Friday November 1, 2019 6:33 AM -- Closing of October
The KDX Campus located in the Center of North America escaped extortion attempts this halloween from small disguised midgets threatening to trick unless treated with candies. From our lights-out submersion using only red submarine lighting we could hear threatening voices in the vicinity but held our breath until they dispersed. October passed away quietly on the coldest night so far this autumn dipping into the high 20s.

Thursday October 31, 2019 8:10 AM CDT -- Live Session
United States House of Representatives

Wednesday October 30, 2019 5:38 PM CDT -- Social Intercourse
As part of our scattered social tendencies we hominids like to banter with each other about small things. That's part of what's provided by blogging. Those of us with keyboards can spout thoughts, ideas, experiences, beliefs, memories, wishes, reports, imaginings, lies and propaganda while those with screens can sift through it in that never ending quest for no one knows what. If we knew what we were looking for we could Google it straight-away. Well, I did exactly that with the name "Zara" which I intend talking about. Zara is a female given name which for some reason I think was a goddess long ago. There's a continental hotel in Budapest by that name and a town in Turkey. As with every word in every language it's also the name of software, in this case an automation program used by radio stations including ours. Over many years there are functions described in the Zara manual that I've never gotten to work properly, and my small talk today presents the fact I've finally figured them out. But the problem is no one I mention it to will be particularly interested since Zara isn't familiar to them as would be sports, weather, pop music, house pets, movies or automobiles. Such differences eventually lead to alienation causing loss of touch with society.

Wednesday October 30, 2019 3:58 PM CDT -- Pirate Radio Day
We have been informed that October 31 every year is traditional pirate radio day. It's probably obvious what that means. For us non-pirates it gives a sporty opportunity to hear what the pirates are doing on the shortwave bands. Me thinks the pirates choose Halloween for the costumes to conceal their identities.

Wednesday October 30, 2019 12:14 NOON CDT -- Climate Crisis
Democracy Now, the prominent news reporting service, joins other news agencies to cover the climate.

Tuesday October 29, 2019 2:25 PM CDT -- kiwiSDR
A step up from the SDR Play RDS1A is the kiwi SDR.

Tuesday October 29, 2019 5:54 AM CDT -- Musicians Hit Hard
Musicians have always had difficulty getting their share of the pie after managers keep the frosting for themselves. Read especially the section on how streaming is depleting income for musicians.

Monday October 28, 2019 2:33 PM CDT -- The Slinky is Slung
Up the ladder we hung the Slinky in a vertical droop from the top of the blinds and used a wire with clips-leads to patch onto the preexistent 10' horizontal wire on top of the curtain rod and come down vertically on the other side to clip onto the now famous needle at the SMA. Are you following this? Our impression is that stronger signals are showing on the spectrum view but possibly the noise level is also higher. The net result may be unproductive but the cheese break earlier was splendid.

The Blare Blog will be offline Tuesday and Wednesday to return Thursday for Cosplay Day.

Monday October 28, 2019 4:30 AM CDT -- Antenna Congestion
The addition of the SDR Play RSP1A receiving station amid the already busy transmitter ranch here at KDX puts things in a critical state as far as antenna placement. Receiving antennae of necessity must be some measured distance away from transmitting antennae which otherwise might overload the sensitive RF input to the receiver and possibly cause damage. The transmitting antennae themselves must also be moved apart from one another to prevent mutual interference, ultimately confining the amount of radio activity made possible in a given space. Space saving methods employed by high power stations are not available to low power operators under FCC Part 15. Besides being technically complex, antenna combiners, which amount to very sophisticated circuits that multiplex several radio stations into a single antenna, do not fit the particular technical limitations allowed for micro-stations.

Transmission factors aside, we open the SDR saga with a very crude reception antenna cobbled together just to get things started: a needle (literally) poked into the RF center of the SMA connector, a foot of wire with clip leads that bridges the way to a 10-foot length of wire run up the wall and across the curtain rod; not enough to open the way to the stars. This make-do arrangement tides over while we await adapters and connectors as building blocks toward something more permanent. We'll be trying a loopstick antenna at some point, appealing for its compact size.

Today, as we celebrate Fingerprint Day, we'll patch a Slinky onto it (the antenna, not our finger) for whatever boost it will provide, all being streamed on KDX-OGG.


Monday October 28, 2019 3:45 AM CDT -- Every Fall
The best sleep of the year comes during the fall months and KDX is forming this year's Sleepers Meetup Group! We love sleeping and plan to sleep our way across America on an Amtrak sleeper car with naps in over 5 states along the way! That's only the beginning. Next we'll charter a deluxe cruise ship and sleep on three different oceans with middle of the night snacking crossing several time zones. A leading sleep expert will give lectures about the state of sleep art science and a sleep historian will present tales of great sleepers of yore. Being awake is only transitional and provides the brief opportunity to make sleeping arrangements and meet others who love sleep as much as we do. Life is for sleeping. Sleep it away in good company! Membership is limited so don't not have reservations, make reservations and get ready to nod off. Contact Flotilla DeGlued of the KDX staff, but don't wake her up to do it.

Sunday October 27, 2019 1:31 PM CDT -- Contact Has Been Made
The Radio Monitoring Station in Connecticut reports reception of KDX AM 1680 radio relay from the SDR Play RSP1A streaming from our Icecast Server on KDX-OGG. For the first time in history a low power signal authorized under FCC Part 15 is reaching the far corners of earth by way of the internet. Self congratulations are taking place across the states. Interesting to point out that the Monitoring Station was listening on an Android telephone.

Sunday October 27, 2019 7:52 AM CDT -- Media Players
The media player highly recommended by KDX is VLC Media Player which recognizes virtually every audio and video format.

Sunday October 27, 2019 7:10 AM CDT -- New SDR Test Link is Up
This link brings up the KDX Icecast Server showing two stream choices. KDX-OGG is the stream of interest for this experiment, and you'll note a Media Player is embedded in the upper left of the screen. Use that and you should be able to listen to the SDR Play RSP1A Black Box Device as it receives the transmission from KDX AM 1680 coming out of an AMT5000 Transmitter. Please report your results. By the way, the other stream is KDX-OPUS and carries KDX programming direct from an OPUS Codec and is not connected to this SDR experiment.

Sunday October 27, 2019 6:59 AM CDT -- Attention Testing Stations
The MP3 Codec for hearing the SDR Play radio receiver is now closed and presently being replaced by an OGG/VORBIS Codec. Stand by for a link. REMINDER TO REFRESH THIS PAGE FREQUENTLY TO BRING UP NEWLY ADDED MESSAGES.

Saturday October 26, 2019 8:47 PM CDT -- SDR Testing Continues
Some testing stations have been unable to connect to the streams provided for this demonstration of the SDR Play RSP1A. These experiments will continue through Sunday and an alternate stream will be opened early Sunday. Meanwhile, stay safe in your hiding places and no matter what don't let them know you are there.

Saturday October 26, 2019 8:18 PM CDT -- Capes and Cloaks
Halloween is a multifaceted celebration in which people are free to reveal the fanged side of their nature and children are taught deception and evil trickery. As a reluctantly obedient child I went through usual experiences wearing costumes to conceal my true identity and assumed the persona of some bestial character, and I always opted for capes or cloaks based on movies seen at the Star Theater on Oregon Street for 25cents. Short capes are called capes and floor-length capes are called cloaks, something I learned more recently as I explored the web to discover that custom made capes/cloaks have their own websites. The more adult reason for searching had to do with survival tactics to wear clothes that preserve body heat and look slick at the same time. Wearing costumes for pleasure is a fetish known as cosplay (costume play) and an extension of the societal norm of dressing to conceal sinful bodies. I'm often asked if I'm a priest because of my customary all-black wardrobe. If there's a cautionary rule it would be this: beware of costumed men or women. When judges enter the courtroom dressed as high priests, police approach with their uniforms and badges,  doctors and nurses stand over you with their scalpels, or soldiers surround in camouflage outfits, you might be moments away from meeting your maker, a big guy in beard, flowing white draperies and grasping a bolt of lightning.

Saturday October 26, 2019 1:56 PM CDT -- Take An Eye for an Eye, Fight Fire with Fire, Greet Stupid with Stupid
We heard that Christians somewhere are burning atheist books so this set us busy burning Bibles in our new Take a Book for a Book policy.

Saturday October 26, 2019 9:31 AM CDT -- KDX Well Defined Radio
The SDR Play RSP1A software defined radio, a black box located in the Internet Building here within FEMA Region 7, is now streaming reception of AM 1680, an FCC authorized Part 15 station. The link will take you to the KDX Icecast Server showing two streams. KDX-MP3 Mountpoint /kdx.link is the SDR with its temporary makeshift wire antenna up on the curtain rod. To listen, press the M3U Play Button which will bring up your default audio player which will function because we are using the MP3 codec which is ubiquitous. If there is  hum in the signal it's an artifact of the indoor antenna location and is not actually being broadcast by KDX AM 1680.

