Why Should ANYONE Pursue a Career in Radio?

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

What would a Golf Course look like without the rules? A 7,000 yard weedy cow pasture covered with B*LLS**T. Sound familiar?

I'm in your camp on this one my friend. Back when we had "rules" a lot of people with investor-only mentality took a look at radio and walked away.

The lalck of "rules" has brought the same disaster to our business that it brought to Wall Street and banking and real estate.

 

[gr8oldies]

What "rules" could you put into place in 2008 that would make anyone listen to anything they didn't want to?

 

[jondavidvox]

Actually Gr8, I don't espouse anything that would force people to listen to something they don't want to. But I do believe that there are rules that would make them appreciate Radio far more than they do now....

1.) All Radio Station Licensees shall have an FCC licensed operator on duty at all times.

2.) All Radio Station Licensees shall broadcast not more that 50% of their programming from network (non-local) sources.

3.) All Radio Station Licensees shall broadcast not less than 4 minutes of local news content per hour. Local news content to be defined as news of local events not to include Traffic reports.

4.) All Radio Stations shall employ FCC licensed on-air performers for all locally broadcast material.

There. Four things that would make Radio immeasureably better, without forcing the Listeners to hear a single thing they don't want to.

J-D
FB

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

1.) All Radio Station Licensees shall have an FCC licensed operator on duty at all times.

2.) All Radio Station Licensees shall broadcast not more that 50% of their programming from network (non-local) sources.

3.) All Radio Station Licensees shall broadcast not less than 4 minutes of local news content per hour. Local news content to be defined as news of local events not to include Traffic reports.

4.) All Radio Stations shall employ FCC licensed on-air performers for all locally broadcast material.

There. Four things that would make Radio immeasureably better, without forcing the Listeners to hear a single thing they don't want to.

I understand what you want to see delivered to the audience, but my experience tells me the four items you just listed have the likelihood of making things WORSE instead of better.

You know why I got my First Phone years ago? I wanted to manage and I wanted to eventually own, and I watched the FCC LICENSED engineers jerk management around. If they didn't want to do something management asked for, they would give them some ****-and-bull story about how the request would violate the laws of physics and the rules of the FCC. Once management was out of ear-shot, there would be this muttering about "I guess I showed him."

There are some formats that lend themselves to being run on an automation machine in a closet in the owners family room. Having to hire someone with a license to sit there 24 hours a day and stare at the machine means that much less money available to buy exotic opera recordings or obscure blue-grass historic recordings or what ever the format might be.

If I am in a relatively modest market and there are already four stations doing an unbelievable job of local delivery, what is so awful about station number five being on an all-sports national network, or NPR, or if a very large local industry has a couple thousand immigrant workers who all speak Spanish or Korean, what would be so awful about connecting up with some stations in neighboring states to broadcast centrally produced Korean content that I could not afford to do for only 2,000 max listeners.

Who has decided that four minutes of local news is always available every hour? Who has decided that four minutes is enough? And if you are in a dense, heavy-commuter community, who has decided that valid traffic reporting is not legitimate local news?

Licensed on-air performers? Licensed to WHAT quality, what standards, what ability? Licensed ONLY if they have a pleasant voice tone? Licensed only if they agree to certain political correctness rules? For several years I was a lobbyist in a state legislature. One year my group devoted considerable effort to killing a bill to state-license body shops and body shop technicians. When you read through all the where-as and where-if language, it was simply a bill to prevent new people into the industry as competitors. The bill would do NOTHING to improve body shop work, nothing to improve technician skills. It was only to keep guys with factory jobs from doing any body shop work at their house on week-ends and during factory temporary lay-offs.

Just in case you are having trouble figuring out where I stand..... your four suggestions would have a high probability of GUTTING an already bleeding radio industry.

 

[jondavidvox]

"....your four suggestions would have a high probability of GUTTING an already bleeding radio industry." --Goat Rodeo Cowboy

Obviously not, as there are no guts left in radio.

"I watched the FCC LICENSED engineers jerk management around."

Those aren't engineers then....they're jerks.

"There are some formats that lend themselves to being run on an automation machine in a closet in the owners family room."

And those listeners don't deserve to know if there's a Tornado Warning?

"Who has decided that four minutes of local news is always available every hour?"

That sure is a mighty odd question for a guy with a 1st Phone....Hmmmm.

