Central Daylight Shifting Time

Friday June 30, 2023

11:56 AM -- Networking Like the Branching of Roots --

So anyway, when 'Patti Smith' e-mails started showing up in my inbox it got sent straight to spam since it started at the same time as all the unsolicited emails that I've written about which appear to be malware probably instigated by the Mad Chairman of the pirated ALPB, but who knows. Somehow I came to know that Patti Smith is legitimately part of Substack, to which I intentionally subscribe. Then today, impressed by Ms. Smith's presentment about Arthur Rimbaud, I did some Wiki-work and have come to know that my otherwise complete education had yet to comprehend that both names are of great note in the literary world and processes set in motion had me download what public domain readings of Rimbaud are available from librivox.org with the thought of scheduling them on KDX. My reservations come from suspecting that hearing great literary works lacks the focus possible by reading, a result of being unable to ponder what just got said without interfering with what's now being said in the audio realm. The eye is better at pausing. Some styles of writing better come across as books read-aloud, such as Ingersol, Schopenhauer and Nordine. Conversely, some books are so densely elaborated they defy ear and eye alike, such as Sartre and Kant. And, ah, this next point could be very well left alone, but it stood out that Librivox labels Rimbaud as LGB lit, meaning lesbian, gay and bi-sexual. Do we need to know that? A few categories are left out of such categorization. Is it necessary to declare one's place on the sexual scale, or avoid peering across categories into foreign preferences? It is still impolite to ask.

10:18 AM -- About Doubt --

Within the past hour I used the expression 'Introductions Are In Order' despite not grasping whether it was a correct usage nor, if it was, what exactly it means. The phrase seems familiar, but from where? Film dialogue, maybe? Or common to public events? Perhaps it translates as 'the timely order of today's scheduled events has come to a time for an introduction'. Being smart doesn't mean you know what you're saying.

9:37 AM -- Introductions Are In Order --


8:20 AM -- The Eyes Have It --

Life consists of experiences in the world and experiences consist largely of seeing what's being experienced. I start thinking about it on the holiday weekends when people tend to go 'somewhere else' to experience something they can't do by staying where they are. When all of it is reduced to basics what people really want is to 'see' something they fancy in their minds, like the people who travel here from all over the world to 'see' the St. Louis Gateway Arch. If you ask anyone what they dream about doing they might say, "I've always wanted to visit Hawaii." But imagine a blind person who has no point of reference such as having seen movies or travel brochures showing Hawaiin scenes, would they ever be inclined to want to visit Hawaii? If a blind person got off a plane in Hawaii they would feel ground beneath their feet, be able to breath air, hear traffic in the distance and trust they were in Hawaii but there wouldn't be any of the visual proofs to confirm the experience. You could take a blind person into a meat-freeze locker and tell them you've arrived in Antarctica. Point being that wordly experiences are mostly sight-based and can otherwise be conterfeited through fake sound effects and some bumping around. On the 4th of July it is the mandatory 'seeing' of firework displays that give 'proof through the night', visual proof, 'That our flag is still there'. The whole of life could be simplified and made more economical by doing it by radio with Foley sounds and custom scripting to compress life experience into 15-minute episodes between commercial breaks without worrying about giving the Lone Ranger a real horse.

6:39 AM -- Know Your Holidays --

Is there a difference between a national holiday and a federal holiday? Who knows (rhetorical)(?) With July 4th occuring on Tuesday this year is there a 'July 4th Weekend'? Are people who travel somewhere for this year's 4th complete idiots? Is there an official 'Office of Holidays' somewhere in Washington D.C.? Which holidays are shifted to Mondays to form three-day-weekends? Which holidays can only be celebrated on Monday if they actually fall on a Monday? Is it Constitutionally appropriate to include religious occasions such as Christmas and Easter among recognized nationwide holidays given that the U.S. is a secular nation? Is Martin Luther King Day a religious holiday in as much as King was an ordained minister? What if it turns out he wasn't ordained by a recognized theological school, can any American citizen declare themselves to be 'Reverend' without a theological degree? Why is taking a day off from income producing work the main way we celebrate these holidays? What do we have against working? Should we have done some research before writing a blog like this?

Thursday July 29, 2023

12:41 NOON -- Editorial Guest Commentary -

It has been awhile since hearing from Buster Boatrocker, barber from South St. Louis, Missouri, occasional guest commentator. Frankly, I haven't been getting as many haircuts as I did when I was a paid radio executive, but he's here now with a message to deliver. I hand it over to Buster Boatrocker! Buster?

10:10 AM -- Relief Notice --

Today's high temperature prediction for here has greatly improved, anticipating now 99-Farenheit rather than 105. In a random sampling of how people are surviving the heat we notice there are a fair number of women exhibiting burned skin glowing either pink-orange or a charred brownish tan indicating they are 'done' as far as being cooked alive is concerned.

10 AM -- When a Shadow Over Heats --

While hearing a Blare OnAir show from July 4th, 2017, we heard Carl make the point that "We have two ear canals but only one birth canal." Then he started talking like Chris Christie on the beach. You had to be there.

5:41 AM -- Miscellanea --

Today will be the hottest day of the year thus far here at our midwaste location, halfway between everywhere, up to 105^o.  When things start to glow we plan to close down our servers to avoid overheating.