Saturday October 25, 2019 8:10 AM CDT -- KDX SDR Project
Following a wide survey of the current state-of-the-art of software defined radio (SDR) KDX obtained a SDR Play RSP1A after being highly impressed by YouTube videos from one of the design engineers. Having already been tutored by watching the videos we quickly patched the device into our computer facility and took a look at the local AM Broadcast Band, using a temporary make-shift antenna comprised of a needle (to enter the tiny SMA connector), some alligator clips and 10' length of wire borrowed from one of the AMT3000 transmitters. At such close range KDX AM 1680 has better presence on the inbuilt spectrum analyzer than the 3-50kW stations hereabout. The spectrum analyzer feature of an SDR makes it an ideal tool for low power hobby radio stations.

We are getting ready to live-stream the output of this SDR here on the website and plan to become one the the world SDR streams making reception of the radio bands from our local perspective available for international sampling.

The consultant to KDX helping with installation and performance of the SDR is the Bruce Monitoring Station in Hartford, Connecticut, who began experimenting with his SDR Play RDS1A weeks before.

Friday October 25, 2019 4:56 PM CDT -- On Being Couth

Friday October 25, 2019 11:02 AM CDT -- Program Directors
Something to air when there's nothing to air.

Thursday October 24, 2019 11:14 AM CDT -- Ankle Bracelet for the Mind
You are under house arrest.

Thursday October 24, 2019 9:19 AM CDT -- The Bruton Music Library
Syrupy background music for ceiling loudspeakers.

Thursday October 24, 2019 8:45 AM CDT -- Opposing Surveillance IS Patriotic
Joe Rogan talks with Edward Snowden.

Thursday October 24, 2019 7:05 AM CDT -- Columbus Being Displaced
The lie about Columbus "discovering" America has had its day as a mass movement aims for Indigenous Peoples' Day.

Wednesday October 23, 2019 4:27 PM CDT -- Sad and Dreary
Making the list of the top 10 saddest pieces comes no doubt "The Isle of the Dead" by Sergei Rachmaninoff, based on a German painting. We bring it up because American Public Media makes this performance available from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Slatkin.

Wednesday October 23, 2019 11:20 AM CDT -- Corporate Music
Music that you don't even know you are hearing.

Wednesday October 23, 2019 10:16 AM CDT -- Cruel and Unusual
This creep showed up recently on local radio.

Wednesday October 23, 2019 9:04 AM CDT -- The Living Blog
Doesn't that sound like a horror movie title? Probably because of the mind's tendency to contract bog and The Blob, thus being a sort of mental pareidolia. Ok, so, what makes this a living document is the simple fact that we go back over previous entries and make changes, corrections and additions, a truly organic metaphysic creating always the evolving Word of Carl and his Correspondents. By way of it this Blog supercedes The Bible which falsely claims to be "Living" with no actual changes seen in multiple centuries as the same mistakes, contradictions and myths carry forward as "The Two Old Testaments". Yes, The Blare Blog, where what we say today might not not be true tomorrow as retrospection converts to retroaction.

Wednesday October 23, 2019 8:33 AM CDT -- Thanks for Having Me
For over ten years I've had the idea of clipping all the women's voices on many interviews that say, "Thanks for having me." This is the common response following, "Thank you for being on the program". What I thought I'd do is sprinkle these voices into one of my Blare OnAir shows and say something like, "There are many women in the building today for the KDX CheerLeader Tryouts." Point is we'd use these women without their consent to portray a salacious suggestion that Carl has naughty understandings with the applicants. Just like Donald Trump's beauty pageants. Well, we've never done it, that is, never clipped all the voices, so it's only been improper locker-room talk on our part but isn't it so typically male to have such an idea. It's so Al Franken. Look, we didn't do it, aren't going to do it, and perhaps our only real mistake is to blab it in the Blog.

Wednesday October 23, 2019 8:25 AM CDT -- Take Your Time
We tend to notice time when it disagrees with our plans. When it's "time to get up" we hate the alarm clock or drill-sargent who interfered with the best sleep we've ever had, but the real blame belongs to time. Prisoners on death row hope they die before a certain day when they'll be put to death, so time acts as an executioner. It annoys me that you can't corner time and tell it to mind its own business.

Wednesday October 23, 2019 7:23 AM CDT -- Radio People
You could call radio people a special breed, but they're not always well bred. Aside from that we were wondering how many categories of radio people there are. Let's have a hack at it this morning: first, there are people currently employed in the radio business, referring to those paid to do a radio job. Radio jobs break down into several sub-categories including management, off-air staff, on-air staff, and technical staff. We intentionally give technical staff its own category because they are definitely in a world of their own. Perhaps most important are those among us capable of doing mixtures of these jobs, like a program director/morning host/engineer. The important question becomes: is he (or she) paid for all three functions? Usually not. And if he/she begins to resent doing three jobs for the price of one his/her days will be numbered. Usually non-air staff could work anywhere in any kind of occupation, like secretaries and bookkeepers. Announcers are usually stranded and have no other skills. What sets radio apart from other fields is the tendency of many to love it so much they'll work free as volunteers or hobbyists or even fanatic listeners who DX¹ by collecting radios and keeping lists of stations heard on them. If radio people belong to any general genus it would be a hybrid of geek, distinct by a startling tendency of speaking uber confidently in the presence of a microphone but wilting entirely from lay society.

¹DX - listening to the distance.

Tuesday October 22, 2019 7:30 PM CDT -- Brain Freezer
SMA type connectors used on Wi-Fi equipment seem straight-forward enough until trying to grasp the variations available on some devices. If you can recite back a clear explanation of the SMA specifications you will be considered as smart as a geek or even a nerd..

Tuesday October 22, 2019 5:01 PM CDT -- Artless Deal

Tuesday October 22, 2018 6:17 AM CDT -- Proposed New Holiday

October 22, 2019 - The Day After the Canadian Elections Day.

Good news.  The newly formed Peoples Party (the equivalent of the
Republicans under Trump - proponents of hate, white nationalism, etc.)
won no seats, and got under 2% of the popular vote.  It's somewhat
disturbing that they got even 2% but unfortunately there are always
yahoos in every crowd.

Our politics are quite different here in Canada.  The Progressive
Conservatives are the equivalent of moderate/left wing Republicans
(prior to Trump) a la John McCain.  The various factions of the
Democrats are represented, from moderate to progressive, in the
Liberals, New Democratic Party and Greens (not entirely accurate, but
close enough).  There's an outlier Bloc Quebecois party that focuses on
Quebec, but they too are fairly progressive (i.e., promoting climate
change action, etc.).

The results ended with a minority Liberal government, which means that
they will have to garner the support of at least one of the more leftist
parties to govern.  Pretty much all have stated beforehand that climate
change action would be a prerequisite for that support.

So, all in all, an encouraging result, and reason to celebrate. Minority
governments don't allow the ruling party to run roughshod over the
people (and call the consitution "phony").  Now if only you can get rid
of that Trump guy and his Republican brown-nosers.

Artisan Radio

Sunday October 20, 2019 8:05 PM CDT -- The Difference between "r" and "t"
Having looked up everything else I sifted through several reports about the health benefits of beer. One was particularly interesting until I realized I was reading the health benefits of beets.

Sunday October 20, 2019 7:05 PM CDT -- A Spectrum View of Our Wi-Fi Audio Transmitter

Sunday October 20, 2019 6:48 PM CDT -- Out of Context Sunday
As the Deutsche Welle Festival Concert brings great concert music to the KDX listening audience we are here in the control booth reading again from Schopenhauer as we have for the past 20-years. Previously quotable material shared from the greater whole of these writings made sense within themselves in the sense that a brick is a logical part of a wall and is both a brick in its own right yet no different from the general class "brick" comprised of all bricks, not only the ones used in a particular building. Be that as it may I thought it might be interesting to quote a line that does not stand on its own nor relate in any obvious way to the surrounding text which goes unquoted. Here it is:


Sunday October 20, 2019 4:20 PM CDT -- The Small and Large Loop Antenna
This is the best toot (tutorial) we have seen on the subject.

Sunday October 20, 2019 9:49 AM CDT -- The Psychology of Skycology
Station runners, that is, people who run radio stations, are well served having some awareness of the psychology that drives their listeners. We don't know most of them personally (listeners), but according to the famed psychologist C. J. Jung all listeners share a "collective unconscious" and of course if they are unconscious of it how could we ever hope to be cognizant about it? Yet they do have collections, and some of them collect radios and happen upon our frequencies when they dial and it's those happenstance encounters when we've got to have our prime program moments so they stay tuned while we bask in the delight of being heard. Do I sound good? My mother thinks I sound good.

