[grc] The return of VOA programming to shortwave radio?

[Bennett Z. Kobb]

Anyone who wants to broadcast on shortwave will find plenty of airtime 
available on the commercial shortwave broadcast stations including WRMI, 
WINB, WBCQ, WTWW, WWRB to name a few. Most of their airtime is sold to 
evangelists, with a handful of alternative DJs.

The FCC prohibits construction and operation of shortwave stations 
intended for a domestic US audience, and a minimum 50 kW power -- big an 
expensive, in other words -- is required if you are broadcasting in AM. 
There are also restrictions on languages.

These are some of the WWII-era regulations which the FCC has never 
reviewed since they were established. The FCC thinks themselves are so 
innovative and deregulatory, but they have never re-examined these old 
restrictions which they still impose on stations.

They make no sense now, and anyone who has followed my work on this 
subject knows my colleagues and I have been trying various openings 
within FCC to get these and other old rules changed or lifted.

Not because we necessarily want to start shortwave stations -- though 
one of us does have a show on several SW stations. But we think anyone 
ought to be able to experiment and broadcast, much more cheaply, to 
Americans if they want to try.

This scene may finally change, however, now that trading entrepreneurs 
want shortwave and have been spending big to get into it. This is 
forcing the FCC to think about things it has long ignored. That was the 
focus of the report I previously linked.

Europe is way ahead of the US on this, as several countries have 
deregulated shortwave and allowed various private broadcast stations and 
a wide variety of programs.

Benn Kobb