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Post by GTCGreg on Oct 14, 2023 21:17:27 GMT
Random idea - Television industry figure Jackie Marshall is one of the most prolific behind-the-scenes people in the industry. Over the course of 10 years, they've either created, co-created, or otherwise had a significant hand in 50 television shows, an astounding 5 a year. Too bad none of those shows lasted longer than two seasons, with most being cancelled after their first season. With Marshall's contract up for renewal, Marshall has to try and justify their bizarre track record if they hope to continue working in the industry. OK, I’m confused. How many Marshall’s are there?
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Post by ironhold on Oct 14, 2023 22:53:16 GMT
Random idea - Television industry figure Jackie Marshall is one of the most prolific behind-the-scenes people in the industry. Over the course of 10 years, they've either created, co-created, or otherwise had a significant hand in 50 television shows, an astounding 5 a year. Too bad none of those shows lasted longer than two seasons, with most being cancelled after their first season. With Marshall's contract up for renewal, Marshall has to try and justify their bizarre track record if they hope to continue working in the industry. OK, I’m confused. How many Marshall’s are there? "They" is a gender-neutral pronoun nowadays, and I haven't decided if the character would be male or female.
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Post by GTCGreg on Oct 14, 2023 23:23:58 GMT
OK, I’m confused. How many Marshall’s are there? "They" is a gender-neutral pronoun nowadays, and I haven't decided if the character would be male or female. They, their and them are also plural. Plural means more than one. Besides, I don’t play the gender pronoun game. And I certainly am not going to change my vocabulary strictly to comply with wokism. But it’s your story, you can use any words you want.
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Post by the light works on Oct 15, 2023 0:52:37 GMT
OK, I’m confused. How many Marshall’s are there? "They" is a gender-neutral pronoun nowadays, and I haven't decided if the character would be male or female. I guess the key question is why does Marshall have the reverse midas touch. (in this case, being why does everything they (he, she, or it, for greg) touch turn into fools gold?) I'm kind of intrigues by the possible reasons. whether somebody is sabotaging their career. whether they just have too short an attention span to keep a show going, and whether the execs just have too narrow minded a viewpoint to see that they do shows intended to be gold for one or two seasons and then come to a natural end, and their viewer loyally transition to the new shows as they come out. I kind of like the idea of the execs not renewing the contract - then realizing that the audience goes with Marshall, because marshall is making a distinct story for each show; and struggling to get a new contract. it could be a very cutting commentary on the state of entertainment where producers make reality TV death marches; and people just tolerate them while wishing for someone to make stories that have a beginning and an end, and dramatic action in between.
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Post by ironhold on Oct 15, 2023 12:00:34 GMT
"They" is a gender-neutral pronoun nowadays, and I haven't decided if the character would be male or female. I guess the key question is why does Marshall have the reverse midas touch. (in this case, being why does everything they (he, she, or it, for greg) touch turn into fools gold?) I'm kind of intrigues by the possible reasons. whether somebody is sabotaging their career. whether they just have too short an attention span to keep a show going, and whether the execs just have too narrow minded a viewpoint to see that they do shows intended to be gold for one or two seasons and then come to a natural end, and their viewer loyally transition to the new shows as they come out. I kind of like the idea of the execs not renewing the contract - then realizing that the audience goes with Marshall, because marshall is making a distinct story for each show; and struggling to get a new contract. it could be a very cutting commentary on the state of entertainment where producers make reality TV death marches; and people just tolerate them while wishing for someone to make stories that have a beginning and an end, and dramatic action in between. I'm thinking of having it that some of the shows going bust were well beyond their control (such as a key actor being arrested) but others flopped because Marshall missed warning signs of behind-the-scenes issues (like failing to notice that two cast members did *not* get along) or didn't realize that the show just wasn't in keeping with what audiences were wanting (like a show about college students blundering their way through life being broadcast during an economic recession that caused large numbers of people to drop out because they couldn't afford tuition). Make it so that they legitimately meant well, but never should have been given that degree of carte blanche.