Take this morning for example. According to a KDX poll thousands of them (listening public) skip church on Sunday and that's why we air The Hour of Slack, a program that speaks the language of avoidance and gives home-stayers a cuddly sense that they are not alone and unlike the dreadful sermons going on at church, the jibber jabber on Hour of Slack does not hold attention whatsoever being more like a barely audible conversation somewhere else in a different room. You can think over the top of it, make phone calls over it, watch TV, surf the internet, or hover half asleep in the quilts. Guiltlessly.

God is in the sky, and so is radio. Paying homage to radio just happens to be more enjoyable than listening to the peculiar "word of god" spoken from the pulpit by a closeted gay man.

Oh, I shouldn't have said that. He's not closeted.

Sunday October 20, 2019 6:34 AM CDT -- A Quiet Morning
Nights are very silent in our town, an achievement, really, when you consider the noisyness being delivered in many other places by air attacks employing equipment manufactured by neighbors working for the armaments factories just past the city limits. The quiet contributes to clear thinking, and on the subject of loopstick antennas for RF transmission, we were wromg to consider it for the obvious fact that warming of the ferrite rod represents signal strength being wasted as heat. As a wise YouTube presenter said, the loopstick is a one-way device; it will recieve radio signals but not transmit them. The guy who claimed that radio antennas are reciprocal, able to send or receive in equal degree, was in error when it comes to the ferrite stick antenna.

Saturday October 19, 2019 1:33 PM CDT -- The Shallow Mystery Theatre
Have you noticed that when you toss a used tissue toward the waste basket with dead-center aim the tissue changes course at the last possible second and lands 1-foot outside the basket. To this day science is unable to explain why.

Saturday October 19, 2019 10:49 AM CDT -- However
Happy as we are streaming with our OPUS Codec, we have even fewer rare listeners than we had with OGG-VORBIS. The fact that we don't care whether anyone listens gives us the motivation to go on with it. Radio station KDX represents a perfect world in which every home would have its own radio station and programmers would therefore depend on acceptance by each and every individual station owner thus preventing any entity from becoming centrally monopolistic, plus it would save a lot on electricity. We only run the stream because of a childlike fascination over the fact that it's possible to do so and the self-important sensation of telling people we own an international radio station, except we avoid telling anyone here in town that KDX is atheistic because we don't want to attract Christian arsonists. At the end of the day, at the end of everyday, really, we cannot deny that radio has gone the way of books; people don't read books anymore nor do they listen to radio. I might be drifting at this point owing to all the coffee, not a bad transition to mention "Radio Books", a forthcoming overnight program starting soon bringing book readings from classical literature, a blending of radio and books. Minus listeners.

Saturday October 19, 2019 10:25 AM CDT -- Windows 7 and the World Are Ending
Microsoft hand-delivered the warning: Support for Windows 7 Comes to An End  January 14, 2020. If you value existence in this world we advise migrating to Windows 10 AND... yes, there is further trouble ahead... "We suggest you ditch your computer and buy a new one!" At this point I step down from the pulpit and hand the microphone to a Guest Blogger who could be you! Submit an essay of any length on the subject of "Microsoft Deserves Being Soft and Dangly for What They've Done to Human Kind", or anything of your chosing, except make it angry and mean. Hatred is an undeniable force and any mention of "Windows" is a trigger word. They took our mental health! Microsoft - Maker of Operating Systems That Die Like Dogs and Just As Often!

Saturday October 19, 2019 8:29 AM CDT -- Counting Stooges
Life was simpler when we only had Three Stooges. Now, with the Trump Regime, we've lost count of how many stooges there are.

Saturday October 19, 2019 6:03 AM CDT -- Yesterday was Friday
We didn't blog (Friday) because of being occupied with other biz, including comparative tests involving stream formats, with KDX-OPUS, KDX-MP3 and KDX-AAC running side by side by side streaming worldly. Our findings are admittedly subjective, but the OPUS codec seemed to sound distinctly better than MP3 for the same load on the system, and AAC wasn't as good on voice but seemed fine for music. We'll do it all again sometime with maybe some frequency tones to observe response on a meter for that scientific sense.

Every Friday we hear an episode of Blare OnAir and yesterday's show from 2010 brought to mind a classic problem that digital corrective software still hasn't solved, namely that of inherent distortion in an audiofile, which was the case with this show, otherwise it was one we'd like to salvage even if it means re-doing. Audio editing software does offer clip-fixing, which was applied and did some good. The problem stems from the microphone-building experiments we were conducting back at that time.

Also put to inspection was this website's HTML Code, which, in our effort to keep it simple and uncluttered, has gotten complex to the point where various HTML errors have been detected, to be systematically corrected probably by 2027.

Not to mention our recent interest in connecting a Software Defined Radio (SDR) for site visitors to utilize for sampling our local radio reception, making us the only such resource in this part of the continent. Along with it we're compiling a list of north american SDR websites giving an alternate way, other than direct web streams, to tap other locations for news reports. To better demonstrate what we're talking about, here's an SDR located at Sunnyvale, California near San Francisco.

Thursday October 17, 2019 6:10 PM CDT -- Waking Up Getting Smart
People dropping religious affiliation.

Thursday October 17, 2019 5:11 PM CDT -- School Radio
In the early years educational radio was developed as a teaching tool with classrooms tuned in by a radio sitting on the teacher's desk and accompanying notebooks handed out and collected by teachers. It was a first attempt to eliminate teachers so that people like Betsy DeVout could plunder the financial resources of school systems. Teachers won that battle by wrenching control away from the radio and using their training to provide in-person teaching. Educational stations began shutting down, but there's always a new scheme and today we have so-called "public radio" which ignores the fact that every radio station is a public station, and the self-proclaimed "public stations" mark their ground by virtue of being "non-commercial" using endless begging and panhandling to solicit donations so as to keep them publically non-commercial. A conformist style applied to these stations is the pinacle of gentrification and the particular stilted manner of public radio announcers foresignals the robots destined to replace them. At the same time a few LPFM school stations have materialized under the false concept of "training" students for radio, but students already know how to play CDs and the announcements they give are no more than public address announcements sent to a limited area under the impossible notion that listeners care whatsoever about students playing music and talking. We've entered a time when lack of education is reflected by school radio.

Thursday October 17, 2019 4:58 PM CDT -- Wild Ferrite in the Mulch Pile
In the process of imagining an antenna for the forthcoming SDR (Software Defined Radio) we spent a day researching loops and now turn to the ferrite bar antenna nominally called a "loopstick", and as thoughts have transfigured it comes to mind that maybe, perhaps, possibly, a ferrite bar loop antenna could be used for transmission? Just hear me out. We know that strong RF can heat a ferrite bar and they can't withstand too much heating, but in the case of part 15 radio the energy would be very small and it just might slide by. Why, you ask? And we smile with this good answer: compactness. Ya. The ordinary part 15 AM transmitter requires a 10-foot pole and buried ground radials which can be cumbersome if the ensemble is moved around. A small package might give the hobby the boost nothing else has.

Another potential application for a ferrite antenna, assuming it could withstand 1-Watt, would be for the output of a long wave transmitter in lieu of a 50-foot vertical tower.

Thursday October 17, 2019 1:44 PM CDT -- WBAI New York Hot Potato
Keep it. Sell it. Hold On. Refuse to hold on. I say so. No you don't, I do.

Thursday October 17, 2019 10:05 AM CST -- The Devoiding of Education
As Secretary of Education Betsy DeVout plans to introduce the Kingdom of God through Charter Schools owned by rich money-makers as part of the master plan to convert America from a Democratic Republic to a Christian Theocracy, she serves as exemplar of the wealthy ignorant being above the impoverished intellectual.

Thursday October 16, 2019 9:55 AM CDT -- Large Cache of Low Power Radio Resources

Wednesday October 16, 2019 2:05 PM CDT -- About Bosses
We've all had bosses and some of us have been bosses. Over the years I cannot think of one bad boss I've ever had but the same thing can't be said for a few assistant bosses. It's likely that Bosses Day was invented as a time to pay homage to current bosses but why not let old bosses know you remember? Some husbands kiddingly refer to "the mrs." as the nominal boss of the household and Christian men labor under the delusion that the male rules the family. There are tricks of the boss trade such as having the largest door and biggest desk in the office and bosses are free to come and go while executive secretaries maintain order.

Wednesday October 16, 2019 11:52 AM CDT -- The Very Definition of Beauty

Wednesday October 16, 2019 11:26 AM CDT -- Getting in the Loop
The search is on for a loop antenna suitable for reception of the AM and SW bands by SDR. Please include recommendations along with your donation in the amount of $100 or more.

