• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Kari Lake previews her plans for Voice of America in the next Administration.

I caught the last few minutes of WWCR's "World Wide Country Radio" segment, and it was actually rather good, I thought. A nice blend of classic country with a slow, pleasant sounding country DJ.

Of course, the vast majority of their programming is "Christian." I wish they could just play the classic country 24/7 instead. I might actually listen.

gr8oldies said:
I figure somebody overseas is listening to Brother Stair, but I can't imagine who
Click to expand...
Somebody with deep pockets is keeping the thing going for who knows what reason. Can't be to make more money, since SW is a financial black hole.

c
 
gr8oldies said:
I figure somebody overseas is listening to Brother Stair, but I can't imagine who
Click to expand...
The dead Brother Stair’s endless rants have no meaning to an international audience. But as long as the Overcomer cult continues to throw money at shortwave airtime, those broadcasts will continue, regardless of whether anyone is listening. We still have Gene Scott droning on WWCR 20 years after his death, and I suspect his widow Melissa Scott’s preachings are not recently recorded shows.

If Overcomer ever runs out of cash, several U.S. private shortwave operations are going to be toast. I’ve posted about this before, but with the owner/operators of U.S. private shortwave operations getting up there in age, is there another generation that will keep things going?
 
Mediafrog+ said:
The dead Brother Stair’s endless rants have no meaning to an international audience. But as long as the Overcomer cult continues to throw money at shortwave airtime, those broadcasts will continue, regardless of whether anyone is listening. We still have Gene Scott droning on WWCR 20 years after his death, and I suspect his widow Melissa Scott’s preachings are not recently recorded shows.

If Overcomer ever runs out of cash, several U.S. private shortwave operations are going to be toast. I’ve posted about this before, but with the owner/operators of U.S. private shortwave operations getting up there in age, is there another generation that will keep things going?
Click to expand...
I sort of have my doubts.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
We still have Gene Scott droning on WWCR 20 years after his death, and I suspect his widow Melissa Scott’s preachings are not recently recorded shows.
Click to expand...
Funny that you should bring up the name Gene Scott. When I was attending Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and living on campus in the early 1980s, the FM radio station he then owned (99.5 KHOF now Salem-owned KKLA) was just his preaching (mostly on tape) 24 hours a day. (I also understand that he ran a UHF TV station as well.)

And I still remember turning on my radio, tuning him in (I didn't normally) and hearing Mr. Scott say out loud on the air, v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-ly so that no one could misunderstand what he was saying, "God Damn the FCC!" And I wondered why his licenses were never pulled for just *that! I mean it wasn't like a rock or top-40 station where you might have heard strong language in a song. ("Erotic City, anyone?) I'm sure his listeners, no matter how supportive they might have been, must have done doubletakes when they heard him say *that* on the air.
 
While serving in the US Submarine Force in the mid-late '80s, on mid-watches, I'd scan the shortwave bands. Often I could pick up "Voice of America", but found the news they were reporting not only to seem non-relevant, but quite dated and their programming just not very interesting. At that time there were a lot of shortwave radio stations to listen to. One of my favorites during that period was "Radio Luxembourg". Nowadays, I'll break out my MF/HF radio and scan the bands but find shortwave has just become a completely desolate wasteland of radio spectrum. Not only is it mostly vacant of broadcasts, but what is there is just not worth listening to.
 
ted chittenden said:
Funny that you should bring up the name Gene Scott. When I was attending Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and living on campus in the early 1980s, the FM radio station he then owned (99.5 KHOF now Salem-owned KKLA) was just his preaching (mostly on tape) 24 hours a day. (I also understand that he ran a UHF TV station as well.)
Click to expand...
Gene Scott and his “University Network” once had a larger shortwave presence. He had his own SW operation on Anguilla in the Leeward Islands, with a 100kw transmitter on 11775 kHz daytime, 6090 at night. Audible with a good signal 24/7 here in Houston. Technical and financial issues eventually resulted in a reduction in output, and the station has been off the air for a number of years now. I doubt it will ever return.

Scott also had several SW transmitters in Costa Rica, which had originally been used for the CIA-backed “Radio Impacto” anti-Sandinista programs aimed at Nicaragua. After the RI broadcasts ended the facilities were sold to Adventist World Radio, and some time later sold again to Scott, who broadcast for a few years. Eventually the transmitters died one by one, and the Costa Rica operation was abandoned.

WWCR is now the only SW output for University Network, with most of the program time filled with Melissa Scott’s preaching, though vintage recordings of Gene Scott are still in the mix.

The first time I came across Gene Scott on the air was in the early 1980s when he purchased a few overnight hours on the local independent TV station where I lived. At first I thought it was some sort of SNL type parody as it was so bizarre.
 
sdwulfdawg said:
It is bad enough that Voice of America is apparently now going to distribute that shitcan far-right Republican TV network, One America News.
Click to expand...
Not necessarily, on air/on the web.. VOA journalists will still have to do the sniff test and verify with 2 sources.. and if it doesnt pass, the OANN content won't get used.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
The dead Brother Stair’s endless rants have no meaning to an international audience. But as long as the Overcomer cult continues to throw money at shortwave airtime, those broadcasts will continue, regardless of whether anyone is listening. We still have Gene Scott droning on WWCR 20 years after his death, and I suspect his widow Melissa Scott’s preachings are not recently recorded shows.

If Overcomer ever runs out of cash, several U.S. private shortwave operations are going to be toast. I’ve posted about this before, but with the owner/operators of U.S. private shortwave operations getting up there in age, is there another generation that will keep things going?
Click to expand...
Brother Stair rants for hour after hour from beyond the grave via Spaceline Bulgaria as well, just for all his thousands of European fans. Then there's WBCQ with its nutty end-of-the-world stuff on 9330.
 