"Licensed on-air performers? Licensed to WHAT quality, what standards, what ability?"

Licensed to operate in the Public Interest, as Public Trustees. You know, like the real stars of radio have always done.

"For several years I was a lobbyist in a state legislature. One year my group devoted considerable effort to killing a bill to state-license body shops and body shop technicians."

Oh yeah, you're right....Hell, if you can't do it with body shop technicians....

Just in case you are having trouble figuring out where I stand....why don't you just hush up now and let the broadcasters handle this? That way you can concentrate on defeating the next Bondo Bill when it comes up.

J-D
FB

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

As I wrote two or three messages ago, jondavidvox, you and I share one concept: radio could use the imposition of some rules and some regulations. I'm sorry my last message responding to you was a bit strongly worded, and I am not surprised that you have come back with a strongly worded response. What does surprise me is that you and I are not getting a good grasp on the bits and pieces of logic (and lack there-of) that are floating back and forth.

Were the engineers I knew worth technicians or were they jerks? I can't name one of them that I considered to be a jerk. Some were so-so technicians, some were inspired facilitators. Some of them were working for station managers/owners who were jerks, or if working for a good station operator, their last two gigs had been working for jerks and they had not come to a warm fuzzy relationship with the person who was our boss when I worked with them.

In today's world, I would presume that a truly community-serving station operator who chooses to run a highly automated programming system should spend a little bit of that savings on a good cell-phone with broad-band abilities to receive e-mail alerts and text message from weather subscription services, and have the ability to use that phone to pull up weather radar websites and then use that same phone to take control of the automation machine from where ever he/she is and broadcast whatever needs to be on the air to take care of his/her community.

I don't recall a single question on my 1st Phone, 2nd Class or 3rd Class exam that had to do with programming, news, etc. I don't care if my engineer has a Phd. in broadcast engineering from M.I.T. ... that does not bestow some super-human knowledge about how many minutes of news per broadcast hour is the correct, proper, optimum amount. To my knowledge, the F.C.C. has never licensed any station personnel functions other than technician. The gamut of a "licensed technician" is ohms, resonance, inductance, current, electrical/audio/RF parameters, and testing. The FCC never licensed musical knowledge, interviewing skills, news management, sports content, etc.

The licensee of the station is the Public Trustee. The "real stars" (whoever that means) have never been licensed by the FCC to uphold the Public Interest. The owner/licensee has that responsibility and they from time to time empower trusted employees to implement the fulfillment of the licensees responsibility. Here is where I think you and I are in agreement: The FCC does not currently hold the owner/licensee to a reasonable standard.

Now get sober about personal issues between us. It's been 35 years since I had anything to do with helping formulate state law on the licensing of automotive technicians. (I have no Bondo under my fingernails today. Maybe some wood putty. Maybe some solder in my pants cuff. ;D ) That experience along with a lot of other career-oriented exposure has helped me to establish my own personal attitudes toward government regulations. I have held licensure as a broadcast technician, nursing home administrator, insurance agent, airplane pilot, and real estate agent. I have functioned as a member of the administrative/management team responsible for coal mine safety, hospital safety and malpractice, fire and safety codes for apartments, a corporate fleet of vehicles. I have a certificate giving me some small amount of credibility in the area of ISO9000/9002 quality implementation.

None of that gives me any kind of super-human powers that make me The Expert on what will work and what will not work in the broadcasting industry. What it does do is give me a pretty good view of how regulations are created and written, how they are enforced, how they are evaded by crafty operators, and when they are effective and when they are in-effective.

I offer this as simply my own personal opinion. Does not make it fact. With this and $1.25 in your hand, you might be able to obtain a cup of coffee: "Requiring the presence of at least one person with some kind of FCC license to be on the premises of a radio station 24/7/365 will not cure a single identified problem that plagues the industry today."

 

[gr8oldies]

It's easy to say "all we need to do is require radio stations to operate the way they did in 1972 and all our problems will be solved and we'll all be working again". I was a First Phone as well, and can concur that none the reasons for licensed operators was to keep the transmiter functioning legally, not to "stand by in case there's a tornado warning". Now that equipment is more reliable, there's no technical reason to keep someone there to babysit the transmitter.