Wednesday October 16, 2019 11:07 AM CDT -- Out of Phase Material
Audio for radio is often produced in stereo even when destined for broadcast on mono radio stations. In the ideal situation the left and right stereo channels mix into what is called an L+R mono signal which reproduces clearly at full level on mono radios. But, if left and right channels of stereo audio are in opposite phase they will cancel on the mono feed and be nearly inaudible. A trickier incident occurs when only some of a stereo program contains out of phase material and this has happened recently in several programs carried on KDX. The result is that the out of phase material sounds far away and is not heard at the level intended by the producer. To avoid this we recommend that producers check their audio by listening to an L+R mix on a mono speaker, otherwise the error is not evident when listening only in stereo.

Wednesday October 16, 2019 8:35 AM CDT -- Societal Criticism

Wednesday October 16, 2019 7:39 AM CDT -- Fog Has Cleared and We See SDR in Our Future
On first turning attention to the curious business of Software Defined Radio (SDR) we (those of me here at KDX) became increasingly baffled because there's so much happening in this field, but all at once we see a clear path ahead and have a plan in place. A conversation yesterday with Brooce at the Monitoring Station, recent adopter of a SDR Play RSP1A, brought our notice to this modestly priced device which covers almost all the bands we want, and this morning's viewing of the linked video from SevenFortyOneChannel, also in Hartford, which nicely demonstrates the device together with its supplied software "SDR Uno", the last question becomes a matter of antenna choice to make it all materialize, and we imagine a nice loop for the lower bands and a whip for the upper.

Tuesday October 15, 2019 8:50 PM CDT -- Unfit Secretary of State
The Federal Government is Not a Church.

Tuesday October 15, 2019 6:25 PM CDT -- Reading from Page 50

Monday October 14, 2019 6:16 PM CDT -- Another Batch of SDR's in the World & Other Related Info
Not too many SDR listening stations found in the U.S.

Monday October 14, 2019 4:41 PM CDT -- Why the Hats are Red
Trump MAGA hats are red so they'll match the necks.

Monday October 14, 2019 2:05 PM CDT -- As Long As We're At It
Columbus Day is on the way out and while we're cleaning the calendar let's dump "Daylight Wasting Time", which, if you haven't been paying attention, comes up in a few weeks when we "fall back" one-hour. Our free calendar from the local municipality lists both changes during the year as "Daylight Time" which has us unsure which is actually Standard Time, the time it'd be if we stopped messing with the clock. Oh, and let's definitely count impeachment among our batch of cleanups.

Monday October 14, 2019 12:17 NOON CDT -- Two Events Added to the Calendar
KDX-OGG will be closing at the end of the day replaced by KDX-OPUS;
Tomorrow is Global Handwashing Day and The Blog will be Open.

Monday October 14, 2019 11:59 AM CDT -- Fiddling with Minutia
What's the point of saying "News, Talk"? What I mean is, isn't news on radio a matter of "talk"? It's all talk. So why say "news" along with talk? Or, since humans are by nature "story tellers", we could say something like that..... Genre: Stories.

Monday October 14, 2019 9:55 AM CDT -- Defend This
A video depicting Trump mass-murdering his enemies was shown to his supporters at a Trump Miami resort.

Monday October 14, 2019 9:40 PM CST -- Worm in a Colander of Spaghetti
This is how it will all end.

Monday October 14, 2019 6:04 AM CDT -- KDX-OPUS is Streaming Today
Streaming radio on the internet offers several format options and each has its features and limits. MP3 and AAC+ are currently most common of the formats and OGG together with OPUS are being seen more often. KDX Worldround Radio is equipped to stream in any of the formats but has opted for OGG (officially OGG-VORBIS), an open source format supplied by the makers of the Icecast server, because of the nifty Audio Player generated as part of the stream. The same is true of OPUS, which is the most recent evolution of OGG, except that OPUS does not so far generate a "Currently Playing" description as do all the others. The benefit of OPUS, we are making an educated guess, is probably that it provides quality audio at the gain of less bandwidth. The same is true of AAC+ compared to MP3. Anyway, our question of the day, as we consider the OPUS format, is this: how important is the "Currently Playing" line on the directory listings for our station? A perusal of a thousand other stations shows song titles as "currently playing", with astounding repitition as Michael Jackson, Linda Ronstadt, Queen, Duran Duran, Dave Clark Five, the Viscounts, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Taylor Swift, Marty Robbins, Fleetwood Mac, Katy Perry, Billie Ellish, Paula Abdul, Dusty Springfield, Patti Smith, Rolling Stones, Steve Miller Band, Joe Cocker, Cher, David Cassidy, Alice Cooper, Carly Simon and so on, while KDX is always "currently playing" news and talk, which is mentioned in the "Genre" category. So there's the answer. KDX doesn't really need a "Currently Playing" line attached to our radio stream. This has been a very efficient morning with one project out of the way. OPUS it is! Bye bye OGG.

Sunday October 13, 2019 8:18 PM CDT -- The FCC Podcast

Sunday Ocrober 13, 2019 1:25 PM CDT -- SDR Feedback

Hi Uncle Carl!

I notice from your blog that you are thinking about trying an SDRPlay RSP-1A. Well- that's what I just bought!

I am having problems - but they have nothing to do with the RSP-1A.  The problems are due to a separate hardware issue.
More comments to follow. Very Best Wishes - Brooce

Sunday October 13, 2019 1:21 PM CDT -- Spain Received on Medium Wave in Connecticut
From the Monitoring Station -

Spain - 684 kHz heard inside the house on Sony portable radio.

Sunday October 13, 2019 8:17 AM CDT -- SDR Today
Following the SDR trail we are right now looking at the SDR Play RSP1A with frequency range 1kHz to 2 GHz.

Saturday October 12, 2019 2:21 PM CDT -- Slowing Enthusiasm
Becoming inspired to install an SDR Listener Access Point on this website we went right to work scrolling lists of available devices built to our specifications only to find them well outside of our price range. The prices range from $1,515.00 to $73,500.00. Not wanting to reveal too much about KDX's financial position, that's too costly for a hobby that lacks earning power. In round 2 of our engineering study we'll use our agreeable (much lower) price range as the target and determine how much bang the buck will support. Our ideal was based on a frequency range of DC to 6 GHz so every one of our low power transmitters could be observed by visitors, from long wave to Wi-Fi.

Saturday October 11, 2019 9:56 AM CDT -- Software-Defined Radios and Antennas

Saturday October 12, 2019 8:12 AM CDT --  Server Too Shy to Ask
The word "server" is bandied about in computer circles but not eveyone is in the loop and are shy about asking "What is a server?" Everyone is pre-conditioned to expect a server to be something of a waiter, one who serves tables without hesitation, a slight contradiction if the server waits. Occupational misunderstandings put waiters in charge of waiting rooms but today we have all these servers online with varying degrees of latency, a modern word for waiting, no longer at the table but at work stations. KDX is a radio station generated from servers at a work station, and radio is Carl's station in life, so who better to offer the inside scooper. Here goes. A "server" can be an item of hardware called a server, or hardware called a computer functioning as a server, or software alone acting as a virtual server within computer hardware of either kind. And that's all there is to it.

Friday October 11, 2019 4:23 PM CDT -- Citizens Band Report
Brooce has the floor -

Uncle Carl:
Friday October 11, 2019 3:10 PM CDT -- AooRAaSD
The earlier post on SDR is stirring thoughts which brings us to recognize that all of our radio activities are "software defined". Take KDX Worldround Radio, consisting entirely of radio defining software strung together in a chain.  It suddenly comes to mind that we could install a SDR, give it a stream and enable anyone anywhere to tune the dial at this immediate location to hear KDX right from our air signals! That might be more exciting than just the ordinary stream link which lacks the artifacts of listening to the radio spectrum: such things as lightning crackles on the AM band and the swish and fizz tuning from station to station on FM. Ok then, it's a deal, sign here! We've got some shopping to do.

Friday October 11, 2019 2:51 PM CDT -- The World by SDR
We'll be paying more attention to software-defined radios (SDRs) which have recently become another radio related side-hobby. In fact Bruce recently added SDR capabilities to his Monitoring Station in Connecticut and will be making steady reports. To briefly describe what it's all about, an SDR consists of a physical device that connects to a computer and is operated by software making it a radio receiver across a wide range of bands and can be used for listening or observing waveforms as a spectrum analyzer. An offshoot of the SDR is that it can be rigged to a remotely accessed stream and controlled from anywhere in the world, which has made way for SDR sites springing up everywhere. From here in the midwaste, for example, I'm able to locate SDR sites in Europe, Iceland, anywhere, and get this... the visitor is able to tune around on the far off SDR on a band of choice! One can DX from afar!

