Kinescope was the original name for the CRT itself, coined by Vladimir Zworkyin and trademarked by RCA in 1932. They released the term to the public domain in 1950.
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Saving AM Radio
- Thread starter BruceB
- Start date
You mean the same way you pay for other government provided utilities like water, power (in some regions) and -- to a certain extent -- roads (gas taxes, road taxes for trucking, etc.)?
Just because something becomes a public utility, doesn't mean it's free. For example, I know of no public water utility that is free.
I definitely see this happening. In some places, it is already a work in progress.
Many schools depend on students having Internet access for homework, notices and even some kinds of online textbooks.
In my school district, we have a tax added to our supposedly fixed property tax to provide an iPad (specific brand name, too) to every student. In the last 5 years, I have bought about 20 of 'em for kids. And while I don't like taxes, I love the idea of empowering every child by opening the doors to a vast amount of information.
And where possible, provide low cost or no cost service to limited income households upon reasonable proof as part of getting a license to charge folks like me about $200 bucks or so a month for broadband.
Heck, cities provide busses and transport for the handicapped on which they lose money, but make it up with their share of auto sales tax, auto licenses and even gas tax among others. Transportation provides access to health and community services. So does the web.
It depends. In some areas, water is also provided by a private company. I was giving an example of government-provided internet in public libraries. The other example was Philadelphia.
But many have subsidy programs or minimum rates for households meeting certain conditions.
You made some excellent points in your entire post. This quoted statement above especially rings true. Once a content creator / provider puts their content on the internet, there is no guarantee that there will be an audience, because of the nearly infinite competition, with much of the potential visibility of that content ruled by algorithms.
The idea held by some broadcasters that if they just "build it, the audience will come" doesn't necessarily work. Several stations that had streams still failed. And becoming part of a larger platform (IHeart would be an example) doesn't guarantee success, either. Some stations that failed in Canada had streams on the Canadian IHeart platform. The stations still failed. And then, once your content (your station) is part of a larger audio platform, you are still at the mercy of that platform's search algorithms when it comes to attracting new listeners.
One general mantra for online content creators -- be they visual, text, or audio -- is that visibility is everything.
Ramsey probably has decent engagement on his web podcasts -- that's thanks to his radio presence over the past several decades. If he was new to the game today, and just put up a new podcast with identical content to what he has now, his success rate would probably be a lot lower.
My greater point was that even though it's a government utility, the people still pay.
DonCT's idea doesn't necessarily mean that access would be free, at least the way I interpret it. My guess is he would prefer a lot more government oversight, and better access for all people -- like they have in Europe for broadband.
However, when you use the broadcast station to drive people to the content, get them to download the app, so it has a place on their phone, it's just like having a radio with a limited number of frequencies. I' talking about a specific station app, not the corporate app. That may work for corporate, but the local station also has its own app. The other thing is to get people to subscribe to the podcast and daily email. All of these are sponsored. That's what Good Karma is doing.
Correct, and the broadcast station gives you visibility that gets people to the next step.
Back to radio (though maybe at some point I would chime in on the utility discussion since I used to work for two of them)...as I've mentioned upthread, the real question is whether radio, as a concept and a medium, can be saved. Here's another log on the fire:
jacobsmedia.com
Where's My #!&$% Car Radio?!
The "AM Radio For Every Vehicle Act" continues to ricochet around the nation's capitol. Over the past year, the idea of car companies removing AM radio from the dash - once unspeakable - has become a regular conversation in automotive and radio broadcasting circles. But across the pond, a couple...
jacobsmedia.com
Mark: As I pointed out earlier, over-the-air, radio transmission is essential for national security. In the case of a natural disaster or a terrorist attack, the internet could be down, Cellphone towers could be down. Even electricity can be out, but radio stations with back up power supplies can still provide help and information to people with car radios and battery operated portable radios. Radio transmission is essential to the security of our nationBack to radio (though maybe at some point I would chime in on the utility discussion since I used to work for two of them)...as I've mentioned upthread, the real question is whether radio, as a concept and a medium, can be saved. Here's another log on the fire:
Where's My #!&$% Car Radio?!
The "AM Radio For Every Vehicle Act" continues to ricochet around the nation's capitol. Over the past year, the idea of car companies removing AM radio from the dash - once unspeakable - has become a regular conversation in automotive and radio broadcasting circles. But across the pond, a couple...
Which is why the future of radio should not be tied to a specific device. We're not in the device business.
That's handled by DHS, not radio companies. The only obligation of radio companies is to stay on the air.
Big A: I understand what you're saying, but I think Mark was suggesting that there may come a time when there's no over-the-air radio.that everything is going to be online or over cell phone connect towers.
Technically your smartphone is a transceiver, nor is this a post-World war society. But honestly, in today's society, how many people still have portable battery-powered radios, let alone batteries that haven't leaked all over the inside?
I'll bet that over 75% of the U.S. population relies on their smartphone, never considering what sort of purpose radio serves outside their in-vehicle entertainment system. When the you-know-what hits the fan, with the loss of smartphone connectivity, most consumers will roll up into the fetal position while praying for one signal bar.
Kelly: I see your point.But most people do have cars with radios so they can still get over the air transmissions during an emergency. All I'm saying is, if over-the-air transmissions end, and we're totally dependent on either the internet. Or cell phone transmissions. We could be in big trbubble.
