On 02-03-09, ROSS SAUER said to ED HULETT:


RS>>> As you know, the public airwaves belong to the American people.


JM>> The air waves might be owned by the people but the radio waves
EH>   are owned JM> by the people that produce them.


EH> Bingo!


EH> The "airwaves" (whatever that is) are worthless without
someone going
EH> to the expense of purchasing the hardware necessary to use them.


EH> Being an amateur radio operator, I am subject to many regulations on
EH> the very "airwaves" I use. Public my foot.


RS>At low power the airwaves are nearly unrestricted.



Many years ago there used to be what was known as `pirate stations'. They were
stations that operated either off-shore or across international borders, and
paid no fees, had no license, no assigned frequency, and no restriction on
programing content (that is to say `no policing of propriety or decorum in
what was broadcast'). They just broadcast on any frequency they felt like, and
there was little if anything anyone could do about them.


They played music that no performing artist recieved any royalty or use
payment for, no government could regulate them for content.


The huge expansion of Television channels, and some other things, made `pirate
stations' obsolete. They slowly but steadily faded away. There might be a few
around still, but I've not heard of one for many a year.





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*Durango b301 #PE*