Thursday October 10, 2019 6:05 PM CDT -- Nietzsche (pronounced : Nee'-tchee, or, some say: Nee'-tchah)

We have much of the Nietzsche book collection here at KDX, and right now are focused on Book 3 of "The World As Will and Idea" by Arthur Schopenhauer, another philosopher mentioned in this link. Without writing my own New Yorker submission I'll cut this off by recalling two things from Nietzsche that come to mind: he said that priests are parasites and he recommends that surplus people voluntarily die.

Thursday October 10, 2019 1:38 PM CDT -- Let's Not Forget the Q
My micro-essay yesterday on LGBT inadvertantly left out the "Q", which stands for "queer". So let's include the Q but puzzle renewedly over the whole gender identification structure; it doesn't hold up. Not only does the expression LGBTQ leave out several categories but it's entirely based on a binary foundation of two biological genders; genders which vary from a standard quite clearly defined by that set capable of biological reproduction. Any achievable combination is "natural" so long as it is physiologically possible and given that other species have been found to exhibit similar behavior with some statistical frequency. Therefore "LGBQ" are not genders but merely deviations from an a priori biologically pre-established foundation, where "T" is not a gender so much as it is a leap from one gender to the other, and "Q" is a redundancy because it can apply to any of the foregoing classes and is nothing but slang. Influences of religion and short-circuited thinking have reduced our species to incoherent babbling which is widely accepted as "close enough" if done politely.

Thursday October 10, 2019 1:29 PM CDT -- Wayback Machine

Wednesday October 9, 2019 5:01 PM CDT -- Vintage Technology
Historic computer systems still working - from Artisan Radio:

You probably are aware of this, but I thought I'd drop you a line in
case you aren't.

This is an invaluable resource if you ware looking for old software
downloads (whose links exist but are now broken).  I recently purchased
a Mac Powerbook G4 (PowerPC architecture) at a thrift store just to play
around with it.  There was, at least, plenty of radio and music oriented
software available for it at the time (circa 2005).

Amazingly, there's still an active community of PowerPC users and
developers that are keeping this thing alive (including modern browsers,
e-mail clients, etc.).  I also managed to find and download a lot of
radio software, but some just didn't exist any more.  That's where I
went to the Wayback Machine, and managed to find (and download)
everything I wanted.

The Powerbook I have (1.67 Ghz PowerPC, single core, 512MB RAM, 80GB
HDD, DVD superdrive) holds up pretty well even today with this
software.  The lack of memory is the single biggest detriment, and I'm
going to upgrade to 2GB (the maximum) - it takes PC2700 DDR - the
machine bogs down with multiple tasks.

One thing Apple did right was making the interface easy to use for those
that don't have a lot of computer experience (i.e., they want to use the
computer as a tool only, and don't care about the intrinsic nature of
that tool).  Software installation is exceptionally easy and it either
works, or doesn't (none of those 'almost working' issues that you get on
a Windows PC).

I'm not sure I'll do anything with the laptop once I'm finished, but I
sure am having fun with it.  Including the Wayback Machine.
- Artisan Radio

There are probably many stories of how this vintage computer hard/software were used by radio stations.

Wednesday October 9, 2019 9:57 AM CDT -- There Should Be a Name for People Who Stay with Their Biological Birth Gender
Some say it's the plastics others blame dairy products but switching genders has, regardless of underlying cause, become a fashion trend leading to complicated identity issues. Gay pride, for example, is all about public exhibition over "coming out" but is not exactly the same as changing gender sometimes referred to as "the change". Neither of them is the same as transvestitism which involves being one gender but play acting another. Categories are expressed in shorthand as LGBT which means "lesbian, gay, bi and trans, but I don't see the non-changed mentioned in that collective. Certainly the rush to pick and change going on all round causes one to give a moment's thought to the matter and there are plenty who elect to remain put with the gender on the birth certificate but we are acronym excluded. We can't say "N" for normal because it's normal to be whatever one decides to be; sometimes they say "straight" but that's an expressional preference rather than a gender; "O" for original might be misunderstood as a claim to being unique when all we mean is "the way it was". Without labels and descriptives we have no identity. How can we ever have a parade?

Wednesday October 9, 2019 7:53 AM CDT - Moat Science
The committee appointed by Trump to explore the idea of a 2,000-mile moat on the southern border filled with snakes and aligators has uncovered a snag in the the fact that aligators eat snakes and snakes, in turn, eat baby aligators. Trump's response when informed of this impasse was to yell, "I DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE PROBLEMS ARE! ONLY COME TO ME IF YOU HAVE SOLUTIONS! JARED WOULD KNOW WHAT TO DO!"

Wednesday October 9, 2019 7:32 AM CDT - Do They Even Exist?
We've talked about the shortage of rational talk radio stations on the two streaming directories where KDX is listed and we've mentioned that KDX, our rational talk station, receives no attention by listeners on these directories. But as we've learned more about it we now realize that listeners attributed to so many of the music stations listed on these directories might be finding the stations on any number of other directories, because no matter how many directories list a given station, every listener to that station gets counted across all the directories and it may be impossible to know which directory the listener started from. With all this we've become informed that there are many more radio directories than we knew and while we fret over stream listeners it is reported that the internet audience favors podcasts which come as singular downloads and not by way of stream. Conscious curiosity comes to ask - do stream listeners actually exist?

Tuesday October 8, 2019 3:13 PM CDT - Leave the Leaves
Please turn off the noisy gasoline powered leaf blower and keep the rakes racked.

Monday October 7, 2019 10:28 PM CDT -- TR-33 Walkie No Talkie
Message from Brooce -


Brooce, if you ask me I think it's a capacitor problem, so I hope you ask me.

Monday October 7, 2019 10:21 PM CDT -- Mischke Introduces a Second Show
On the 115th Mischke Roadshow on KDX this afternoon we learned of a second program starting soon called "For the Sake of the Songs" in which Tommy D.Mischke and other musicians will discuss music in depth. We've already heard an example of what's to come and it's tremendous and will be added to the KDX program lineup.

Monday October 7, 2019 7:03 PM CDT -- The Next Designated Blare Blog Holiday
We will be Open Thursday October 10th for Julia Sweeney Day.

Monday October 5, 2019 1:44 PM CDT -- The Question Gets Asked
Are there ghouls in human society? Well, I don't know, but it reminds me of someone.

Monday October 7, 2019 11:53 AM CDT -- Double More Music
So, you're packing in as much "more Music" as you think you can, but that's only what you think. These guys have found a way to mega-cram the music for more more!

Monday October 7, 2019 10:59 AM CDT -- Think Again
Being a fair critic requires being self critical, and now would be a good time. I've been too harsh with music broadcasters in low power and streaming radio, framing them as providing too much of an over-supplied genre in a world short on intelligent news/talk radio. This outlook grows out of experience on the Icecast and Steamcast Directories where KDX is the lone such news/talk station amid a sea of music. My rationale for explaining why next to no listeners find KDX as their station of choice is to assume the unserved listeners gave up and don't look on these directories. I'm probably right, but the thing wrong about my prejudice is that low power radio offers the penultimate in free choice and the real significance is the great number of stations exercising their freedom to broadcast. If a different reality put us in a world filled with intelligent talk stations we might feel unnecessary owing to gross redundance, so perhaps we enjoy the distinction of being in the ideal position of as one of a kind. That works for me, we can stop thinking now.

Monday October 7, 2019 8:21 AM CDT -- Mainly Global
KDX Worldround Radio, your friendly Blogger, is an International Broadcasting Station and as such generally declines to report on local media events happening within a few miles of our Internet Building here in the Mid Mississippi River Valley, however the tumolt presently happening across our hometown radio dial deserves some mention. After reading in Radio Ink Magazine that two local stations had been purchased, we tuned in to one of them and heard that after many years the hometown religious format has given way to yet another conservative lineup of hate programs. On Sunday we made note that the station gave the proper FCC ID on the hour for its AM but failed to mention the FM translator. This morning both frequencies were ID'ed 15-minutes past the hour, then the station went silent for several minutes until a phoneline-quality feed was potted up. We guess they are trying to rig the automation system so no attendent is required. Large stations are now being run like home hobby stations.

Monday October 7, 2019 8:12 AM -- Domestic Animals
The American Veterinary Association has a Podcast

Sunday October 6, 2019 6:05 PM CDT -- Two Failed Attempts to Break Into CB Radio and One Last Plan
In the time when it was required to apply for a CB license I did so, purchased a table-model CB transceiver, brand forgotten, a large ground plane antenna with some poles for mounting, and showed potential tower climbing skills by climbing out of our third story window, easing along a skimpy edge and got the antenna neatly placed at the rear corner. But before the cable got connected to the radio I was hired by the FM station and spent all my time there.

Years went by and I found myself in a gated community of people who were always concerned about lesser people living outside the gate. At a neighborhood gathering I proposed the idea of a neighborhood CB watch where we could monitor a selected channel , communicate with each other, and send alerts so we'd be like a well organized mob. They all looked at me like I was a trailer-park escapee who didn't belong. Maybe they had a poor attitude about CB radio and felt it didn't behoove their class. The idea was snubbed.

