CW wrote:

The law does exist and is being enforced loosely. Domestic shortwave
stations are required to have directional antennas and there beam heading
has to be outside the US. It is easily gotten around by using antennas that
are directional, but not very, and targeting the main lobe to a part of the
world that would ensure that secondary lobes cover the US. The law also
states that commercial advertising is not permitted unless it is of a nature
that would appeal to an international audience. This is being blatentenly
ignored. No, the FCC is not doing it's job.
[...]


Even if the beam is to Canada, and the ads are intended to appeal to
Canadians at least in part, then no law is being broken.

Now I don't want to listen to lunatic religious rants (except for a
laugh, maybe during a party after everyone's tired of dancing) any
more than you do -- but still it must be admitted that the law
itself is absurd.

There's no rational reason why domestic shortwave broadcasting
shouldn't be allowed. In fact, it should be encouraged.

Low-power stations operating during the daytime in the 6 and 9 MHz
bands would have wide North American coverage (N.B. the almost
micropower Canadian stations on 49 meters) and cause little or no
interference overseas. These stations could be low-expense
operations, too (because they would be low-power and with simple
high-angle antennas), which would mean that they wouldn't have to
sell their souls to mammon (or gold- or quack cure-hawkers). They
could be operated by ordinary folks for a very small investment.

The real reason for the original law (they gave a few spurious
reasons, of course) was a desire on the part of large media
corporations to protect their big investments in mediumwave networks
from competition from lower-expense shortwave upstarts, who could
easily have covered the nation with a couple of 50,000-Watt
transmitters. Can't have that!

It's the same sort of protect-our-millions mentality that has set
terrestrial digital broadcasting back by quite a few years (and
maybe killed it), and saddled us with the kludged and dirty IBOC
turkey. Can't have scalable almost-unlimited channels! Can't have
the 250-Watt daytimer or student station upgrade overnight to an
equal signal with WABC! That would be terrible, wouldn't it?


With all good wishes,


Kevin.
--

Kevin Alfred Strom.

News: http://www.nationalvanguard.org/
The Works of R. P. Oliver: http://www.revilo-oliver.com
Personal site: http://www.kevin-strom.com