Why four minutes of news every hour on every station? If I want nes, I know where to go
and if I want to escape the news I also know where to go. Maybe right this minute I don't want to hear about the shooting on the west side. But when I do, I can find out about it on my cellphone or home internet connection. The trouble with writing regulations is they have to be precise. If "50% of programming is to be locally originated", what does that mean? Certainly not bar bands playing all day. If the hard drive is locally programmed, is that ok? Or does it require a DJ talking? If so, how much and what is he or she required to say? There are formats that do just fine with no DJ talk..much as we don't like to hear that.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

If "50% of programming is to be locally originated", what does that mean? Certainly not bar bands playing all day. If the hard drive is locally programmed, is that ok? Or does it require a DJ talking? If so, how much and what is he or she required to say? There are formats that do just fine with no DJ talk..much as we don't like to hear that.

In another thread recently, with some focus on the LPFM requirements for localism, some one made the claim that the following scenario was acceptable to the FCC. I have my doubts, but not the energy to track it down for SNOPES.

If you use the hard-drive for time shifting, then since it is coming from a "local" hard-drive, it qualifies as "local programming". I just about barfed up my BBQ-sandwich lunch over that one.

There are a TON of religious LPFMs. Many of them are no more than "satelators" for one of the several religious networks that distribute their programming by the bird. Satellite to receiver. Receiver to hard-drive. Allow the yeast to ferment on the hard-drive for one hour. Hard-drive to Xmitter. Voila! Programming PRODUCED locally!

I wonder if they are hiring at the sanitation department. Maybe that would be a better career than radio.

 

[kd8hho]

There are a TON of religious LPFMs. Many of them are no more than "satelators" for one of the several religious networks that distribute their programming by the bird. Satellite to receiver. Receiver to hard-drive. Allow the yeast to ferment on the hard-drive for one hour. Hard-drive to Xmitter. Voila! Programming PRODUCED locally!

you might as well consider LPFM another word for TRANSLATOR ( i dont have a problem with religion) but damn LPFM and translators could be useful for more then just religious stations

as far as a career in radio, id take one if they pay me enough

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

you might as well consider LPFM another word for TRANSLATOR ( i dont have a problem with religion) but damn LPFM and translators could be useful for more then just religious stations

As you have probably noticed, there are a LOT of threads about Fairness Doctrine and the proper use of radio for Talk/News Radio. It appears today's talk radio has a very high percentage of "conservative" content.

I would make a similar observation about religious radio. The content of religion-on-the-radio is highly tilted toward conservative theological views, or in the language of theologians, Evangelical content. I understand why that is so, and this is not the forum to explore that topic. I will say that if we could discover the formula that would make it a practical business venture to have a balance of political views in Talk/News Radio, we might at the same time discover that the same formula would make it a practical business venture to have a balance of theological views on Religious Radio.

as far as a career in radio, id take one if they pay me enough

I guess some of us would have taken a life-long career in broadcasting if they would pay us HALF-enough. There are dozens... even HUNDREDS of careers that people would love to commit to, but this is not an era where anyone is likely to promise to "pay me enough" if I sign on. There are a number of careers where a Temp or Contract position (lacking in benefits) is the best offer you are going to get.

Here in the Radio-Info discussions we sometimes let the discussion get a bit hot and heavy. Much of that is because we have unrealistic views of what opportunity this industry should provide to us, and we are all so sure that the dream would come true if everyone would just accept MY vision of how to do it.

 

[Tom Wells]

I would make a similar observation about religious radio. The content of religion-on-the-radio is highly tilted toward conservative theological views, or in the language of theologians, Evangelical content. I understand why that is so, and this is not the forum to explore that topic. I will say that if we could discover the formula that would make it a practical business venture to have a balance of political views in Talk/News Radio, we might at the same time discover that the same formula would make it a practical business venture to have a balance of theological views on Religious Radio.

Several Amens.

As I was in Valpo Tech, the 1st class was dying. Several of our instructors told us the Engineering end of Radio was a doomed
path.. As much as I wanted to go into radio then, I made a conscious decision to stay entirely out of radio.
My radio engineering education has been very useful, and it pains me to hear things on the air I could improve.
Still, I am happy I did NOT go into radio. I've had 3 jobs since 1980, and have chosen all of them, and when to change.
I wish "investment-minded" outlook would begin to realize service to the public should not be subservient to dividends and bonuses.