Now, in this third lifetime, I have a CB radio donated by a friend and envision installing it in the KDX control room for purposes that can be dreamed up later. Having several communications radios that tune CB channels I've heard nothing locally, even living 1,000 feet from a major interstate, but one afternoon got skip from Arkansas and California by unemployed clowns.

If Aijet knew of a way to generate cash with the CB band it would be gone.

Sunday October 6, 2019 4:38 PM CDT -- Broadcasts That Interrupt Broadcasts

Hi Carl Bloge,

I see your Situational Alert, you need a good message with a tone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YRHAro1iTE

I heard the jingle test used in the 'audio art' group Negativland's It's All In Your Head project about religion, done like a radio broadcast day.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=negativland+it%27s+all+in+your+head

The album version is the one my station plays, and the best to get an idea of what this project is about.

Boomer

The Situational Alert has come true! It's NOT not all in your head! It IS all in your head, full stop, period, end of story!
Wait. I got that wrong. Don't keep confusing me! Here's what I was trying to say: it is all in our head, yes. But it is also everywhere else, including NOT in our head. It is OUT of our head as much as in. And there are two things wrong with this shirt... one, it's not in my color, and two, the way the arms are criss-crossed and buckled I can't use my hands!

Sunday October 6, 2019 9:38 AM CDT -- SITUATIONAL ALERT!!
IT HAS COME TO OUR ATTENTION THAT WE MAY BE AT HAZARD STATUS BUT ONLY YOU WHO READ THIS ALERT KNOW ABOUT IT AT THIS TIME! OTHERS MUST BE NOTIFIED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE TO MINIMIZE POSSIBLE OUTCOMES! YOU ARE ASKED TO USE ALL COMMUNICATION CHANNELS AVAILABLE TO YOU TO NOTIFY EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT LIST OF THIS IMPENDING SITUATION! TELL THEM TO STAY ON THE LINE AND STAND BY FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS! IT MAY ONLY HAVE BEEN A DREAM THAT NOTIFIED US ABOUT THIS BUT WE CAN"T PLAY GUESSING GAMES WITH SO MUCH AT STAKE! PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT ME BECAUSE I AM BUSY NOTIFYING OTHERS! WAIT A MINUTE ... THE ALL CLEAR HAS BEEN SOUNDED! BE SURE TO NOTIFY EVERYONE THAT WE ARE NOT UNDER EMERGENCY STATUS! I REPEAT...

Sunday October 6, 2019 7:02 AM CDT -- Very Stable Reptile
"Don't knock the 2,000 mile moat idea!", says group radio owner Carl Blare in pre-dawn news conference.
A 2,000 mile moat on the southern border of the Homelant would do much for employment and the economy.  Thousands of zoo keepers, a boost to the farming of otherwise endangered aligators and snakes, water-trench management, hundreds of thousands of special trained guards to keep the reptiles from crawling out of the moat, care and feeding of the millions of lethal beasts, it all translates to a new industry larger in scale than the space force. KDX totally endorses The Moat and believes refugees and immigrants would be better off as snack food given the odds stacked against them by pro-lifers.

Saturday October 5, 2019 5:06 PM CDT -- How to Get a QSL Card from KDX
1.) Get a postcard from the post office or standard index card. Using a crayon, make big block letters "KDX";
2.) Using a sharpie in smaller letters write Frequency: jot down the frequency of reception;
3.) Write the date and time of day;
4.) Sign and mail to self.

Saturday October 5, 2019 4:57 PM CDT -- QSL Must Mean Something
I mean, the letters have got to stand for something, and they do: Or, it does:

Saturday October 5, 2019 3:19 PM CDT --More CB Radio, QSLs and TV Shows

Incoming Blab from Boomer:

Hi Carb,

I liked CB radio a lot, and was into it during the craze, when everything was CB, trucking, and it was a fad, and CBs were featured plot lines in sitcoms, and newspapers carried CB columns. There were lots of radios and antennas to look at and choose from and Radio Shack had a dozen models of walkie talkie.

It was a nice time, normal people were given the power to talk on the radio for miles, without having to be tech nerds, reading their meaters to tell people they are coming in 20 pounds over.

I like the times when CB was a hobbyist movement, not yet a fad, and QSL cards were popular. This page has some great ones.

https://cardboardamerica.org/2016/10/11/an-introduction-to-qsl/

Here's an episode of the TV show Good Times, "Breaker Breaker" that features CB during the fad years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK-M3nF-KvE

I like how they set it up, just place the radio on a table and start talking, not like the real crowd who would worry about their SWR first. Breaker 15 for a radio check.

I broadcast on CB, playing music tapes, but it was just an experiment. I heard stories of people who really did use CB for broadcasting and to be DJs. Now that would be an obscure form of broadcast radio, and did anyone write articles about CB broadcasters. Did they send out QSL cards, or did any move on to professional radio?

Boom

I understand. #METOO have some CB memories: two fails, actually, but I knew what I was doing but others didn't; know what I was doing or they were doing, that is. Later over the weekend I'll write about it. Hey, a 20% chance of thunderstorm is happening!

Saturday October 5, 2019 3:00 PM CDT -- The American Museum of Tort Law
Founded by Ralph Nader, host of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour as heard on KDX.

Saturday October 5, 2019 12:11 NOON CDT -- Shorter Days Get Cooler
With nightime temperatures now touching 50-degrees F the Internet Building gets uncomfortablly cool during the overnight. To compensate we'll be keeping our web radio server online for the 1-degree of extra heat it generates. At first we'll only be testing because there'll still be upward temperature excursions until the weather dips closer to winterlike, which means we'll still be closing shop on the warmer nights. For readers of The Blog this means you'll be able to find us open on cold nights and we'll even be streaming radio programs good for extra school credit.

Saturday October 5, 2019 8:11 AM CDT -- What is a Tort?

Saturday October 5, 2019 7:22 AM CDT -- Morning Sign On Over a Cup of Coffee
This week as normal programming (normal?) has gone out over streaming radio station KDX-OGG we've been here in the background where the keyboard is kept trying to solve an apparant technical mystery which turns out not to exist. It began last weekend when we downloaded a stereophonic demonstration record from 1960, from when stereo LP records were introduced, but when played on the air the right channel was absent sparking a week long inquiry as to why. Many hardware and software measurements were examined finding nothing to explain the perceived channel loss, until we "racked up" the audiofile to observe that the 2-channel recording contained left channel information on both channels and no right channel information. The explanation turned out to be that Archive.org, in their state-of-the-art audio digitizing laboratory had somehow screwed up, making us grateful it wasn't our boo-boo. It's always reassuring to discover that mistakes are those of someone else.

Saturday October 5, 2019 7:15 AM CDT -- Would Be Moments
They thought I was a white collar criminal but I wasn't wearing a white collar at the time.
I was going to blow the whistle on them but couldn't find the whistle.
That still doesn't explain what "Tort Law" is. Come back later.

Friday October 4, 2019 1:02 PM CDT -- Aboard the Starseed Enterprise

Friday October 4, 2019 9:38 AM CDT -- National Lampoon Radio Hour is Back

Friday October 4, 2019 9:20 AM CDT -- FCC Commissioner Has Podcast

Friday October 4, 2019 8:45 AM CDT -- Boomer Babies and Blog Blabs
Getting set up for today's programs on KDX Worldround Radio, I was just choosing a "Blare OnAir" program to air at 4 PM as every Friday, and heard myself in 2014 trying to say "baby boomer" but accidentally saying "Bobby Boomer", then blabbed on about what a good DJ name that would be. Hearing that, I made a mental association with our correspondent "Boomer" and thought he'd find it amusing that my mistake turns out to be the memorable part of that show.

Friday October 4, 2019 8:08 AM CDT -- Knight-Kitten CB Walkie-Talkie

This Knight KG-4000 walkie-talkie is my favorite. I've never owned one, but even today I think it looks awesomely styled and not dated that much, and better than the square steel boxes on others at the time.

It's a high class item in my view, and 1 watt of carrier power on transmit seems state of the art in 1963. It better be a good unit at $59.95.. I just checked an Inflation Calculator on line, and it would be like paying $502 dollars today!

That means the Knight-Kit AM broadcaster 'phono oscillators' that all kids had back then, at around $12, would be like paying $100 today, so no wonder why people talk about saving their paper-boy salaries for a long time to buy one of those back then.

The term 'walkie-talkie' always sounded like a 'kiddie' term, so I know that others sometimes use handi-talkie today. Walkie-talkie sounds like something a 1950s DJ would come up with.

-------

Aside: Thanks for the scans of the three old Knight broadcaster manuals you sent as PDFs earlier this year, they've been good to study.

