[SBE] The future of Broadcasting.

[Carl Sundberg]

I fully understand the significance of the E in SBE and realize why
there would be a concern if we deviate from the engineering side of
this discussion. Let's never forget that even though deForrest,
Armstrong,  Zworykin, Farnsworth and so many others were
engineers, their work had one primary purpose and that was to develop a
mass communication system. For years and years, the older guys in this
group remember when the FCC was mostly a non-political entity that was
there to protect and gaurantee that the inventions of those engineers
worked and worked well to serve the mass communication needs of the
public. I say "mostly" as it relates to "non-political" because we all
know what happened to Armstrong's "Yankee" network and why. 



I'm guessing that I am not alone when I say that I became an engineer
because I wanted to support the efforts of the poeple in broadcasting
that were in the programming end of the business and to help my
employer serve the community it was licensed to serve. In my youth, the
FCC was the great protector of the spectrum. Commissioners from the
30's and 40's  are likely hitting high RPM's in their graves every
time a spectrum auction comes up. 



I have no problem with changes, what I have a HUGE probelm with is the
concept of having anyone OWN, forever plus a day, a nationwide
frequency. There is no way for someone in city x to have any idea of
what's really best for city y or for that matter for the owner in city
x to even care about city y. This corporate nationalization of spectrum
is just wrong. I would like our group to lobby for a return to the kind
of FCC specturm management where a license is granted to the party
willing to offer the most and best service to each individual community
where a facility is built. If we leave it to Corporate America, it will
do what it always does and cherry pick who gets what. The big cities
will be up and running first and small market America will still be
without signals, perhaps forever.



The SBE does serve in one way that the old FCC did. We certify
engineers like they use to and I think we are doing a better job than
they did. We do have both their ear and the ear of many in the
legislature. As engineers, I think its our responsibility to speak up.
If you are going to take this spectrum, there should be conditions
like, you can't turn on any major city until all the rural area's are
up and running. With conditions like that, I think you will see
everything change.



Let's not be fooled again. We lost channel 52 and up. Someone needs to
make a map showing all the small markets where these channels are not
being used and report that to the Legislature.  I don't think you
will find even one very rural market where all these channels are being
used as they were intended. Tell the people with all those frequencies
to use them everywhere or lose them everywhere and we'll get lots of
spectrum back.




Carl Sundberg

3318 Coraly Ave.

Eugene, OR 97402-6544



Cell: 541 520-2867

Landline: 541 461-2324



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://seven.pairlist.net/pipermail/sbe/attachments/20100318/f148fcec/attachment.htm>