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Post by the light works on Oct 15, 2023 12:49:53 GMT
I guess the key question is why does Marshall have the reverse midas touch. (in this case, being why does everything they (he, she, or it, for greg) touch turn into fools gold?) I'm kind of intrigues by the possible reasons. whether somebody is sabotaging their career. whether they just have too short an attention span to keep a show going, and whether the execs just have too narrow minded a viewpoint to see that they do shows intended to be gold for one or two seasons and then come to a natural end, and their viewer loyally transition to the new shows as they come out. I kind of like the idea of the execs not renewing the contract - then realizing that the audience goes with Marshall, because marshall is making a distinct story for each show; and struggling to get a new contract. it could be a very cutting commentary on the state of entertainment where producers make reality TV death marches; and people just tolerate them while wishing for someone to make stories that have a beginning and an end, and dramatic action in between. I'm thinking of having it that some of the shows going bust were well beyond their control (such as a key actor being arrested) but others flopped because Marshall missed warning signs of behind-the-scenes issues (like failing to notice that two cast members did *not* get along) or didn't realize that the show just wasn't in keeping with what audiences were wanting (like a show about college students blundering their way through life being broadcast during an economic recession that caused large numbers of people to drop out because they couldn't afford tuition). Make it so that they legitimately meant well, but never should have been given that degree of carte blanche. so, basically marshall embodies the peter principle. they've risen to their level of incompetence, and there's actually a good chance of them NOT staying there. so where does it go from there? a demotion and a steady if unremarkable career?
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Post by ironhold on Oct 15, 2023 15:38:20 GMT
I'm thinking of having it that some of the shows going bust were well beyond their control (such as a key actor being arrested) but others flopped because Marshall missed warning signs of behind-the-scenes issues (like failing to notice that two cast members did *not* get along) or didn't realize that the show just wasn't in keeping with what audiences were wanting (like a show about college students blundering their way through life being broadcast during an economic recession that caused large numbers of people to drop out because they couldn't afford tuition). Make it so that they legitimately meant well, but never should have been given that degree of carte blanche. so, basically marshall embodies the peter principle. they've risen to their level of incompetence, and there's actually a good chance of them NOT staying there. so where does it go from there? a demotion and a steady if unremarkable career? Alternatively, I could do a dramatic twist of having them be killed in an accident before the final decision is made, leading to the "good and proper" crowd retroactively praising everything they did along with Marshall and giving the network an excuse to drop everything.
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Post by the light works on Oct 15, 2023 22:31:25 GMT
you could have them killed at the beginning of the story, and then lead through thetwists and turns of determining if they were actually effective or ineffective, and it would make an interesting short story. of course, I still favor subverting the idea that the longer a program runs, the better it must be.
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Post by wvengineer on Oct 16, 2023 14:56:40 GMT
There are plenty of shows that have a reputation for starting good, but going on for far too long until their quality is terrible. The Office (US version), South Park, The Simpsons, and Big Bang Theory are to examples off the top of my head. Their peek is generally considered a few seasons in, but then they have a long, slow slide downward after that.
My question is if this person had such a reputation that all of their shows ending early, why would anyone hire him to start with once he has been doing this for a few years? How has have managed to survive for 20 years creating nothing but duds? It could be more believe able if he had one or two major successes early on and he/she keeps trying to ride on that initial success.
Gene Roddenberry is a prime example. He created Star Trek which became hugely popular. However, very little of what he has created since then has been well received. The few that do stick around for a little while are not overly popular. Even Start Trek had its best success when he was kick out as the executive producer and limited to just creative consultant.
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Post by the light works on Oct 16, 2023 17:46:56 GMT
There are plenty of shows that have a reputation for starting good, but going on for far too long until their quality is terrible. The Office (US version), South Park, The Simpsons, and Big Bang Theory are to examples off the top of my head. Their peek is generally considered a few seasons in, but then they have a long, slow slide downward after that. My question is if this person had such a reputation that all of their shows ending early, why would anyone hire him to start with once he has been doing this for a few years? How has have managed to survive for 20 years creating nothing but duds? It could be more believe able if he had one or two major successes early on and he/she keeps trying to ride on that initial success. Gene Roddenberry is a prime example. He created Star Trek which became hugely popular. However, very little of what he has created since then has been well received. The few that do stick around for a little while are not overly popular. Even Start Trek had its best success when he was kick out as the executive producer and limited to just creative consultant. there were several shows in the teens that had a promising start and then turned into a death march. really, babylon 5 should be required viewing for anyone who wants to start a TV show. they actually went to the trouble of outlining the entire story arc, and knew when they were going to end the show before they even began. I know it's everybody's dream to make a show they can live off the residuals from forever, but it's not realistic.
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Post by ironhold on Oct 16, 2023 22:04:59 GMT
There are plenty of shows that have a reputation for starting good, but going on for far too long until their quality is terrible. The Office (US version), South Park, The Simpsons, and Big Bang Theory are to examples off the top of my head. Their peek is generally considered a few seasons in, but then they have a long, slow slide downward after that. My question is if this person had such a reputation that all of their shows ending early, why would anyone hire him to start with once he has been doing this for a few years? How has have managed to survive for 20 years creating nothing but duds? It could be more believe able if he had one or two major successes early on and he/she keeps trying to ride on that initial success. Gene Roddenberry is a prime example. He created Star Trek which became hugely popular. However, very little of what he has created since then has been well received. The few that do stick around for a little while are not overly popular. Even Start Trek had its best success when he was kick out as the executive producer and limited to just creative consultant. It sometimes happens in the world of entertainment that people are allowed to "fail upwards". They'll be given one or more projects, botch them somehow, be forgiven for some reason, and get even more work, if not a promotion. For example, even though "A Wrinkle In Time" was a massive financial disaster, Ava DuVernay has continued to have a presence in Hollywood and still gets projects.