I still call stations once in a while, or even stop in, when I hear something wrong they should know about.
Many times they do not even KNOW there is a fault with their signal, they have no engineer on staff, they don't even have a radio
that can HEAR the problem. That's why there needs to be SOME kind of engineering requirement.

Traffic! Tonight in Chicago there was a nice wet snowfall for evening drive. Lots of stations were reporting that the roads were slick.
Not one of them was reporting that SALTING and PLOWING were not being done due to budget constraints.
In my 47 years in this area, I've never seen such neglect of roadways. Not only the standards of radio are dropping.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Traffic! Tonight in Chicago there was a nice wet snowfall for evening drive. Lots of stations were reporting that the roads were slick.
Not one of them was reporting that SALTING and PLOWING were not being done due to budget constraints.
In my 47 years in this area, I've never seen such neglect of roadways. Not only the standards of radio are dropping.

When I wake up in the middle of the night, rather than toss and turn, I stuff my walkman earbuds into my ears and listen to Steve and Johnny on WGN..... as the fading skywave permits.

I don't know what the rest of radio in Chicago is doing, but at 2 and 3 A.M. with Steve and Johnny you can get an earful about the city decsion not to plow neighborhood streets, to privatize the parking meters and some roadways.

Not all of you will like the program flow, but about time you think ALL radio stations have gone to automation and some kind of corrupted Bill Drake format, tune in Steve and Johnny some night. 11 P.M. to 5 A.M. Central time. Be ready to be treated to radio that reminds me of radio in every decade in which I have ever lived.

(Steve and Johnny are husband and wife. Johnny said one night she was always fascinated by John Cash and "A boy name Sue". After all, she is a girl named Johnny.)

If someone could have convinced me I could have developed into a career comparable to these two, you would never have pried the microphone out of my hands. ;D

 

[MikefromDelaware]

you might as well consider LPFM another word for TRANSLATOR ( i dont have a problem with religion) but damn LPFM and translators could be useful for more then just religious stations

I realize that many translators and LPFM signals are used for religious stations, but not all. An example would be Temple University's WRTI - Philly (NPR - Classical Music daytime/Jazz nighttime). They have numerous translators in PA, NJ, and DE which is a great thing for those communites, because without those translators or LPFM's those places would not have available to them Classical or Jazz programming.

Quite often the same is true with those religious stations as the translator or LPFM is the only religious station available for that town. Now many of you may not care about that, but there are some folks who have benefited, or if you will, have been blessed, by having a religious station available in their town. I am surprised though that more non-comm NPR or college stations, etc haven't made better use of the translators/LPFM's to get their programming out to areas where their unique programming isn't able to be heard.

[I would make a similar observation about religious radio. The content of religion-on-the-radio is highly tilted toward conservative theological views, or in the language of theologians, Evangelical content. I understand why that is so, and this is not the forum to explore that topic. I will say that if we could discover the formula that would make it a practical business venture to have a balance of political views in Talk/News Radio, we might at the same time discover that the same formula would make it a practical business venture to have a balance of theological views on Religious Radio./color]

An aspect of religious radio that should be noted that makes it different from talk radio. Most religious stations are non-commercial where as most talk stations are commercial businesses. So as all religious preachers have to pay for their air time, they require the listeners to donate to keep their preaching on the air. It would seem that the evangelical preachers get better financial support which allows them to stay on the air. It would seem that the more liberal preachers can't get the financial support from their listeners or home church to launch their own preaching shows. My point is, the listeners are the one's paying to support the dollar a holler preachers and the numerous religious radio networks, translators, LPFM's, etc. So as no government money is involved the government should not be telling the preachers or radio station owners that they have to have a balance in preaching shows some evangelical and some from the liberal preachers, etc. There isn't any reason a liberal denomination couldn't start it's own radio network and get it's own cluster of stations etc, assuming that they'd have enough commited listeners who'd also financially support that ministry. So even though many of you may not see any value for Family Radio, Klove Radio, Salem Radio, Moody Radio Network, Reach FM Network, etc, doesn't mean that millions of other folks wouldn't as they speak with their wallets and pony up the cash to keep those programs, shows, stations, and networks on the air round the clock 365 days a year, some for many years.

 

[jondavidvox]

Gentlemen....

