mAximo wrote:
(a) A licensee of an international broadcast station shall render only
an international broadcast service which will reflect the culture of
this country and which will promote international goodwill,
understanding, and cooperation. Any program solely intended for and
directed to an audience in the continental United States does not meet
the requirements for this service.

This does not apply to domestic broadcast stations.

True, but we're talking about domestic *shortwave* broadcasting, and
there is no such thing in the United States.

At least not legally. Certainly (as has been pointed out by others,
myself included) many U.S.-based international stations have large
"incidential" domestic audiences. And of course there are other radio
services (such as amateurs) allowed to communicate domestically on
shortwave, but they're not allowed to broadcast to the general public.

("incidential" in quotes as I think we all know the stations sure don't
consider those audiences incidential!)

47CFR73 Subpart F defines "International Broadcast Stations". It
contains the above-cited regulation that proscribes programs solely
intended for a domestic audience. It also allows operation on various
frequencies in the 3-30MHz shortwave spectrum. (and nowhere outside
shortwave)

47CFR73 Subparts A-E define "AM Broadcast Stations" (535-1705KHz), "FM
Broadcast Stations" (87.9-107.9MHz), "Noncommercial Educational FM
Broadcast Stations" (also 87.9-107.9MHz), and "Television Broadcast
Stations". (TV channels 2-69) Programs intended for a domestic
audience are encouraged. [0] Operation is only allowed within those
specified frequency bands - none of which fall within the shortwave
spectrum.

There is no intersection of the services. Either you're an
International station operating at shortwave, or you're some other kind
of broadcast station and you're allowed to operate only at either
medium-wave or VHF/UHF.

(73.701 goes on to mention the existence of government-owned
international stations but that the FCC doesn't regulate them)

Another case of the fox guarding the henhouse, and deciding that
the regulations he made don't apply to him, at least not for gov't-
-owned int'l stations, but they may apply to gov't-owned domestic
stations such as jammers, unless also exempted.

I suppose, though this principle is hardly unique to broadcasting
services. Federal government use of other frequencies (for example,
military communications, or the FBI's two-way radios, or WWV) is not
subject to FCC regulation either.

I would suppose this is set forth in 47CFR0 or 47CFR1, the regulations
that set forth the structure and powers of the FCC.

("International broadcast stations" are the only type defined as allowed
to use shortwave frequencies - there are no rules authorizing a

You misread the regulation. It doesn't say that Int'l broadcast stations
are the only ones allowed to use SW frequencies. Besides, ham stations
on 40 metres are using parts of the Int'l broadcast bands, and so would
fall under this regulation, if such a restriction were called for by
statute. But such a statute doesn't exist, or it would be cited at the
start of the chapter. Otherwise, the regulator would be exercising
legislative power, in breach of the separation of powers, and would
be making regulations inconsistent with law.

Hams on 7100-7300KHz in the (continental) USA are operating in spectrum
allocated to the amateur radio service. They operate solely under
47CFR97, the regulations applicable to amateur radio. (and which
specifically prohibit them from broadcasting to the general public)

The allocation of that spectrum in Regions 1 and 3 is different, which
is why the broadcasters are there. It doesn't mean American amateurs
are subject to broadcast regulations.

[0] though I see nothing in the regulations that would prohibit a
station from specifying a "principal community" outside the United
States, if that community was close enough to the border that a
"city-grade" signal could be provided from a transmitter site within
U.S. jurisdiction. Cooperation of the foreign country would also be
necessary in allowing siting of the "public file" in their territory.

I certainly would not hold my breath waiting for such a station to be
authorized!
--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com

tommyknocker wrote:
Doug Smith W9WI wrote:
understanding, and cooperation. Any program solely intended for and
directed to an audience in the continental United States does not meet
the requirements for this service.

That would make nearly all private SW broadcasts in the US illegal,
since they are clearly for a domestic audience. There are a couple
religious stations which broadcast in Spanish for Latinoamerica but most
private SW in the US is not only in English but deals with topics of
interest to only US listeners.

Do note that the regulation says "...an audience in the continental
United States..." - it says nothing about the citizenship or national
origin of the listeners in foreign countries.

In other words, Americans traveling abroad would be an acceptable target
audience. Certainly with regard to Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean
(the primary places U.S.-based SW stations claim to target) you could
make a case that there are enough Americans visiting the target areas to
justify the programming. In fact, many SW broadcast stations in other
countries DO specify their own nationals travelling abroad as a target
audience.

Of course we'd still know who the REAL target audience is...

I was led to think that the rules dated from the early days of the Cold
War and were designed to avoid "propagandizing" broadcasts.