News reports tell us the July 4th holiday period will see the highest travel numbers of the year which seems screwy because it's only a one-day holiday and not one we'd expect people to have a reason for going anywhere except the local firework display where simulated war lights the night sky scaring pets, terrifying wildlife and risking wildfires.

Unless I sluff off and never get around to it there's a chance I may order two new radios including a Sangean MMR-99 and a TECSUN PL-330. And someday we'll report on all the crippled radios cluttering up the place which perhaps could be repaired over the August holidays, if there were any.

A portion of our time is spent at the newly re-opened part15.org the Original Low Power Radio Exchange and Forum of Record, freshly repaired under the care of Artisan Radio and Moderator Mark. Serving the universe with illumination putting the other one in the shadows, it's part15.org.

Wednesday June 28, 2023

10:23 AM -- WE WOULD LIKE TO SEND YOU $10.00 FOR LISTENING TO KDX !! --

It's absolutely true! We want very much to send you real cash money for listening to KDX Worldround Radio! The only reason we don't is that we are cash strapped and don't have the funds. But that shouldn't stop you from listening anyway to show your gratitude!

8:44 AM -- Currencies --

Calling money by the word 'currency' means 'money that you presently have'.

Tuesday June 27, 2023

7:01 PM -- Weather Calls Attention to Itself --

In 85^o sun I boldly gave the frontmost lawn area a haircut and came inside to check on reality after enjoying a few days living in my fantasy imagination. Turns out we are under another Air Quality Alert this time extending into the overnight hours and face two successive days 100 and above beginning Thursday. Of course we are aware that southern states have been above 100 for days on end, obligating us to feel lucky by comparison. Round the clock coverage of the Sixth Extinction comes to you from kdxradio.com.

11:26 AM -- A Past Standard --

In listening to a Blare OnAir show from 2017 we overheard a reading from FCC rules referring in Part 73, 'Broadcast Services', to AM radio as the 'Standard Broadcast Band'. With all the fluster now swirling about AM radio we looked at today's version of the rules and note that the expression 'Standard Broadcast Band' appears to have been dropped. This makes us very suspicious that backroom personnel are tinkering with regulational language as part of a secret plan to make AM radio silently vanish.

10:55 AM -- Archiving Ourself --

Since Artisan Radio publicly announced it'll be carrying Blare OnAir programs, which are available by the way from this website, I've been inventorizing our batch of programs produced until about 2021, and came upon a show which describes how to legally go on the air with an emergency radio station to cover an ongoing emergency. The FCC grants special temporary authorization for such stations which must be discontinued when an emergency is over. Frankly, we are in a compound emergency right now consisting of ecological extinction and an imminent threat of nuclear war, to name a few. This show dates from early 2017 and will be added to the available download list. Emergency radio needs to be started before the world ends, according to the FCC.

 9:32 AM -- Blare On Hair --

Thoughts twirl around in the head and pop out as hair which just keeps growing until a visit to a barber, hair-dresser, or a 3-way mirror with a pair of barber scissors. We don't naturally see how our own hair looks because the eyes are located on a different part of the head looking in a different direction, but we see other people's hair and might be inclined to judge them by whether we approve of what we see. I admit discriminating against people because I don't like the way their hair looks. And I have for years been on a search for a barber who would somehow know the right way to cut my hair, but in usually not finding the right barber I've risked cutting my own hair and then feel insecure because it still isn't quite right. Every so often I see a haircut that looks extra great and even if the person wearing such an excellent cut is a convicted inside-trader I still admire them and give some thought to seeking their financial advice. It's not only hair itself that triggers self-consciousness, it's also a feeling of being unable to communicate my preference in language that can be understood, and for this I blame the educational system for never holding a class on the subject of hair specifications. All this comes to mind because an actor in a movie had a good haircut and I wondered why he'd consent to being in a film otherwise cast with inferior cuts, but on the other hand if everyone in a movie had excellent crops there'd be no dynamic range between characters. The other problem is that haircuts do not last. A very good clipping is good for little more than a week. Maybe in heaven our hair will stay cut.

Monday June 26, 2023

By Special Arrangement... The Blare Blog brings you...

Sunday June 25, 2023

11:43 AM -- The Fun of Trainspotting --

Look! It's rolling on those rails! It's moving fast, must be 70 MPH! Listen to that horn! That's more than a mile long!

10:29 AM -- Blockbuster Blogs from Artisan Radio --

In addition to two top flight Randy Rainbow songs there is a Feature Essay on the Demise of the ALPB. An irony I'd add to the story is that the Association for Low Power Broadcasters was a democratic organization built around a set of by-laws drafted by the members which provided a means of fairly judging and penalizing 'detrimental members', but the Ex-Chairman's take-down-tantrum stepped over any formalities and declared that because he was hosting the ALPB on his own computers he therefore 'owned' the organization. Another irony remains to this day... while he continues a website attributed to the ALPB and continues to present himself as 'Chairman', there is no actual organization. He could just as well claim to be the Captain of the Titanic, or more to size, the Tiny-tanic.

Saturday June 24, 2023

11:34 AM -- Mid-Day Naps --

There is a growing movement to encourage napping during the course of a workday and we have recommended such naps since the 1970s when we invited certain co-workers to sneak away and join us for an afternoon snooze. The linked article brings the idea into consideration for present-day workplaces.