That's a government problem, and here's what they're doing about it:
Bill To Require AM Radio In Cars Advances In House.
A House bill that would require carmakers to keep AM radio in the dashboard has taken a step forward in Congress. A House subcommittee today approved the AM Radio for
The example in Mark's post was in Europe. Nothing we can do about Europe.
I've read that claim many times here on RD, and can point out one recent example where it's flawed in reality:
* Last year's Lahaina fires. Because the two main roads in and out of Lahaina were blocked by fire, residents were jumping into their vehicles attempting to escape. The local radio stations were on the air with normal programming, but the local authorities had no information to pass along to the radio stations, mainly because emergency services had never faced anything like this, and resources were stretched to the limits. Emergency services were trying to save themselves. So what was the result? Those trying to escape in their vehicles were stopped by flames with more vehicles stopped behind them and no way to back up. To your point, I guess those who ultimately burned to death in their vehicles at least had something to listen to on the radio until the vehicle was engulfed by flames.
Not much of a public service, if you ask me.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I'm going to throw this in here, because I think it's relevant based on Kelly's example of those horrible fires in Hawaii last year.
When I worked for one of AT&T's predecessors in the late 1990s/early 2000s, I had the opportunity to talk with one of the techies at what was then called Cingular Wireless. With the 1994 Northridge earthquake still relatively fresh in my mind, and how relatively useless the POTS network had been for the first day or so afterwards, I asked him what effect such a disaster would have on the cellular service network.
He told me that SMS (which is the acronym for, logically enough, Short Message Service) uses the voice network to send and receive, so it would be somewhat impacted by heavier call volume. And with a lot of people trying to make voice calls all at once, that would slow down that network and result in a lot -- probably the majority, he said, based on what he thought would be the demand under the circumstances -- of calls not being completed.
BUT because SMS sends in "bursts", it can take advantage of extremely short gaps in bandwidth availability ... fractions of a second, in fact, and send/receive during those gaps. So you would have a much better chance of getting a text out than trying to call for help. (He did still impress on me the need for the public to confine itself to urgent emergency messages to make the use of those gaps more efficient.)
Bear in mind, this was still the era of flip phones, but the SMS technology still works the same way with smartphones.
Extrapolating what he said to the present, if during an emergency the Internet was still up and there was still power to your modem and router, you could probably -- if your carrier allows -- switch to Wi-Fi calling and it would improve your ability to send/receive texts. Going further, I think this makes a good case for subscribing to any governmental emergency alert services (for example, I have UC Berkeley's MyShake app on my phone, which can send earthquake alerts for temblors of magnitude 4.5 or greater).
Unfortunately, data service is the first thing that will drop on cellular service in these situations, which renders things like Google Maps worthless, so unless you live in an area where the authorities can send text alerts of road closures and the like, you would be SOL there. Of course, I have always been a believer in following official instructions about evacuations anyway ...
When I worked for one of AT&T's predecessors in the late 1990s/early 2000s, I had the opportunity to talk with one of the techies at what was then called Cingular Wireless. With the 1994 Northridge earthquake still relatively fresh in my mind, and how relatively useless the POTS network had been for the first day or so afterwards, I asked him what effect such a disaster would have on the cellular service network.
He told me that SMS (which is the acronym for, logically enough, Short Message Service) uses the voice network to send and receive, so it would be somewhat impacted by heavier call volume. And with a lot of people trying to make voice calls all at once, that would slow down that network and result in a lot -- probably the majority, he said, based on what he thought would be the demand under the circumstances -- of calls not being completed.
BUT because SMS sends in "bursts", it can take advantage of extremely short gaps in bandwidth availability ... fractions of a second, in fact, and send/receive during those gaps. So you would have a much better chance of getting a text out than trying to call for help. (He did still impress on me the need for the public to confine itself to urgent emergency messages to make the use of those gaps more efficient.)
Bear in mind, this was still the era of flip phones, but the SMS technology still works the same way with smartphones.
Extrapolating what he said to the present, if during an emergency the Internet was still up and there was still power to your modem and router, you could probably -- if your carrier allows -- switch to Wi-Fi calling and it would improve your ability to send/receive texts. Going further, I think this makes a good case for subscribing to any governmental emergency alert services (for example, I have UC Berkeley's MyShake app on my phone, which can send earthquake alerts for temblors of magnitude 4.5 or greater).
Unfortunately, data service is the first thing that will drop on cellular service in these situations, which renders things like Google Maps worthless, so unless you live in an area where the authorities can send text alerts of road closures and the like, you would be SOL there. Of course, I have always been a believer in following official instructions about evacuations anyway ...
"If the internet is still up and there was still power to your modem and router "
If if if, This is precisely my point in favor of continued over-the-air radio transmission.
AM or FM we need at least one
That's a separate discussion from the business of owning and operating a radio station. Right now, there's an amount of government funding for public radio. Some states own radio stations. So if the business dries up, there are still stations that aren't totally built on business. That's the safety net.
I think in addition to DHS subsidizing some of the 50kW omni day&night AMs, there should be a nearby 10kW (maybe within 50 miles, maybe a daytimer under regular conditions) with a reliable connection to the DHS helped AM so that if there's a problem with the 50kW transmitter, the emergency info can be transmitted using the 10kW backup AM.
Kirk Bayne
Kirk Bayne