I've heard that suggested elsewhere. I'm having a hard time believing
they really thought a US-based international pro-Communist station could
have found enough support to get off the ground. (especially with the
massive opposition they would have faced at all levels of American
society at the time)

And I'm having a hard time figuring out why they'd *want* to stop an
anti-Communist station.

Given the political history of the domestic clear channels, I think the
"competition to domestic stations" explanation makes more sense.
--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com

"Doug Smith W9WI" wrote in message
...
tommyknocker wrote:
Doug Smith W9WI wrote:
understanding, and cooperation. Any program solely intended for and
directed to an audience in the continental United States does not meet
the requirements for this service.

That would make nearly all private SW broadcasts in the US illegal,
since they are clearly for a domestic audience. There are a couple
religious stations which broadcast in Spanish for Latinoamerica but most
private SW in the US is not only in English but deals with topics of
interest to only US listeners.

Do note that the regulation says "...an audience in the continental
United States..." - it says nothing about the citizenship or national
origin of the listeners in foreign countries.

In other words, Americans traveling abroad would be an acceptable target
audience. Certainly with regard to Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean
(the primary places U.S.-based SW stations claim to target) you could
make a case that there are enough Americans visiting the target areas to
justify the programming. In fact, many SW broadcast stations in other
countries DO specify their own nationals travelling abroad as a target
audience.

Of course we'd still know who the REAL target audience is...

I was led to think that the rules dated from the early days of the Cold
War and were designed to avoid "propagandizing" broadcasts.

I've heard that suggested elsewhere. I'm having a hard time believing
they really thought a US-based international pro-Communist station could
have found enough support to get off the ground. (especially with the
massive opposition they would have faced at all levels of American
society at the time)

And I'm having a hard time figuring out why they'd *want* to stop an
anti-Communist station.

Given the political history of the domestic clear channels, I think the
"competition to domestic stations" explanation makes more sense.
--

Exactly right on the "competition to domestic stations" point. A look at
the history of the regulation and the arguments for and against it make that
pretty clear. Also, there is the matter of efficient use of the spectrum.
Shortwave is (well "was" now, I guess) valuable primarly, as everybody here
knows, for long distance transmission, and it was felt that the use of the
spectrum by U.S. broadcasters for domestic transmission was a wasteful and
inefficient use of spectrum space compromising efficient international use
of frequencies.


--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Don Forsling

"Iowa--Gateway to Those Big Rectangular States"

"Doug Smith W9WI" wrote in message
...

Do note that the regulation says "...an audience in the continental
United States..." - it says nothing about the citizenship or national
origin of the listeners in foreign countries.

In other words, Americans traveling abroad would be an acceptable target
audience. Certainly with regard to Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean
(the primary places U.S.-based SW stations claim to target) you could
make a case that there are enough Americans visiting the target areas to
justify the programming. In fact, many SW broadcast stations in other
countries DO specify their own nationals travelling abroad as a target
audience.

Of course we'd still know who the REAL target audience is...



I've heard that suggested elsewhere. I'm having a hard time believing
they really thought a US-based international pro-Communist station could
have found enough support to get off the ground. (especially with the
massive opposition they would have faced at all levels of American
society at the time

A Communist or leftist station would have been highly unlikely but not
inconcieveable. There was a leftist press in the postwar era, such as the
Daily Worker. Many newspapers owned their own radio station. Many
conservatives such as Col. Robert McCormack, were staunch supporters of the
first amendment and would have vigorously defended the right of the Commies
to have the same right to broadcast as everybody else.

And I'm having a hard time figuring out why they'd *want* to stop an
anti-Communist station.

I think they would want to speak with one voice. And playing favorites
would be unnecessarly divisive.

But I think the domestic propaganda arguement makes more sense when applied
to the VOA. I have no doubt there was a fear that the VOA could become the
voice of the party in power.



Given the political history of the domestic clear channels, I think the
"competition to domestic stations" explanation makes more sense.
--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com


I don't know how much domestic SW could compete with domestic clear
channels. Radio did, and does, depend on advertising. And most radio
advertising is local. Sure, the clear channel stations had a nighttime
coverage of hundreds of miles, but did they do much of their own programming
for people outside their prime coverage area? I'm guessing they didn't. If
they did, would it have increased their advertising revenue?

