As I understand it -- at least here in the USA -- the Radio Reading
Services (RRS) are locked into cassette tapes for the foreseeable
future. This is because the players (and player recorders) are
specifically designed to be "blind friendly" as defined by the Americans
in Disability Act.

While many sightless people can manipulate CD players, there is no
established "standard" as there are for cassettes and no real impetus to
create one. Don't hold your breath waiting.

B-T-W: Most RRS tapes run at 15/16 IPS -- half the speed of the normal
1 7/8 IPS of cassette machines -- tho some like those my friend Hap
Holly KC9RP (Of RAIN fame) are dual speed.

At low speed a C-120 (2 hr) cassette will store 4 hours of voice quality
sound. Another reason that the cassette is so popular with the RSS.

de
Bill P. / WA6ITF


Ivor Jones wrote:
"Paul W. Schleck" wrote in message
...

[snip]

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.

One thought that occurs to me (because I have personal experience of it) is
that some disabled people may actually not be able to physically handle
CD's. I know this because my brother is one of them. He is severely
physically disabled, has cerebral palsy and simply cannot pick up a CD/DVD
from its case and put it into a player. He can just about, with a lot of
physical effort, put a cassette into a tape player and set it running, but
he has a lot of difficulty manipulating the controls and is always chewing
up tapes due to continually stopping/starting/winding them.

He is a big fan of classical organ music and we buy him CD's and copy them
onto cassettes for him, but as he is constantly (through no fault of his
own) destroying them, we have to re-record them every so often. The trouble
is, blank cassettes are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain. Those
stores that do still stock them say that when their stocks are exhausted
they won't be having any more.

What my brother and people like him (surely he can't be the only one..?)
will do then is anybody's guess.

73 Ivor G6URP