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In "William M. Pasternak" writes:
Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) Report 1573 - October 7, 2007
[...]
ASSISTED RADIO LIVING: HIGH POSTAGE RATES COULD DOOM CASSETTE-CASTERS
If you are a visually impaired radio amateur and
get your ham radio news or any information from
radio reading services, listen up. A recent
postage increase in the United States may doom a
lot of the cassette based reading
services. Services that cannot mail using the
Postal Services Free Matter category, and which
do not have some other way to generate
revenue. Several tape based reading services
have hinted that they will close their doors in
December once there are no longer any funds for
postage. Fred Vobbe, W8HDU, has mo
--
Recently, we were dealt a great disservice by the
United States Postal Service. The cost to mail a
cassette tape has increased from 63 cents to $1.30.
According to the USPS, the issue is that the
postal regulations have changed. Any item
thicker than 1/4 inch is now subject to this new higher rate.
Ironically, its now cheaper to send a tape
Canada, the United Kingdom or even Kuwait, than
it is to someone right down the street from me. Go figure.
Now, I am a member of the Lions Club, and I have
talked to several other magazines-on-tape. This
postage increase has been hurting a lot of cassette tape magazines.
Those that are not sending "Free Matter" and are
not subsidized, either have to pass their costs
on to their subscribers, or they go out of business.
I'm Fred Vobbe, W8HDU.
[...]
I don't know a lot of detail about the economics of this, particularly
at the bulk/wholesale level, but I wonder if switching to CD-R's would
be a reasonable alternative at this point. At retail at least, I
observe that spindled CD-R's are about as cheap, if not slightly less
so, than cassette tapes. CD players with headphones are approaching
$10-$15 at box retailers, and CD-capable drives are ubiquitous in most
households that have either PC's or DVD players, so this shouldn't be a
hardship for the listeners, either. I recall a CBS "60 Minutes" piece
about NetFlix, where they determined that a DVD could be mailed in a
simple flat envelope inexpensively, and the odds of accidental breakage
was low enough, that it was cheaper over large quantities to send it
that way and just send a replacement for the occasional broken disc.
CD-R's mailed that way would at least be under the 1/4" limit, and would
save the extra postage.
There would be the need to set up CD burning equipment, but most
standard PC's seem to already come with CD burners, and are not that
expensive to buy separately. Whatever investment in new equipment by
both sender and receiver would appear to be quickly offset by the saved
postage multiplied over many bulk mailings.
Is one possible issue that the recipients like to reuse the cassettes?
If so, then going to CD-RW's might be an option if they are not
cost-prohibitive.
- --
Paul W. Schleck
http://www.novia.net/~pschleck/
Finger
for PGP Public Key
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