10:01 AM

Friday June 23, 2023

10:45 AM -- Speaking Of Bad Air --

Ever since the pandemic faded out of the daily news we have been hearing that businesses are having difficulty finding workers because so many people have not returned to work. How can that be? We've forever been told that workers are one paycheck away from bankruptcy, so how could workers afford to live without paychecks? Is it that everyone succumbed to COVID and now lay about in sick beds? The newscasters aren't saying as much, but they're not giving any reason why people are opting out of the job market.

Thursday June 22, 2023

5:40 PM -- Bad Air Alert Tomorrow --

...AIR QUALITY ALERT IN EFFECT FROM 10 AM TO 8 PM CDT FRIDAY...

The Clean Air Partnership has issued an air quality alert
for the metropolitan area from 10 AM to 8 PM CDT Friday.

An Orange air quality forecast means that maximum ozone
concentrations are expected to reach levels that pose a health risk.
Adverse health effects increase as air quality deteriorates. Ground-
level ozone is an air contaminant which can cause breathing
difficulties for children, older adults, as well as persons with
respiratory problems.

Reducing outdoor physical activity is recommended. If it is a
regularly scheduled work day you are urged to consider
telecommuting, carpooling, or utilizing public transit. Avoid
excessive idling and do not top off when refueling motor vehicles.
The use of gasoline-powered lawn equipment should be reduced or
postponed until late in the day.

3:49 PM -- The Longest Standing Joke in All of Part 15 History --
Artisan Radio today told the full unexpurgated story of the Now Famous AM Transmitter Challenge.

9:52 AM --

8:25 AM -- AM Radio's Decline & Future --

"This Week in Radio Tech" this week brings together a group of top radio engineers to discuss the AM radio situation. It's a very enlightening conversation pinning much of the blame for the downward slide of AM directly on the FCC for actions it has taken in the past or didn't take. Other fault is placed on poor content and not technical reasons for AM's depression.

7:04 AM -- Bill Baker in Radio World --

6 AM --

Wednesday June 21, 2023

10:55 AM -- A Cut Above What? --

Only a handful (meaning 'very few') of websites represent the field of hobby broadcasting under the FCC Rules Part 15, and when one of them spends its energy attacking what they call "The Others" there is very little ambiquity about who they're talking about, even though they don't come out and specify. "They", the self acclaimed 'Reference for Part 15', claim to be "A Cut Above", but they don't say what they're "Above", nor give any examples of the 'aboveness' versus the 'beneathness' that would clarify what they have in their head. Amid the jumble of grammatic contortions "They" call out "Misinformed Blogs", without giving any concrete examples of mis-information nor any recommended corrections, in their opinion, that would improve the blogs. We know we're one of the blogs in question and Artisan Radio's Blog is the other, there being only two known blogs specializing in Part 15 culture. "They" brag of being 'professional engineers' yet speak from a hobby site, a major mismatch as hobbies are the province of hobbyists and engineering is something else entirely, the two do not conflate. One wonders whether their 'professionalism' doesn't derive from having soldered a wire or hooking up a CD player. As an Ambassador for Recreational Radio I am a specialist in hobby radio and have even auditioned classes in hobby law, but that doesn't put me a 'cut above' anyone else, nor does Artisan Radio have anything more in mind than promoting and sharing the intelligent Part 15 radio hobby as he revives Part15.org, the Premier Original Forum of Record for the great pastime. The silly geese can only be foolish for so long before they start realizing how goofy they are.

Tuesday June 20, 2023

1:33 PM -- The Coming 365-Day Weekend --

Almost annually new 3-day holiday weekends are added to the U.S. calendar while holidays are never discontinued. At some future time we will have flooded the year with total holiday saturation, no work days remaining, not even for radio station operators, who by then will have been replaced by AI. Coming up next, from the vantage of today's blog-date, will be July 4th, Independence Day. By now the average citizen believes it is they individually who are independent, but in fact the holiday celebrates independence from British Monarchy, rendered arcane by the more recent partnering with England in the waging of several wars. But the fireworks lobby would surely stand in the way if we attempted to abolish July 4th. The same reluctance to let go of traditional holidays will keep us from slimming the calendar. We've retained Thanksgiving despite the false story behind it, and Christmas regardless of its piercing of the veil separating state from religion. Columbus Day flickers somewhat, but if canceled will have a replacement called 'Indigenous People's Day', never mind the Indigenous People still banished to reservations. We could push back by refusing to take time off from work on Labor Day.

11:50 AM -- A Veritable Part 15 Mall --

Followers of the Part 15 Radio Experience cannot get it all in one place. With the re-opening of part15.org a number of storefronts have sprung alive and a crafty shopper need visit them all. Even the hobbybroadcaster attempt gets fair mention in well tempered comments and reviews at
I am more timid and say little about hobbybroadcaster because I realize, based on tip-offs from insiders, that I have been held in contempt since saying something critical about their so-called 'Transmitter Challenge' of many years ago. Some people never let go of a grudge. I once held a grudge but eventually forgot what it was all about.

11:20 AM -- Time Slown Down --

Begging the question, 'is 'slown' a word(?) Anyhow, I think that ozone exposure causes the brain to slow down, creating the sensation that time is going slowly. If I'm right, you could generate the aberration of a longer life, but it would be a life in which very little got done. In our current air quality alert I'm spending whole days trying to decide one thing that I might try to get done, before postponing it until tomorrow. Mmm, there was something else I wanted to say...