Boomer

I think we'll call a handheld wireless microphone a handie-holdie.

Friday October 4, 2019 8:02 AM CDT -- Addition to Previous Message

The TRC-33 also had selectable squelch and battery level indicator

Brooce

Those are important features and I especially sometime would like to talk more about "squelch" as long as we were are here blogging about things.

Thursday October 3, 2019 4:05 PM CDT -- CB MUSEUM
Carl:
Thursday October 3, 2019 1:20 PM CDT -- The Broo Brewing Comapny

Pictures from my CB radio museum coming for CB day.

Broo

Thursday October 3, 2019 11:24 AM CDT -- Boomy Ricochet
Sounds like a DJ name, doesn't it? "It's the Boomy Ricochet Show", or "This is Rick Oshay with my boomy voice glancing off the mountains and hallway walls all across America!" I'm getting a little carried away with it, it stems from bending BOOMER's nickname a bit and emailing him as BOOMY, to which he promptly responded:

CB for Carl Blare. Yes, I saw another of the special secret blogs last month too, I think I visited that one, or might have waited until the weekend, but I knew it was there.

[Editor Note: the "super secret blog" refers to the Executive Key sent to Premium Members allowing fultime access to The Blog]

Seeing it more will help, I caught up with more than a week and sent a long response last time.

That's the thing, I like the experimentation, it makes one think about why a website needs to have 24 hour access, but that's the expectation, so typical that people don't even consider why. The site is automatically brought to you by an unmanned computer, for access in all time zones.

I enjoyed reading about LEDs, all on one page at the Edison Tech Center. I've been an LED believer for general lighting since the early white light LEDs came out, using blue light and phosphor, and I've bought many flashlights over the years, each brighter than the one before.

The brightest one I had in the 2000s had 21 LEDs on a flat top, and now a single chip flashlight can be brighter. I like the latest version of the Eveready flashlight with the chip deep down in the reflector, and a good rival is the Ozark Trail light for just a few dollars.

The 'Meater' I didn't see that post, but I believe it, seeing creative misspellings all the time on forums. That reminds me of a time when my radio station got a note dropped by, for the DJs to play a song by Meatallica. It made me laugh then and now.

I've always thought that Part-15 forums were mostly classrooms filled with students, learning from classmates' experiments. I learn things regularly at the forums. One thing I'd like to see more of are the projects people are working on, when they put in a new antenna or build a kit transmitter, or demos, like the video of Legacy's tunable loop antenna pulling his station in at a shopping center. Part-15 US seemed to have a lot of that when I started to follow the hobby earlier in this decade.

Maybe it's tougher now that high tech has moved into microelectronics. The bigger parts are out there, but they aren't as familiar to people now. Home assembly is also harder with small stuff, when it goes micro, then you need more specialized equipment to assemble something.

BOOMY

It's appropriate you addressed me as "CB for Carl Blare" because tomorrow is 10-4 CB Day when we think about Citizens Band Radio.

Thursday October 3, 2019 10:48 AM CDT -- Streaming Media Handbook

Wednesday October 2, 2019 5:33 PM CDT -- Talking Over the Concert
The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is spinning through a number of other works before it gets to the Dukas, and I'm probing around looking for a suitable day to declare Marriane Williamson Day. I ran across this notable quote attributed to her: "For a man to be considered ruthless he's got to bomb Cambodia. For a woman to be considered ruthless she's got to put you on hold."

Wednesday October 2, 2019 4:57 PM CDT -- Poised At the Radio
In a few minutes the weekly SymphonyCast comes on the air this time bringing for us a new work unheard in the previous career as a classical show host, the Symphony of Paul Dukas (Doo-kah). While we're waiting for the concert I'll say a few words about the composer. His "Night on Bald Mountain" is one of the handful of classical compositions known by a wide popular audience since its use in the Micky Mouse film "Fantasia", depicting spooks, witches, evil spells and the kind of fright that comes with early darkness leading toward All Hallow's Eve October 31st, when KDX celebrates Cosplay Day. What to expect in Dukas' Symphony we have no idea... oh, the RT Afternoon News is wrapping up. Go away.

Wednesday October 2, 2019 3:38 PM CDT -- Heard on Radio
Two significant changes in scientific description have not gotten the attention they deserve, except for the one program heard on KDX where it was reported that "Climate Change" is now so serious it is heretofore called "Climate Emergency". Along with that the expression "Global Warming" has become "Global Heating". No, I can't recall exactly which of our many fine programs carried this vital information, but why do so many always doubt anything Rush or Laura haven't talked about. They're paid millions of dollars to strictly avoid  global health issues while keeping their audience distracted with petty hatreds, and they obviously do a fine job. I'd like to have them come to our waiting room in the Internet Building and leave them waiting while I slip out the back door.

Wednesday October 2, 2019 1:15 PM CDT -- Still In the Planning Stage
We have talked about doing a live daily talk show on KDX-OGG, our streaming radio station, and continue to consider the idea. There are obstacles to overcome. Ok let's talk about that. Our automation system, Zara V 1.6.2 does not allow patching a live input from our microphone mixer while running on XP, presently our server's OS. We have experimentally determined a workaround by running a separate instance of Zara on the Windows 7 machine and streaming it over to the XP/Zara through the LAN, but the setup is gummy and causes operator burnout before ever getting started. That's just the 1st problem. Then comes the question of putting listeners on the air, and for this we have proven that TeamSpeak works nicely if guests are willing to install free client software, but don't you see, this expands the pre-prep (pre-preparation) to the point where postponing it becomes a leading choice. Now that we're in the middle of a paragraph bringing the whole thing up we wish we hadn't.

Wednesday October 2, 2019 1:09 PM CDT -- It Still Throws Me for a Loop
When a man says to me, "My husband handles the bills while I do the shopping (or some such)", I am so much inclined to say, "Oh, so you're a wife? In the old days I used to chase wives around. Guess I won't be getting into that kind of trouble anymore". -- Confessions and Limitations of Carl Blare - page 7.

Wednesday October 2, 2019 12:26 NOON CDT -- What Just Happened?
Moments ago I started noticing that a woman speaking on the Hartmann Program sounded exactly like Marriane Williamson and I wondered if it was suddenly tomorrow (when she was expected to appear). And it WAS/IS her! she's Thom's guest NOW! Did she show up a day early? Are Thom's staff just mixed up? After all they can't always get their stream started. None of it matters while we listen astonished as Presidential Candidate Williamson converts everything she says to excellent talking points at the speed of speech and she talks fast! She really would be good as president! Love can't be discounted as a potential force for success. Look at what Trump's done with hate. Forget all the folderol. Make Marianne Williamson our President right away, let's not wait for election day. She deserves a Day on the KDX Designated Holiday List!

Wednesday October 2, 2019 12:15 NOON CDT -- Fingerprint Day October 28
On this day in 1904 St. Louis Police tried a new investigation method -- fingerprints!

Wednesday October 2, 2019 11:56 AM CDT -- October 24th!
Yes, a newly designated holiday when The Blog will be open! The birthday of author Bibhutibhushan Mukhopadhyay from the Darbhanda district, Bihar British India, born 1894. What has he written? Um, ah, look into it!

Wednesday October 2, 2019 11:20 AM CDT -- Marianne Williamson Will Be on KDX Tomorrow!
Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, my choice for bringing Love to the White House, will be Thom Hartmann's major guest tomorrow!

Wednesday October 2, 2019 10:46 AM CDT -- The Right Channel is Getting Lost
That's not definite. The right channel might be fine, but we've got to devise a way of finding out.

Here's the deal. For a long time KDX broadcast in mono for the simple reason that the human voice is a monaural instrument and we are largely a talk station. Even at that confusions arose because, to choose a starting point for discussion, many of our radio programs arrive as stereophonic audio files, so our chain of audio software becomes a gauntlet where some software automatically provides an L+R (left-plus-right) mix, but other software passes only the left channel which makes some of the right channel material to become scarcely audible. No corrective settings make themselves available and this continued as a chronic problem until one day we decided to transmit in stereo.

Every concert music program carried by KDX is delivered in superlative stereophonic sound and we now opt to deliver all the quality available despite any argument for otherwise cleaving to mono. But stereo brings as yet not understood anamolies which became evident last evening when we chanced upon an old time stereo demonstration album which we downloaded from archive.org and broadcast before signing off for the night. When the announcer on the record said "And now, a right channel reference tone", the audio dropped almost entirely and sounded like it was coming from another room with the door closed.  Further confusion arises from the fact we were monitoring on a mono (single loudspeaker) FM radio that I think detects stereo sub-carrier and provides stereo to the headphone jack, with our FM transmitter set to "mono" which has whole other rationals involved so that's where we stand.