Miss Tuned said:
Brother Stair rants for hour after hour from beyond the grave via Spaceline Bulgaria as well
Click to expand...
I think Stair might be the only thing that Spaceline currently has on their bookings. As with private shortwave in the U.S., if Overcomer runs out of money, Spaceline might be toast.
Miss Tuned said:
just for all his thousands of European fans.
Click to expand...
Insert sarcasm emoji here.
Miss Tuned said:
Then there's WBCQ with its nutty end-of-the-world stuff on 9330.
Click to expand...
Always amusing that the flat earthers plot the signal beams that account for a spherical planet.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
I think Stair might be the only thing that Spaceline currently has on their bookings. As with private shortwave in the U.S., if Overcomer runs out of money, Spaceline might be toast.

Insert sarcasm emoji here.

Always amusing that the flat earthers plot the signal beams that account for a spherical planet.
Click to expand...

Spaceline has several things in their bookings, including KSKO :)
 
DavidEduardo said:
But the rural population, just as in Latin America, is where you see the bulk of those who do not attend or who drop out after only a few years... generally when they are old enough to work with either of their parents.

The cell based phone services are primarily used in urban areas, not rural ones. But the system employed is highly pictorial and visual. The ones we examined for adaptation to Bolivia used about 3rd grade language and lots of icons and illustrations.

There is a lot of differentiation that has to be made as to what is totally rural and what is a city or a "populated area". Those places, whether in Burkina Faso or Bolivia, have cellular services. You are applying American visions of cities and towns and rural areas to places that are enormously different.

500 of them?

This is the issue that Mexico has confronted with indigenous people's services: while it may seem that there are two million Nahuatl speakers in the country, one radio service can not be used for all of them because there are quite a number of regional "versions" of the language that members of any other Nahuatl group can't understand easily.

We see that in Bolivia, where there are variants of Aymara that are different enough to merit separate audio services.

These are the official languages of Bolivia, protected in the constitution (you will see, as we did, that the African celluolar based services have the same issues):

The following languages are listed as official languages in the Constitution of Bolivia.[1]
Click to expand...
Interesting stats, but in the case you mention, Bolivia, 84% of the population understands Spanish, with almost 30% understanding Quechua. The national radio and TV broadcast services are in these two languages, not all the languages you listed. In fact, looking at the websites and info available for Bolivia's national broadcast TV networks, they predominantly use Spanish. Some of the national, independent radio stations also use Spanish.

To reach foreign populations it is not absolutely necessary to use every single indigenous language in the country.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
Gene Scott and his “University Network” once had a larger shortwave presence. He had his own SW operation on Anguilla in the Leeward Islands, with a 100kw transmitter on 11775 kHz daytime, 6090 at night. Audible with a good signal 24/7 here in Houston. Technical and financial issues eventually resulted in a reduction in output, and the station has been off the air for a number of years now. I doubt it will ever return.

Scott also had several SW transmitters in Costa Rica, which had originally been used for the CIA-backed “Radio Impacto” anti-Sandinista programs aimed at Nicaragua. After the RI broadcasts ended the facilities were sold to Adventist World Radio, and some time later sold again to Scott, who broadcast for a few years. Eventually the transmitters died one by one, and the Costa Rica operation was abandoned.

WWCR is now the only SW output for University Network, with most of the program time filled with Melissa Scott’s preaching, though vintage recordings of Gene Scott are still in the mix.

The first time I came across Gene Scott on the air was in the early 1980s when he purchased a few overnight hours on the local independent TV station where I lived. At first I thought it was some sort of SNL type parody as it was so bizarre.
Click to expand...
Lived next to KHOF's TV transmitter while working in the Inland Empire. Reception was incredible. KHOF Radio also had one of the most powerful FM signals in L.A. Gene and his FCC Monkey band has a video on YouTube. He used to beat on toy monkeys who he referred to as the FCC. Donated 1 million dollars to him one night, then they wouldn't stop calling my girlfriend. This was before Caller ID was available, except for certain #s like 800 toll free lines
 
boombox4 said:
Interesting stats, but in the case you mention, Bolivia, 84% of the population understands Spanish, with almost 30% understanding Quechua. The national radio and TV broadcast services are in these two languages, not all the languages you listed. In fact, looking at the websites and info available for Bolivia's national broadcast TV networks, they predominantly use Spanish. Some of the national, independent radio stations also use Spanish.
Click to expand...
There is a difference between languages a person "understands" and languages they prefer and like to use. I understand French and Italian, but I don't speak it well and would not enjoy watching TV shows in either language for long.

Have you been in Bolivia? Try going to El Alto, the working class suburb which is now bigger than La Paz itself. Signs are in Aymara, and that is the language most heard on the street. Even the designs of buildings and signs are based on the indigenous culture.

Quechua is spoken around Potosí, Sucre and Santa Cruz.

Together, those are the preferred languages of over 3 million people. And there are two dialects of Quechua spoken there. I was moderately good at Quechua when I lived in Quito, but the language of the Sucre area of Bolivia where I consulted a station was not understandable by me. It's much greater in difference than Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese.
boombox4 said:
To reach foreign populations it is not absolutely necessary to use every single indigenous language in the country.
Click to expand...
No, but you are not going to reach much of the population easily using a lingua franca instead of the one they speak at home.
 
VOA isn't the only station getting cut back - there are reports that the BBC World Service is about to have yet another round of hack'n'slash budgets due to the awful state of the UK government finances - a lot of its money comes from the international aid budget, which has been slashed:

www.theguardian.com

Ministers demand BBC World Service plan for cuts as aid budget slashed

Exclusive: David Lammy asks BBC bosses to draw up tightened budget amid criticism move could harm UK’s global influence
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 


Back
Top Bottom