Oh ya. On his Thom Hartmann Program Thom Hartmann just mentioned that if something were to happen to President Joe Biden then Vice President Kamala Harris would automatically become president, and if she for some reason dropped out Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy would ascend to the presidency and that's not the most comfortable prospect. To me Kevin McCarthy seems like he could actually be an AI bot. And I can imagine Kamala Harris being relieved of duty for getting one of her cackling fits and unable to pull out of it. There's so much to worry about.

8:50 AM -- Minutes of the Meeting --

The three-day Juneteenth weekend (U.S.) brought about a few newsworthy events in recreational radio, the headline being the restoration of the Forum of Record for hobby radio, part15.org, as already reported here in The Blog. Already on its first day back in the functioning world the outlying followers of low power radio activity were abuzz with awareness and at part15.org returnees logged on and and began posting the moment the site re-opened. In fact I made three posts and it was only day one. The rejuvenation inspired me to invent a new role for myself, as I've stepped into position as the Ambassador of Recreational Radio, a messenger representing the world's greatest hobby. To commemorate everything that's happening we'll have another three-day weekend, July 1st to 3rd, with a 4th holiday (pun intended) for U.S. friends as July 4th is Independence Day. But we advise foregoing the usual fireworks given the low air quality. We adjourn.  

7:26 AM -- Again Today --

...AIR QUALITY ALERT IN EFFECT FROM 10 AM TO 8 PM CDT TUESDAY...

The Clean Air Partnership has issued an air quality alert
for the entire metropolitan area from 10 AM to 8 PM CDT Tuesday.

An Orange air quality forecast means that maximum ozone
concentrations are expected to reach levels that pose a health risk.
Adverse health effects increase as air quality deteriorates. Ground-
level ozone is an air contaminant which can cause breathing
difficulties for children, older adults, as well as persons with
respiratory problems.

Reducing outdoor physical activity is recommended. If it is a
regularly scheduled work day you are urged to consider
telecommuting, carpooling, or utilizing public transit. Avoid
excessive idling and do not top off when refueling motor vehicles.
The use of gasoline-powered lawn equipment should be reduced or
postponed until late in the day.

-  Air Quality Alert Issued by NOAA

Monday June 19, 2023

7 PM -- Pirate Radio Documentary Movie --

Somebody somewhere mentioned a film called 'Pirate Radio USA' and I knew I'd run across it somewhere, so I looked around and hit pay dirt.

10 AM -- Air Quality Alert In Effect --

...AIR QUALITY ALERT IN EFFECT FROM 10 AM TO 8 PM CDT MONDAY...

The Local Area Clean Air Partnership has issued an air quality alert
for the entire metropolitan area from 10 AM to 8 PM CDT Monday.

An Orange air quality forecast means that maximum ozone
concentrations are expected to reach levels that pose a health risk.
Adverse health effects increase as air quality deteriorates. Ground-
level ozone is an air contaminant which can cause breathing
difficulties for children, older adults, as well as persons with
respiratory problems.

Reducing outdoor physical activity is recommended. If it is a
regularly scheduled work day you are urged to consider
telecommuting, carpooling, or utilizing public transit. Avoid
excessive idling and do not top off when refueling motor vehicles.
The use of gasoline-powered lawn equipment should be reduced or
postponed until late in the day.

- Air Quality Alert Issued by NOAA

8:51 AM -- Part15.org is back in buisiness!!

Sunday June 18, 2023

9:42 AM -- To Put Off or Not to Put Off --

Morning programming from KDX is going well and the listening is good. If it weren't for the home-owned radio station the radios would have no purpose... using them as planters hasn't worked out well. But should we plan on doing anything today? It all depends on the ozone level. What we need are ozone detecters. We have smoke detectors, carbon-monoxide detectors, ways of measuring radon, and there are even mood rings and blood pressure bracelets. YouTube will know.

Having checked with NOAA we find that no air quality alert is in effect at this time, so maybe we can stop feeling sluggish and do a job of some kind.

7:13 AM -- Bad Music Awash in Sincerity --

The FCC has handed out many LPFM licenses to stations that can't afford to pay their staff  and some of these stations can't be heard in their own city of license, such as KOWS, located out somewhere with no nearby towns to be assigned to, thus marginized or marginalized to the fringes of Occidental, California, where the 7-Watt signal is rarely detected at 92.5 MHz. But that's not the main thing I'm writing about from the fringes of my own mind, where from my ozone induced haze I extend a sharing hand to programmers on the lookout for air fill. The show is 'Lord Litter's Magic Music Box International' which seems to be an assortment of independent license-free unclaimed music you wouldn't play if you really wanted to get somewhere with your date, but which might modulate a 100 milliWatt transmitter enough that you could sink into the skywaves of oncoming night with enough attention-getting splatter that your neighbor might extend his antenna until he loses you.
If you like the sample, you'll find over 600 more at Archive.org and you can tell people that Carl Blare is your program consultant.

Saturday June 17, 2023

6:25 PM --

3 PM -- Slugging Along --

Ozone at ground level makes frogs sluggish. Today's ozone level makes Carl Blare sluggish. Therefore Carl Blare is a frog.