Wednesday October 2, 2019 10:19 AM CDT -- No Matter How Much We Learn We Never Get Smarter
Another finding from our pseudo-scientific laboratory. We learn new things all the time. Right? So we should eventually end up a lot smarter than we were. Right? Yet it never seems we're any smarter than we were. Right? It doesn 't seem to make sense. Right?

It took a long time to figure out but the explanation of why "getting smarter" has diminishing returns does have a logical explanation that remains inobvious because it's a sub-conscious process hidden from awareness therefore impossible to audit. Understand?

Let me explain in layman's terms. Everytime we learn something new, some bit of knowledge buried deep in memory is expunged completely outside of our conscious ability to detect. It might be something from year's ago, like Sky King's daughter's name from the old radio series. For many years we retained the name "Penny" but never put it to use by recalling it for any reason, and then one day, at random, it becomes demagnetized like the oxide on recording tape. To trace our entire memory's balance of knowledge we'd need to build a backup archive of everything we have ever known and continually inventorize (inventory) to determine what facts are lost along the way. For example this morning when I realized the insight being reported to you right now I completely forgot the name of the girl who stared at me during 8th grade and was seen pregnant that summer. I only know this because of the vast catalog of memories filling three shelves of our book case. The overwhelming sense that this is ridiculous nonsense almost kept me from writing about it.

Wednesday October 2, 2019 9:25 AM CDT -- Precision Management
Every day of the week KDX carries the Live Thom Hartmann Program, but some mornings at 11 AM CDT the stream isn't there and our automation equipment skips ahead to whatever's scheduled for 2 PM. At first I responded like a fire department and rushed to the keyboard to peck and poke until the Hartmann stream comes on line. This is never convenient because other projects get set aside while baby-sitting the interruption. Of course we could fill out a Descrepancy Report but instead have decided on a sure fix by having Amy Goodman standing by ready to fill in with her 1-hour Democracy Now program which is never late. Then at 12 NOON we join Thom Hartmann for the remaining 2-hours.  KDX is too big a station to cover for some technician who forgets to start a stream server.

Wednesday October 2, 2019 8:48 AM CDT -- Offers Pour In
We are the sitting ducks of commercial America by dint of internet accounts which open us as targets for advertising offers flooding in-boxes at every moment. The subject line of one of them this morning says: "Shop Big with Low Rates". Here's what we've determined:

In one column we added up all the amounts "saved" by accepting sales opportunities. In another column we added up the amount spent to qualify for those "savings". It turns out that we spent far more to "earn" the advertised "savings" than we ever recovered through the actual "savings". What's more, when we went into our bank accounts to access all the "savings" we found that it doesn't exist. They don't exist. So-called "savings" are imaginary money that never deposits. Never accrues.

Wednesday October 2, 2019 7:28 AM CDT -- Descrepancy Report
This morning we received a garbled message from Brooce in Hartford, as follows:

Hi Uncle Carl wha
Zorch Hmmmmm BZZZ
Tuesday October 1, 2019 6:48 PM CDT -- The Day of Creation
The universe was created at 8 PM  October 23, 4004 BC. KDX was created much later and The Blare Blog will commemorate!

Tuesday October 1, 2019 6:36 PM CDT -- Bosses Day
If bosses have Bosses Day off it might be difficult for workers to celebrate having him or her around, but for the self-employed we pretty much take ourselves to lunch. National Bosses Day is held October 16th which means The Blare Blog will be Open!

Tuesday October 1, 2019 6:16 PM CDT -- Julia Sweeney Day
The Blare Blog will be Open October 10th to Celebrate Julia Sweeney's Birthday. A former cast member of SNL, Julia Sweeney is an actress, comedian, author and outspoken atheist making regular appearances on Freethought Radio as heard on KDX from the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

Tuesday October 1, 2019 5:51 PM CDT -- The LED
Monday October 7th will be LED Light Day and The Blog will be Open!

Tuesday October 1, 2019 8:16 AM CDT -- Older Persons
Why did they initiate an International Day of Older Persons? I don't know. But we've had some experience in the area. In fact I was dubbed a "geriatric teenager" for saying things like "You know life is pointless, don't you?" It seemed obvious to me but people don't want to hear about such things. Now I wonder "older than what?" At what moment does "olderness" kick in? We've known some very youthful seniors, both because they've avoided education and because they know every Star Trek episode in full detail. And retirees don't necessarilly lose it with the women. Many women enjoy the company of older men and it's not definite that money has anything to do with it. As Orson Welles sang in a song, "I know what it's like to be young, but you don't know what it's like to be old". But the lyricist who wrote the words to the song never explained what that's supposed to mean and the only thing I've figured out is that young people are stuck having to go through all the hoops until they finally qualify as "old". As I see it it's a perfect time to do radio. My family often says, "He thinks he's on the radio".

Tuesday October 1, 2019 7:46 AM CDT -- Why Would Anybody Care
Followers of the low power radio way of life take great interest in small measurements within the electro magnetic spectrum. Our KDX STL (Studio-Transmitter-Link) has been moved from 2513.035 MHz (Ch. 28) to 2488.707 MHz (Ch. 22) on the Wi-Fi Band under the call sign KDX-GFSK-22, where "GFSK" is the method of audio modulation. Channel 28 is near the extreme end of the band whereas Channel 22 is just above the top U.S. internet access channel (Ch. 11). We intentionally stay clear of the active Wi-Fi internet portion of the spectrum so as to avoid hindering neighboring web surfers and do not ourselves employ Wi-Fi wireless internet but utilize wired ethernet for highest speeds and greatest security. The two channel schemes referred to are different from one another and apply to the form of application being addressed. Radio hobbyists talk about such things for hours and this will be of great interest to them. In friendly exchanges with non-technical people sports, movies and pets make better talking points. Oh, and why did we move our frequency? No reason, really, it just seemed like it might be an interesting thing to do.

Tuesday October 1, 2019 7:38 AM CDT -- The Advice Trail
Responding to yesterday's "DIY Home Engineering" correspondent AM Radio Legend inquires:
"I looked online for a watt meater but no suksess. Can you point me to it?"
Our uneducated guess - Watt Meat might be the modern SPAM. I'll ask my butcher.

Tuesday October 1, 2019 5:26 AM CDT -- Over the Top Hype
According to the linked article "We Are Entering the Era of Big Podcasting":

KDX is prepared to perpetuate such a myth because we think podcasting is a healthy, social, beneficial pursuit, but the limits of podcasting have been far surpassed because the source of supply far exceeds the capacity of a given individual to absorb. Very simple math.

Monday September 30, 2019 6:37 PM CDT -- In Praise of Idleness
Bertrand Russell wrote this for Harper's Magazine in 1932. It also appears in a book of essays we have in the KDX Library.

Monday September 30, 2019 12:38 NOON CDT -- National Impeachment Day
Already established, National Impeachment Day is held on March 3rd.

Monday September 30, 2019 12:11 NOON CDT -- Orange Shirt Day
Research by Artisan Radio has uncovered a Newly Designated Holiday!

Today is Orange Shirt Day in Canada.  It was started to recognize the
impact that Canada's Residential Schools had on indigenous communities
for over a century.  At least 2800 children died and/or disappeared in
these schools.

I also take it as a sign of respect to the first inhabitants of North
America.  What Trump and his sycophants ignore is that white Europeans
were immigrants to this land.  They swindled and stole the land out from
under those that were already here.  In other words, what is left of the
First Nations are the true 'Mericans. Not the old white males (and
females) that support him and his ilk.

Ignorance fills ilky heads.

Monday September 30, 2019 11:38 AM CDT -- DIY Home Engineering
Because low power radio is largely a home hobby its practitioners cobble together enough technical knowledge to get by. This becomes obvious in what they say on the forums:

"If you have a spectrum analyzer, Watt Meater, or FIM then of course you can do tests using a dummy load to avoid any real world interference issues."

Although Amazon offers frequent deals on Watt Meaters, stations like KDX have gone vegon for the climate and use the newer "Impossible Meaters".

Monday September 30, 2019 7:51 AM CST -- The Fine Art of Holiday Designation
Response received from Artisan Radio to our Blog of September 28 ("It Could Have Amounted to Something")

I agree 100% with your recent blog entry on the current state of Part 15
Broadcasting forums. Unfortunately, the current Forums have evolved to feed the egos and the
personal opinions of their moderators, and a select, 'chosen', few,
rather than the general membership (which is ostensibly why they were
created in the first place).  No wonder few are posting.

Your blog is an island of illumination in a sea of darkness.  It keeps
me motivated, and continuously reminds me why I got into Part 15
broadcasting in the first place.

The only thing is - I wish it was kept open during the week!

- Artisan Radio

To which we replied:

Upon which Artisan submitted:

I think a National Impeachment Day would be in order. - Artisan

Done! All we need is a date for designating National Impeachmernt Day! Homework begins now with this brushing up: