Dr. Brinkley lives on

[k4kyv]

This morning I was tuning round on shortwave and picked up a broadcast from WWCR, Nashville, transmitting on 7490 kHz.  After several commercials for quack cancer cures and internal bodily cleansing products, they began a talk show on the subject of the eminent economic Armageddon, which is to inevitably happen within the next few weeks, if not days.

The current Wall St. crisis and economic bail-out controversy really has them going.  Better get out your tin-foil hats while keeping a lookout for black helicopters.  Actually, there weren't any commercials for tin-foil hats, but they were hawking a special shielded wallet to protect the personal data stored in the rf-ID chips in your driving licence and passport from scanners operated by nearby identity thieves.  Another product offered was some kind of spray paint that you can use to put a protective covering over the number plates on your car.  It is allegedly invisible to the naked eye, but makes your registration numbers illegible to speed and red-light cameras and other video surveillance devices.

The Federal Radio Commision and state medical board shut down KFKB, Dr. Brinkley's broadcast station in Milford, Kansas in about 1930, so he set up shop in Del Rio, TX with his transmitter out of the reach of US authorities in Villa Acuña, Mexico, to become the first and most powerful of the famous border blasters of the era that  began during the Great Depression, as he hawked his goat-gland operation in the days before the advent of Viagra, transmitting under the callsign XER.

This day and age, shortwave radio and even standard MW AM  broadcasting is such a small niche in the media market that it is unlikely that regulators  would bother with broadcasters like WWCR.  Most of the quackery is now hawked over the internet and evidently they find plenty of takers.  Besides, laws and regulations that required broadcast content to be in the Public Interest, Convenience Or Necessity were rescinded in the 1980's.

Yet, all the scaremongering I listened to on that station seemed to nag at me, striking a disquietingly resonant chord.  Is this all pure paranoiac bovine excrement, or is there an element of truth in there somewhere, to cause real concern?

[W2DU]

Hi Don,

As we all know, history repeats itself, and it appears that the Nashville station is remembering Dr. Goatley and what he got away with. I remember hearing Dr. Brinkley from both KFKB and XER, but I was too young to know what he was talking about, and my parents didn't explain.

I share your concern with the nonsense that appears on the internet that simply adds to the drivel you described. Yet the FCC can make a mountain out of a molehill with its fining CBS for the wardrobe malfunction that only the bible thumpers complained about. Good thing a judge threw the CBS case out the window. But I agree with you concerning the BS matter that you so poignantly phrased as bovine excrement, that is certainly evidence of the dumbing down of the Country.

On the FCC's handling of the early requirement for renewal of BC station licenses, the doctrine of 'Public Interest, Convenience, and Necessity', prior to WW2 the Commission required that BC stations donate at least 10% of its time to non-commercial presentation to qualify for renewal. In addition, if my memory serves me correctly, free radio time was made available to candidates for presidency, and equal time was required to be given for both sides. Please correct me if I'm wrong on the 'free' aspect of my statement.

I guess I'd better quit now before I get myself in any more hot water than I have already.

Walt, W2DU