12:36 NOON -- Cancel List --

Now that we've canceled everything due to bad air we come to realize that it's not so simple to cancel everything. For one thing, you've got to know what, exactly, is being canceled. You need a cancel list. Then you need to consider the consequences of each cancelation otherwise it can get expensive, as your creditors, for example, haven't canceled any due dates so at the least you've got to worry about that. And the complete inactivity of sitting stupified can become boredom and might incline one to watch a movie but most movies are pointless and unable to sustain interest which might result in planning a project after all thus breaking the cancelation by doing something despite the apathy. It gets to be an existential problem. In some cases it is necessary to send out cancelation notices, for example the Juneteenth Event where you've agreed to make a speech to kick off a concert; if you don't show up they might send police to do a wellness check which pressures one to answer the knock at the door unless you've thought ahead and nailed a sign announcing your blanket cancelation of everything. Resentment starts to well up made extra resentable due to shortness of breath. A sign saying 'NOT NOW' might not be adequate and more thought needs to be given to wording of your door sign. Cancelation requires planning.

11:24 AM -- Stop Breathing Notification --

All morning I have been sitting here in a stupor with thoughts of canceling everything from now on and refusing to participate in further civil life. Then I saw the weather bureau's Air Quality Alert which advises postponing activity as ozone levels pose a health hazard. That clarifies how we should manage the situation. We therefore announce total cancelation of everything until we get better air.

Friday June 16, 2023

5:17 PM -- A Most Interesting Part 15 Story --

Poking around in old program archives I found this tale of the TV Genie a low power TV transmitter and a companion story about the most powerful UHF TV station ever to exist. This is a must listen!
This program is a predecessor to Blare OnAir and may be re-broadcast without copyright or royalty concerns.

10:13 AM -- FCC Today Podcast --

9:34 AM -- Things That Would Best Go Un-Blogged --

Jim was so eager that he showed up for his first date with Tina pushing a brand new baby buggy.

9:25 AM -- The Brief Time When Lesbians Were Defined As 'Non-Men' --

Carl Blare, not quoted in the linked story, believes that 'non-men' could be taken to mean 'Martians'.

8:15 AM -- Ground Fault Circuit Interupter --

I suspect that more people are electrocuted trouble-shooting these devices when they fail than are protected by them. We have one that stopped supplying voltage to an outside location, and according to many YouTube videos about these "Sometimes new ones out of the box are broken" and "You should not attempt fixing them yourself" but "You don't need an electrician, you can do it yourself".

Thursday June 15, 2023

7:01 PM -- Remnants Of the Day --

An unexpected response to my 2021 search for a co-host for my radio program arrived this afternoon and plans are in the works to re-start the program to welcome a mystery co-host on board. Watch out. I mean, watch for that.

Then, newly interested in creative radio I heard another Blare OnAir Show from August 2021 in which the entire show was a buildup to something that I completely forgot about when the time came and was unable to give the show a proper reason for having been done.

Jumping from thought to thought, I feel pressed to expand the spectral range between wokeism and hatred. Those two states are polar opposites, but somewhere between them is a condition called fear. One simple example would be an ordinary afternoon in the grocery parking lot being approached by black teens while loading groceries. The common practice of car-jacking is always in the news and calls to mind an all-too-possible stereotype by which some young blacks earn the prejudice the rest of us are striving to unlearn. It's may not be hatred so much as it is self-defensive fear. White people wearing MAGA hats might harrass Jewish people thus fitting another feared stereotype. Gunplay on the roadways is always something to have in mind, and gun nuts have their own stereotype. Fearing people is what I'm talking about, and homeless people are yet another distrusted group, as one cannot tell the dangerous ones from those who deserve compassion. Black people fear cops and, sadly, with reason. Fearing natural or man-made calamity is a whole other level of fear and culminates with fear of insurance companies.

1:50 PM -- Awakening to the Woke Word --

My now ancient memory doesn't recall 'woke' being used as a catch word as started happening in very recent times. Since I haven't understood how the word is being used or what it is supposed to mean, I simply avoided using it. But recently I read an explanation of 'woke' by someone who made a clear explanation. As it turns out, 'woke' means 'being aware of and empathetic to the plights, difficulties, prejudices, and unfair practices used against minority groups, be they black, American Indian, Jewish, women, and any targeted group. Woke is the opposite of hate. 

9:36 AM -- Talk About Talk --

For many years I did a radio program called 'Blare OnAir', consisting mostly of just me talking without preparation and usually no idea of what I'd talk about. My idea was that as a hobby, talking on the microphone should amount to play and not require the planning and preparation of a job. Yesterday, after years of storing the shows in a closet, we aired a few 'Blare OnAir' shows on KDX because I got to wondering what it was I actually said back then. I heard myself say that I'd like to have a co-host who could add a conversational feel to the show, but after searching around was unable to find anyone interested in talk radio as a fun pastime. 
SPECIAL NOTES:  It might be better to download this file and play it from your Audio Player. I tested it on my Firefox Browser and it stalled before getting very far. Oh, and the audio doesn't pick up until 13-seconds in. This particular program contains no copyrighted nor licensed material and can be freely broadcast on your radio station.

9:20 AM -- Upcoming Days to Observe --

Monday June 19th will be Juneteenth, a portmanteau of June and Nineteenth, a U.S. Federal holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved black people and Wednesday June 21st is the Summer Solstice, marking the first day of summer in the northern hemisphere and longest daylight of the year.