In our discussion of this thread, are we not seeing that the lessons offered by the evisceration of reasonable regulation of the Airwaves have either been forgotten, or outright ignored? Further, with many of the questions put forward here, have we also not seen the erosion of Radio's institutional memory of times when the NAB stood for the National Association of Broadcaster, not the National Association of Businessmen? Apparently so.

The rules I put forward would create a paradigm where operating polices would return Radio to the pre-emminent role of Public Service....Without mandating content beyond that which would "....Keep the public informed in the event of an emergency...." (Do those words sound familiar?) And, would provide our industry with two things it has given up in the name of short-term, bottom-line profit....A Future, and Credible Trust with Radio on the part of Radio's Real Customers...Listeners.

1.) All Radio Station Licensees shall have an FCC licensed operator on duty at all times.

The other day, a Life-Flight Helicopter flew into the unlit towers of a radio station, because the Operator on duty blew off checking the tower lights. Everyone on board, died. That Station, and the Operator on duty should have had their FCC licenses revoked, and each fined 100,000 dollars. Do you suppose future Operators would take the operating log more seriously from then on? Did you hear about that story? Did you issue a memo to your operators about it? Did the FCC send out a bulletin to its licensees about it? Nope, I'll bet.

2.) All Radio Station Licensees shall broadcast not more that 50% of their programming from network (non-local) sources.

Who's going to replace Rush Limbaugh? If he "saved" the AM band, what's going to happen to it when he's gone? Successful local hosts get blown out every day because of radio corporation mandated cost-cutting. If we don't provide our industry with up and coming talent, all the nightmare scenarios of Governmental control of Radio come true. If we don't manage the Future of our industry, who will?

3.) All Radio Station Licensees shall broadcast not less than 4 minutes of local news content per hour. Local news content to be defined as news of local events not to include Traffic reports.

With radio broadcasting local news, Listeners then have breaking news coverage available in minutes, instead of hours (Television) or tomorrow (Newspapers). Over time, Listeners will develop something they no longer have in non-talk formats....Trust that Radio will keep them informed.

4.) All Radio Stations shall employ FCC licensed on-air performers for all locally broadcast material.

When an On-Air Performer says "F**K!" on the air, it should cost him $10,000.00 and an FCC license suspension. When that same perfomer issues the kind of content that has caused responsible parents to drop transistor radios from their children's toy list, and manufacturers to forgo the inclusion of a radio tuner on Ipods, he or she should have to find another line of work. As far as hindering "Creativity" or "Free Speech", it's as simple as replacing the word T*Ts with the word "Binkies".

As far as LPFM's and such, they should run a disclaimer once every 3 hours telling their listeners that for breaking news stories, they should tune to their market's Primary EAS station.

But we should stop looking for scenarios to make the status quo ante the only solution to Radio's problems....It just isn't working.

J-D
FB

 

[gr8oldies]

"Back to the Future" isn't an answer in a 5000 channel universe. Again, if I want the news, I have a multitude of sources to get it. If I don't want to hear about the murder on the west side, why do you demand that my oldies, smooth jazz or whatever be interrupted so I can hear about it?. My response may well be to plug in a CD. Our local N ews Talk station did an excellent job when we had sustained hurricane force winds, even blowing off syndicated programming for continuous coverage. I knew where to go for that coverage, and once it got repetitive, where to go for something else.

How do you define "local news"? City? County? The suburb the station is licensed to? (In that case, a full market signal in our market that's licensed to an embnedded suburb would have to do 4 minutes of Kettering news and ignore teh rest of the market?) As far as traffic, frankly the accident that shuts down the interestate affects more people than the drug shooting.
I take it a radio station couldn't partner with a TV station for news coverage...it would have to be compiled and read by a "licensed operator".

You realize you would be consigning a substantial number of rado stations to going dark or operating minimum schedules (signing off at 10pm, just like the god old days) rather than paying someone to sit there overnight. A station that is off the air at 3am because of required make-work staffing can't do a tornado warning either.

Is there a provison for cluster oeprations to have one operator for four stations, or do their have to be four bodies in the building?

What happens when I can't find a local talk show host, he or she is sick or quits and I don't have someone available to fill tweleve hours locally. Also, you din't answer my question about what the minimum requirement for local DJ talk would be to fulfill the "local programming" requirement.

Radio needs to be ready for a multi-platform future,not 1972.

 

[jondavidvox]

OK....I can see that we've lost a lot in the last 10 years.....

Back to the Future" isn't an answer in a 5000 channel universe. --Gr8oldies

What market in America has 5,000 radio stations in it?

Our local News Talk station did an excellent job when we had sustained hurricane force winds, even blowing off syndicated programming for continuous coverage. I knew where to go for that coverage, and once it got repetitive, where to go for something else.

You're in the middle of a Hurricane, and when the coverage got repetitive, you went somewhere else?

How do you define "local news"?

Any news content that forces a Radio station to have a local news department.

You realize you would be consigning a substantial number of rado stations to going dark or operating minimum schedules (signing off at 10pm, just like the god old days) rather than paying someone to sit there overnight.

Yes, I would be consigning radio companies who don't have the money to operate in the interests of their communities....(CBS, Citadel, Entercom) to either pony up to realities of Radio or get out of the way of people who can.

Is there a provison for cluster operations to have one operator for four stations, or do their have to be four bodies in the building?

Each station would have their own local news commitment, (The more local news you commit to, the better chance you have in any FCC actions) but certainly one News Department per cluster would work...

What happens when I can't find a local talk show host, he or she is sick or quits and I don't have someone available to fill tweleve hours locally?

You had better employ a sufficient airstaff to cover the obligations of your license. (Do you run stations for CBS, Citadel, Entercom or something?)

Radio needs to be ready for a multi-platform future,not 1972.

With no news, no employees, no airstaff, and no plans for a product for the future?

This is even worse! You believe then that what we're doing now is the correct thing? (You MUST run stations for CBS, Citadel, Entercom...)

J-D
FB

 

[gr8oldies]

OK, I can pretend that no one watches TV, uses the internet, gets news and weather updates on cellphones, listens to mp3 and they only listen to the radio, which exists in a vaccuum. No, I don't run any stations but the last one I did (a mom and pop) would have gone dark immediately with your requirements. Guess that would be OK with you, since people are just lining to buy radio stations, and all these mom and pops have unlimited money and lines of credit for large staffs.

 

[jondavidvox]

No one watches TV in their cars, or uses the internet....And why is it that people get weather updates on their cellphones? Because Radio stopped being important to them. It's not that they abandoned us....We abandoned them.

As for your stations going dark under these rules....they wouldn't. Here's why:

The factors making Radio too expensive to pay for its own product is an absurd creation of the Business entities who seduced Radio management with the cubic dollars found in IPO's. That cash not used for bonuses was used to drive the prices for stations beyond the reach of the Moms and Pops you say I would deal out of the game. That happened in Rounds 1 through 3 of consolidation....

Those Mom & Pop's who bought into the game paid too much....after borrowing too much....and had to cut costs just to stay in business....and handle the debt service.

These rules go into play, Radio Corporations will have to cut station inventory to save costs instead of their product people....which will drive overall costs down, and would make it possible for you to pay the people necessary to play by the rules and make a profit as well....like what happened in 1972.

J-D
FB

 

[radiodogs.lefora.com]

Persue a career in radio? Why? Radio died when service station owners bought radio stations and "liners" replaced entertainment. Unfortunately, unless you have been in radio for a while you just don't understand that concept. It used to be an entertainment medium. Now it's a jukebox or talk, talk, talk that has nothing to do with entertainment. Liners ... the beginning of the end of entertainment on the radio. Anybody can do that. That's not entertainment. That's a joke.

FCC First Phone? Except for qualified engineers ... another joke. Got mine in '63 right after high school. Saved my pennies for a year so I could go to the William B. Ogden School of Radio Engineering in Burbank and get my first phone in about 90 days. Why? Because stations were required to have a First Class Operator on duty during all broadcast hours. Beats me. Never did get that one. Like a 90 day wonder could fix anything in the transmitter? Oh, come on. The last thing I wanted to do was open the transmitter door and vacuum around the vacuum tubes. Had to have it though, just to get a gig. Another joke. The only thing I remember is Ohms law ... I equals E over R, isn't that special? Never did anything for me. If I had a problem I called the Engineer.
Get into radio? Naw. Don't do it. It died and will never come back. If you think so, you're having a very bad dream.
Have a nice day.

 

[Tom Wells]

My wife first heard me on my pirate shortwave station (busted) in 1991. Still married.