Domestic SW would have been a bigger threat to the established radio
networks, especially if some genius would have been able to solve the
propagation problems. Technical progress in radio was happening fast in
that era, so it's easy to imagine David Sarnoff and the others worring about
the possibility of a handful of SW stations posing a competitive threat to
their national networks. A viable, low cost SW network would have been able
to pirate or create the sort of national "Old Time" radio programming which
did sell Ovaltine or Texaco gas or whatever. I know the clear channel
stations were network stations, but I think they could have survived on
local programming. Obviously, the networks had alot more to lose and they
were the ones with the strong voice in Washington. Anyway, that's all
speculation on my part.

But US domestic SW didn't get going until the radio networks had faded.

Frank Dresser

"tommyknocker" wrote in message
...
David Eduardo wrote:


"Frank Dresser" wrote in message
...

I don't know how much domestic SW could compete with domestic clear
channels. Radio did, and does, depend on advertising. And most radio
advertising is local. Sure, the clear channel stations had a
nighttime
coverage of hundreds of miles, but did they do much of their own
programming
for people outside their prime coverage area? I'm guessing they
didn't.
If
they did, would it have increased their advertising revenue?

In the 30's, when the non-domestic prohibition was written, a huge
portion
radio advertising was national network. It was, in fact, hard to be an
independent station outside of a couple of the very largest markets
until
Top 40 developed in the early 50's.

The term "disc jockey" (shortened to DJ) wasn't even coined until 1950,
when stations were losing their programming to television and had to
play music nonstop to fill time. (Alan Freed was NOT the first DJ, only
the first to be famous.)

Actually, I have found references to the term in late 40's Broadcasting
Magazines. I believe the term originated just after the ASCAP decision when
radio stations could play lots more recorded music.

"tommyknocker" wrote in message
...
David Eduardo wrote:


"Prime Time" developed during this era, with the idea that people would
listen once they got home from work. The eight hour day was codified
into law during FDR's first term, which in turn created two blocs of
broadcast time-Daytime and Prime Time. Daytime broadcasting was to
housewives and mothers who stayed home all day, consisting of serial
melodramas heavily advertised by soap companies (thus the term "soap
opera"). (The first soap operas were as short as 15 minutes.) Prime Time
was when the man of the house got home from his factory job, and the
whole family gathered around the big, expensive radio in the parlor to
hear regular news and dramas. Most radio stations went off the air
around 10pm and stayed off until 10am the next day.

Until the Federal Radio Act of 1934, many stations shared channels. there
was all-day (6 AM to midnight) broadcasting in larger markets, but in
smaller ones schedules were less because there was not enough net progrmming
to fill them... and even more because the line charges were a major, major
expense.

At the start of the
TV era TV stations followed these same schedules. "Today"-starting at
8am or so-was a radical innovation in 1953. All night TV didn't come
until as late as the early 80s in much of the country.

1953 was the year the freeze was lifted. Until then, there were not enough
channels for every net to have alocal affiliate, and the technology was very
new. Stations expanded as fast as possible and the nets followed suit by
adding salable hours.

Remember, in 1940 there were less than 1000 radio station in the whole
country. The clears covered huge otherwise unserved areas.

I know for a fact that San Francisco stations served most of California
north of the Tehachapis. Sacramento-by far the most populous inland city
of Northern California in the 30s-only had two radio stations.

In 1931, only KFBK was on the air. Fresno had KMJ, San Francisco, Oakland,
Berkley and San Jose had 14 stations. Bakersfield had 1, as did Santa
Barbara, and Stockton had 2.

With the nets having all the major talent under contract, that would
have
been rather hard. And in the meantime, millions of Americans would have
had
to be convinced to buy receivers to get something that they already got
on
the 4 webs.

Actually, most console radios had shortwave. But as a glance at a dial
of a 1930s console radio will tell you, this was intended for listening
to Europe-all the listings on the dial were for European countries.

A lot of consoles had SW, but not all radios had it. there were plenty of
nice kitchen radios and shop radios running around.

There still is no true domestic SW broadcasting if you look at
listenership.
No shortwave station has ever even approached showing up in any US radio
market's ratings. Average, non-SWL folks generally found SW listenining
to
be less attractive than a nice clean local signal if such were
available.
Domestic commercial SW thrived for a while in nations like Ecuador,
Peru,
Bolivia, Indonesia, etc., where there were limited broadcasting
faciliteis,
bad roadways and terrible phone and telegraph services... and high
illiteracy. None of this describes the US, then or now.

Indonesia comprises a thousand islands. Much of South America and Africa
was either impenetrable jungle or uninhabitable bush (desert). AM simply
couldn't cover those vast expanses. As populations have grown and
standard AM and FM stations have penetrated those areas, SW listening
has gone down dramatically.