Wednesday June 14, 2023

7:42 PM -- PART 15 GROWS A FUTURE!! --

According to News posted at the Artisan Radio Blog Part15.org is Coming Back!!

 Those that have ventured over to Part15.org will have noticed that the site has been down for maintenance for the past few days, or you may just have gotten errors in attempting to access the site.

There's a reason for that, and I'm so excited that I'm going to let the cat out of the bag a bit.

Part 15.org (formerly Part15.us), the oldest and arguably the true reference site for legal, low power broadcasting is coming back.  It's moving to a new platform, with new players which will invigorate the site and make it bigger and better.

Part15.org (and Part15.us) has always been an open and friendly place for both newcomers to the field, as well as experienced broadcast veterans.  Plus, it was international in scope.  This is unlike other venues which may be literally closed, are often closed-minded, and focused simply on a single country (such as the U.S.).  Members include broadcasting professionals from in front of and behind the microphone, as well as experts in numerous other fields, such as electronics, computers and media.

That's all I'm going to say at present.  Stay tuned for more information as things progress.

- Artisan Radio / Re-Printed with Permission

1:55 PM -- Power Stroke --
Richard Powers is out there getting it done. He reports:

There's a great story I stumbled across today on The Irish Broadcasting Hall of Fame website https://ibhof.blogspot.com/2019/10/?m=1
It's a tribute piece for the late Professor Godfrey Boyle, who died in June 2019. I've never heard of him but he's evidently quite famous as an "esteemed and world renown pioneer of renewable energy". He also happened to be a pioneer in pirate radio broadcasting.
Here's an excerpt from the story :
(Note that a "phone box" in Ireland is what we know as a "phone booth"):

[[[[[[[[[[[
Tuesday, 29 October 2019
An Irish Pirate Radio Pioneer - AN OBITUARY
"....In February 1968, using a homemade transmitter, a tape recorder and an aerial attached from the roof of the phone box to a nearby tree, their station was on the air broadcasting from the corner of Lennoxvale and Malone Road in Belfast (there is a telephone box still located on the site). The tape recording began with "You are now listening to an illegal broadcast and are committing an offence under the Wireless Telegraphy Act. We will now allow you a few minutes to switch off.'
The operators knew and indeed hoped that it would be discovered by officials from the detection unit of the GPO in Belfast and used it as a publicity stunt in an attempt to liberalise the airwaves in Belfast. Their station broadcasting on 242m was known as Radio SRCIS and these initial broadcasts began a cat and mouse game with the authorities throughout 1968..."
]]]]]]]]]]

That's just to wet your curiosity, there's more, and a fun little read. Their stations were also known as "Rag Radio". Their escapades of course resulted in confiscation of a lot of transmitters by the authorities, but it was no big deal since they kept building more from junk parts which weren't too costly anyway. They had a range as much as 3 miles. Presumably Ireland has nothing like Part 15.
Check it out!

And Carl, your last several posts have been intriguing.. which is not necessarily unusual, but it seems you're formulating something.. or something.. I'm not sure what I mean.

- Later, Rich

Well, Rich, I'm not knowingly formulating anything, but perhaps some sub-conscious voice from the past is channeling through me.

Monday June 12, 2023

8:56 PM -- Back for More --

I don't approve of this existence and I'm not impressed by the lavish extravagance of the cosmos, but it's what we have and there's nothing else to work with. Many have attempted to dismantle the whole thing and bring a fresh start, as a matter of fact Vladimir Putin is toying around with nuclear thoughts, but the would-be demolishers have no replacement plan in mind. 
A few enclaves push gentrification as a means of sanitization but the outcome is always boorish and the offspring of the gentry resort to drugs causing their whole movement to fade within a single generation. Part 15 radio lanquishes as possibly the one tool capable of disseminating a message of reformation but inadequately educated school teachers fail to instill fundamental electronics leaving contemporary students ignorant of the power they'd have at low power on the radio dial. There are only three people yet alive that know what I'm talking about. There could have been intelligent life on this planet, if only we'd looked beyond playlists of music from high school and included informative programming thereby arming the audience to comprehend on a higher level. At the end of the day guilt loves company and there's beer. 

Sunday June 11, 2023

6:40 AM -- Sunday Sermon --

How often have you said, "It seemed real at the time." And some things may actually have been quite real, but reality fades. During your last years you'll look back on a life already fading and wonder whether time travel is possible with a desire to return to the past to repeat certain experiences with a strong determination to 'do it better' with a hope of extending whatever 'reality' you consider worth prolonging in retrospect, and you even scroll Amazon and Ebay in search of parts to build a time machine, but when you put it to the test your dog inadvertently gets sent to 1950 and your plans change as now retrieval of the dog tops your list of objectives but despite your best calculations you are only able to send yourself as far back as 1949, months before your dog and unable to return to 2023 because the time machine didn't make the trip and there is no Amazon or Ebay although you do find a good plumbing supply store. Telling people you're from the future lands you in a mental ward and they won't let you have a pen so you can't write about your exploits. Friends, what I'm telling you is that reality is a fluid mother and we are no match for it's shape-shiftiness. The takeaway from today's lesson is, don't place all your eggs in reality because the eggs aren't real. Put some money in the plate and be here next sunday when we ask the question, "What should I be asking?"

