for the shortwave stations that profited from his criminal cult *waves towards Monticello*
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He used to cover the SW at night, and gave the domestic (and some foreign) SW broadcasters a lot of business.
His death, along with covid, and the teetering state of the economy, and the bad propagation we've had since 2016 or so, and the slow disappearance of SW broadcasting in general, all are portents that we are entering the days of 'log 'em before they go off the air'.
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He was a pedophile, a sexual predator. He was pure evil. Few will miss him.
I certainly won't. A wicked man, spewing hateful things, a perverter of faith and far worse a perverter of people -- including children -- who believed in and trusted him. He victimized people for decades, and if there had been any justice, he'd have spent his last long years alone behind bars, instead of dying at home in hospice care.
Now, I can understand some feel his 'loss' is a blow to domestic shortwave broadcasting -- I can almost picture panicking RMI and BCQ and a half dozen MW stations frantically sending heart pumps and resuscitation gear to him the last few years. I wouldn't blame them. And of course, it was entirely his right to produce and pay for airtime to broadcast whatever the hell he wanted. I've never been about censorship; I know what a tuning knob is. And I want those stations to succeed and grow and go on.
But in all honesty, if it turns out his brand of grating, delusional garbage is the only thing holding up American SW, then American SW deserves to die with him.
Yet I imagine Stair will be in syndication for however long whomever has the rights to his recorded rantings also has the cult cash to air it. Maybe it will be a little less often, a diminished schedule, not as many freqs/stations, etc... but it will probably still be going for years to come.
I'm not bitter or anything. I just have an issue (and hard experience) with cults, and cult leaders, and the damage they cause, from innocent children's lives to entire families and communities.
Good freaking riddance.
Mike
N0TLD
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From N0TLD:
"Now, I can understand some feel his 'loss' is a blow to domestic shortwave broadcasting -- I can almost picture panicking RMI and BCQ and a half dozen MW stations frantically sending heart pumps and resuscitation gear to him the last few years. I wouldn't blame them. And of course, it was entirely his right to produce and pay for airtime to broadcast whatever the hell he wanted. I've never been about censorship; I know what a tuning knob is. And I want those stations to succeed and grow and go on."
Excellent and heartfelt post, Mike. I will just touch on the financial aspects for now as they were brought to my attention. I correspond regularly with Brice Avery of Scotland who produces the wonderful classical music program Encore on Radio Tumbril. He shot up the flare below to me:
"Hi Dean,
Hope all well with you.
If you happen to be tuning in at 0100 - 0200 UTC Sunday - in a few hours - I wonder if you could let me know if you can hear both 7780 and 5850.
WRMI are having to turn off some of their transmitters at random times because one of their major customers - Brother Stair - the preacher - died about a week ago.
Their income from his broadcasts is now at risk and they have been saving electricity...
I have to go to sleep now so if you get this in time you could perhaps monitor for me.
Thanks,
Brice"
I did hear Brice's Encore program on both frequencies at 0100 utc.
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At one point you could find him on no less than 4 frequency's a day.. And when you ask yourself "Who is listening to this" I guess there is always someone somewhere.. “Nature abhors a vacuum.” So someone will come along and fill his time slots Especially now that there is Corporate Social Censorship on most all internet platforms. SW might be one of the only ways left to get your message out... To be Continued...
Just my 14 cents ( Adjusted for Inflation )
tAC
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I see a great opportunity here for pirate broadcasters to create a legal "alter ego" by buying some of the empty time on these stations. No doubt these broadcasters would be in a position to offer some deeply discounted pricing right now. WBCQ was, at one time, down to $25/hr of air time. Get/find a sponsor who will help pay for the broadcast time or start a GoFundMe (or similar) to raise the funds. Maybe some enterprising individual could pool the pirate talent and put on a show with multiple pirates' content in say, half hour time slots, to further keep costs down.
I'm sure that there are SW listeners that would donate a few bucks toward this effort. It would be interesting if pirate radio played a part in the salvation for some of these SW broadcasters.
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Some great comments above, particularly the idea about pirates renting the empty space.
However, before the topic of B. Stair dies away, I would like to sincerely thank whoever it was that made the so-called "Brother Stair Numbers Station."
That was really a riot, a classic, a million good things you could say about it. It needs to be better known or re-appear.
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His rantings were always a good propagation indicator on the low HF bands over here.