Africa was left out of my argument, as there was no commercial radio in most
of that continent in the 40's through the 60's. Except for Angola, which I
believe had, like Portugal, commercial stations, the rest depended on state
broadcasters. radio ownership was pretty limited.

Latin America had commercial radio going back to the 20's and 30's. At one
point, there were stations in many countries that only ran on SW, with no MW
facilities. As more stations were licensed in smaller towns, and other
stations increased power, the value of shortwave diminished. By the 60's, it
was mostly a way of communicating with rural areas, often in lieu of the
telephone.

FM hit most of Latin America at the tail end of the 60's. The first
Ecuadorian FM was in 1966; Peru in that year had one FM, Colombia and
Venezuela none, and Chile one. Bolivia had none, and I don't believe
Paraguay had any, either.

The death of SW had already started by the late 50's. It was no longer
economically viable as AM stations learned that if you built a tower instead
of hanging a wire between two poles, you could cover better day and night
than some ratty SW channel. As powers increased on AM, SW stations signed
off. At one point, I had an SW license... but the AM it came with covered
better and more consistently than the SW could, so I handed the license in.

"The Green Troll" wrote in message
m...
Doug Smith W9WI wrote in message
...
47CFR73.788: (note second sentence)

(a) A licensee of an international broadcast station shall render only
an international broadcast service which will reflect the culture of
this country and which will promote international goodwill,
understanding, and cooperation.

Ergo, a shortwave station reflecting Cuban culture and promoting
competition (aimed at undermining Castro) would be ineligible.

that would promote both capitalism and democracy, both American values.

Some would argue that an internal contradiction prevents any licensee
from complying.

Not really. You are simply leaving no nit unpicked.

"David Eduardo" wrote in message
om...

"tommyknocker" wrote in message

The term "disc jockey" (shortened to DJ) wasn't even coined until 1950,
when stations were losing their programming to television and had to
play music nonstop to fill time. (Alan Freed was NOT the first DJ, only
the first to be famous.)

Actually, I have found references to the term in late 40's Broadcasting
Magazines. I believe the term originated just after the ASCAP decision
when
radio stations could play lots more recorded music.

Following up, I fund a half-dozen references to "disc jockey" in the 1948
Broadcasting Yearbook, including one featuring, headlined in 36 point type,
the "Disk Jockeys of KFEL" in Denver.

Both the '44 and '46 editions have mentions of the term in advertising for
radio staitos with music from disc programs.

And, by the way, radio was not losing its audience to television in 1950,
and the network (CBS, NBC, Mutual, ABC, Don Lee, Yankee, IMN, etc.)
programming continued strong through the late 50's That was the depth of the
freeze, and only a few million homes had TVs. Even by 1953, according to a
WSYR study, the average Syracuse listened to 3.07 hours of radio a day. A
1950 study, referenced in the Gordon McLendion biography, indicates 21 hours
a week of listening per person. Today, it is 20 hours and 45 minutes.

Then, as now, the reports of radio's death were much exaggerated.

"Frank Dresser" wrote in message
...

I don't know how much domestic SW could compete with domestic clear
channels. Radio did, and does, depend on advertising. And most radio
advertising is local. Sure, the clear channel stations had a nighttime
coverage of hundreds of miles, but did they do much of their own
programming
for people outside their prime coverage area? I'm guessing they didn't.
If
they did, would it have increased their advertising revenue?


Further follow up:

A WLW (clear channel 700 AM) ad from the 1948 Broadcasting Yearbook refers
to a survey of its 7 state coverage area (bits of IL, MI, VA and lots of OH,
KY, IN and WV) where 75% of the 3.5 million population listened to WLW
weekly. The ad has a map of this area, and stresses the fact that, of 115
stations serving the area, none comes close to the penetration and daily
usage of WLW.

A WSM ad shows mail pull from every one of the 48 states, and stresses
regular coverage of 38 of them.

Even a 1-B station like WLAW (680-Boston) shows a coverage map with contours
covering from Bangor, ME to SW Rhode Island, complete with population counts
of the 5 states they at least partially covered.

"tommyknocker" wrote in message
...
[snip]

Actually, most console radios had shortwave. But as a glance at a dial
of a 1930s console radio will tell you, this was intended for listening
to Europe-all the listings on the dial were for European countries.

[snip]

There seems to have been some domestic SW activity in the pre-war era.

Most of these were active before the war:

http://members.aol.com/jeff560/1947sw.html

The Apex stations were experimental AM Hi Fi broadcasters:

http://members.aol.com/jeff560/1939apex.html

There were alot more experimental stations which came and went.

Frank Dresser