6:32 AM -- Knowledge Or Belief --


Saturday June 10, 2023

2:28 PM -- About Something --

At the middle of the day I've accomplished a few things, solved some problems, and good programs are playing on KDX Worldround Radio, so I think I'll write something in the blog, but I'm not sure what it will be. One thing central to our activities is an enduring devotion to the grand hobby of broadcasting under the FCC's Part 15 authorization for legal operation, and besides actually doing it via KDX we're always on the lookout for something new to blog about, and there are two exercises we practice frequently, one being a Duck-Duck-Go search for new part 15 transmitters, the other a look at YouTube for recent part 15 postings. We did this yesterday, but nothing new popped up. Everything to be found is years old and much of it is out of date as people have moved on. As an act of final desperation we sometime pay a call at "The Reference Website", which expends a large part of its energy speaking badly about other part 15 sites, some of which don't exist, run by a self-proclaimed radio engineer who, oddly, does not operate a part 15 station. Unless you're allowed to be a member of his site, and we're not, all attempts to find out what he's talking about are met with {http://log-in-for-more}, which of course we can't do as the reject we are. But for the love of pete let's not end on a down note. Switching to a major key, we hereby renew our pledge of dedication to keep the world's greatest hobby afloat. We may be drifting on sea currents without an oar, but we can always put our trust in superstition.

Friday June 9, 2023

10:47 AM --  Putting the Brake On Breaks --

The 'break' in a radio program was invented for a very practical and necessary purpose. It was an intentional program interruption to allow commercial messages, station promotional announcements and other information not specifically part of an unfolding program. Even non-commercial radio has 'breaks' for similar reasons, except that in place of commercials come sponsorship, funding, and underwriting announcements. Then we hear of 'breaking news', and no one has ever explained to me the exact way to interpret this expression, but we guess that it refers to news of such importance that programs must be 'broken into' and pre-empted so as to present the news event. Now back to our regularly scheduled blog.

Thursday June 8, 2023

8:14 PM -- Talk of Reviving Part 15.org to Restore the Premier Hobby Radio Forum Site  --

These words were posted on the Artisan Radio Blog on June 6, two days ago:
"...Part15.org ... appears to be dead.  Although sometimes the splash page comes up, you can't log in or do anything without getting a 502 Gateway error, and it's been that way for some time.  I suspect that the server behind it is down, as a post I put there a while ago (as in weeks) indicates that it's 9 hours old (!?).  I'm going to attempt to get in touch with Jon Paul (the owner) and see what he intends to do with the site.  It would be a shame to lose all that Part 15 history - it was the first (and best) Part 15 Forum, despite claims to the contrary from one other Forum in particular.

If it's just going to disappear, I'd be willing to take it over and move it to reasonable Forum software.  Wordpress just doesn't cut it, in terms of speed and ads."

We very much hope Artisan's idea bears results!

5:04 PM -- Things That Can't Be Said Are Different from Things That Just Don't Get Talked About --

In our last blog we touched upon something that can't be said, now we'll write about a thing that could be written about but isn't. Tobacco. But cigarettes are available for purchase, so what do I mean? Tobacco plants. Tobacco is a vegetable illegal to plant or harvest except for the sanctioned industry which owns the rights to grow it for production as cancer causing cigarettes extending to consumers the privilege to harm themselves. With the other smoke inducing plant, cannibus, there was a vigorous underground of growers and dealers many of whom were sent to prison until many states have now taken over marijuana distributorship and boast about the millions being realized. But where is the tobacco leaf underground? Not talked about.  

4:50 PM -- Exceptions to Free Speech --

There are always things you can't say and it would be inadvisable to boost the cause of AM radio by declaring AM Pride Month because that would make it sound like AM radio was part of the 'pride' movement, a term usurped by those who feel compelled to flaunt their sexual fantasies as a matter of public pride worthy of parades and costume parties. But I can't say that and may have my free speech right revoked so I'll need to find another way to promote AM radio as a medium worthy of salvage.

12:40 NOON -- Ego Driven --

There is a vanity component to owning and operating a radio station, as would also be true of any number of other professions and pastimes based largely on a person's self-image. As children we may have had a self-image of being cowboys with the movie-driven picture of sitting on a horse pointing rifles at bandits and Indians. If we learned anything during the course of life it's that real cowboys were in charge of shoveling cow ploppings from the pasture and that Indians were the victims of foreign invasion from Europe. Anyway, these days we admire each other not so much on the fact that we happen to exist but on the titles we earn or invent which label us as this or that. Elon Musk has accumulated a number of admirable top-level positions until he miscalculated his aptitude for turning Twitter into something better than it was. But I'm meandering and need to circle back to talking about my own titular world which, through radio ownership, reaches into many other aspects of community importance being virtually the voice of the entire signal footprint. Being in excess of 200-feet in all directions, the part 15 footprint exists more in the head than in geography, yet is more than just a fantasy, albeit it little more. Most of the folks encountered during the day will be unable to receive your station on their radio but so long as they don't try will be impressed by your self-claimed success.

11:30 AM -- The Hay Days of Part 15 --

In the halcyon days when part15.us was the premier forum for the great hobby of legal low power radio there was a flaw in the ointment that contributed to the ultimate erosion and washout of the site. One standard the webmasters had right was a limitation confining topics to only technical discussion which would have made the forum applicable to all part 15 practitioners, but a leniency was allowed for discussion of song playlists and sources of popular music program fare. This opened a door on talking about programming in general and a few posted on psuedo science talk shows, religious material, and some right wing political stuff. This flew by because it matched the low-brow programs common to licensed stations and did not ruffle the moderators. But along came Carl Blare talking about skeptical philosophies, anti-religious views and classical music, subjects typically regarded to be outside the mainstream and at sharp odds with the far-right moderators who arose to apply arbitrary bans and take-downs targeting Blare and denying him an equal right to share programming ideas. But there's no going back because the intervening years have seen an almost total decline in technical interest and there are virtually no more electronics experimenters as the world has been consumed by the internet of things and the ubiquity of tablets, cell phones and Wi-Fi which literally stands as new Part 15 territory permeating all aspects of life and leaving ancient engineering to a past time lacking present-day reconstructionists. Soon enough our personalities will be embedded in chips monitored by city hall. Part 15 radio is legal but it looks criminal. 

8:52 AM -- Good P.A. System in an Empty Theater --

The Blare Blog serves a non-existent ideal in which numerous quality low-power radio stations provide programming informative and beneficial to their audience. But what few small radio stations exist spend their airtime providing listeners with children's music remembered from early-school and despite the fact that the same music is available free on YouTube and from public libraries. Being even more cynical about it we expect that the imagined radio audience doesn't want to hear about issues of reality and would prefer knowing about entertainment opportunities and bargain shopping.

8:45 AM -- Installing Plumbing in a Tent --

A recent survey asked how a local suburban municipality rated for 'taking care' of vulnerable residents {elderly, disabled, homeless, etc.}. One of the possible responses was 'don't know', which is what we'd need to select because of the mention of 'homeless' in the batch, given that homelessness is an unmentioned invisibility so far as we've detected. We see no tent communities, no stragglers asleep along the street, no marked shelters amid retail areas. What would there be to 'know' about a situation that has been kept so quiet? We do know that an adjoining 'big city' has its conspicuous homeless plight being forced here and there in the same way as other large cities but we notice that local talk radio has nothing to say about it although TV news occasionally reports about the political struggles related to the push-pull between eradicating the homeless and helping them. I can't help but think of the contrast between the Republican determination to outlaw abortion while criminalizing homelessness. We see extermination of the homeless as a form of very late-term abortion. To boil all this down to a project within reach of what KDX can do we've started looking around for radio programs and podcasts about homelessness and will be blogging about the results of our inquiries.

Monday June 5, 2023

8:34 AM -- Everyboy's Coming Out for AM --

Saturday June 3, 2023

5:44 PM -- Scrambled Brain --
At about 95^o F the brain stops accepting input from talking radio and detects it merely as a droning of voice-coil driven speaker-cone yacking at the air. The daily average so far in June is above 90 and being slightly bent in the head we haven't yet started the air conditioning but are exercising our adaptivity by slouching around in drawers like we were at an indoor beach. Eventually we'll 'rediscover' how wonderful air conditioning can be in waking up to what's being said by all the talking people. We have some obligation to know what's being said on our stations. Right now there's a woman speaking on KDX but I can't seem to bring her into focus and remain unable to tell you what she's saying.  

Friday June 2, 2023

3 PM -- Water Pipes and Program Pipes --

The extendable antenna attached to the TECSUN PL-310 Radio got snagged in a cluster of branches and was suddenly gone. I'd been listening to the radio hanging from my wrist by its wrist strap while cutting hedges, and my first reaction was to believe something had broken. A moment of scrutiny informed me that the antenna had pulled loose from its moorings which had been held in place by a small set-screw on the back of the radio. The screw was gone. If it could be replaced the device could be fully repaired. Meanwhile, the radio is good for AM which has the inbuilt loop-antenna, and is fully able to hear 100-kilowatter FM, just not LPFM nor part 15 FM. Plan B will see a complete replacement with a more current model and life will go on from there. 

Being too hot to work outdoors I'll visit with you instead. If you're like me, and all part 15 people are somewhat alike, if we ever reward oursleves it's normally with something involving radio, but for a rare departure I have had a new faucet installed in a sink. The original faucet was a 'Crown' model dated from the 1920s. The shiny new faucet is so beautiful I may show a picture of it. 

KDX Worldround Radio has been silent for several weeks because of indifference on my part, but the usual complaint has me back streaming my own program choices again. The local stations won't stop yammering about ball-oriented sports, popular songs, and new movies. Once you've heard that stuff you've heard it, but they circle right back into it and do the same thing over and over.  In fact, when my own programming starts getting redundant, here's a substitute good for hours of listening: 

Thursday June 1, 2023

2:00 AM -- Traffic Would Go Out of Existence --
Well, the big AM talk stations have a staff position known as 'Traffic Reporter', and their job is to inform the driving public about all the crashes and fender-benders blocking the roadways. And you can see the 'but' in what I am about to say: But, if drivers don't have an AM radio in their car, how would they know road conditions on the drive to school, work, or shopping? They would be driving blind. As they sit in the car waiting for the logjam to start moving, they would remember how nice it was to have an AM radio. Some of those grid-locked in stalled traffic would be out of work traffic reporters out looking for a new career.