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Post by ironhold on Oct 21, 2023 19:33:09 GMT
Figured out how to make the military base still relevant and keep it open despite it otherwise being small enough that it should have been closed down long ago. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWV_(radio_station)In real life, the US government maintains radio stations WWV, WWVB, and WWVH. These stations exist to broadcast the official time of day according to the US government, but the former two both broadcast out of the same facility in Colorado. I could have it that, for the sake of redundancy, the base in question was chosen as the site of a *fourth* station, WWVM, which is in sync with WWV and fully capable of taking over as national-level broadcaster if something goes wrong at Colorado. Political maneuvering could explain why the base was chosen, as it's functionally in the shadow of Fort Worth, Texas, and so could have been an effort to win over voters in DFW.
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Post by the light works on Oct 21, 2023 22:20:45 GMT
Figured out how to make the military base still relevant and keep it open despite it otherwise being small enough that it should have been closed down long ago. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWV_(radio_station)In real life, the US government maintains radio stations WWV, WWVB, and WWVH. These stations exist to broadcast the official time of day according to the US government, but the former two both broadcast out of the same facility in Colorado. I could have it that, for the sake of redundancy, the base in question was chosen as the site of a *fourth* station, WWVM, which is in sync with WWV and fully capable of taking over as national-level broadcaster if something goes wrong at Colorado. Political maneuvering could explain why the base was chosen, as it's functionally in the shadow of Fort Worth, Texas, and so could have been an effort to win over voters in DFW. "wow, there's a lot of traffic to and from that base for being a redundant time signal transmitter." everybody you don't want paying attention. however, having it be a special training facility might work. I forget whether this is the alien port of entry idea or the super secret special forces idea - but either way, have a specialist program that provides a plausible excuse for the activity that happens. like an experimental rocket and telemetry facility. then they could actually be launching experimental rockets, and doing balloon lifted reentry vehicles, and even have the occasional explosion sending bits winging out into the desert if people get too nosy. or if its the super secret special forces, do maybe desert vehicle adaptation at the base. good excuse to have people charging around the desert.
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Post by ironhold on Oct 21, 2023 23:45:37 GMT
Figured out how to make the military base still relevant and keep it open despite it otherwise being small enough that it should have been closed down long ago. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWV_(radio_station)In real life, the US government maintains radio stations WWV, WWVB, and WWVH. These stations exist to broadcast the official time of day according to the US government, but the former two both broadcast out of the same facility in Colorado. I could have it that, for the sake of redundancy, the base in question was chosen as the site of a *fourth* station, WWVM, which is in sync with WWV and fully capable of taking over as national-level broadcaster if something goes wrong at Colorado. Political maneuvering could explain why the base was chosen, as it's functionally in the shadow of Fort Worth, Texas, and so could have been an effort to win over voters in DFW. "wow, there's a lot of traffic to and from that base for being a redundant time signal transmitter." everybody you don't want paying attention. however, having it be a special training facility might work. I forget whether this is the alien port of entry idea or the super secret special forces idea - but either way, have a specialist program that provides a plausible excuse for the activity that happens. like an experimental rocket and telemetry facility. then they could actually be launching experimental rockets, and doing balloon lifted reentry vehicles, and even have the occasional explosion sending bits winging out into the desert if people get too nosy. or if its the super secret special forces, do maybe desert vehicle adaptation at the base. good excuse to have people charging around the desert. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CONELRADFor plot purposes, I'm looking to have the base be broadcasting *something* plausible on one of the two CONELRAD civil defense frequencies (640 AM and 1240 AM) in order to ensure that it remains "open" under normal circumstances. A time & temperature station is the kind of thing one might expect a government entity to transmit that most people wouldn't think twice about. I probably will keep the "training base" angle, and may scale things back to "the local base broadcasts the station as a convenience because they have so many people coming and going that time zone differences and jet lag are an issue". (For the record, the other civil defense frequency will be taken up by a news talk radio station operated by the same civilian company that runs the local not!NBC affiliate; I'm thinking of having it that they started as a radio broadcaster and acquired the affiliation once they realized there was local demand for TV back in the 1950s.)
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Post by wvengineer on Oct 22, 2023 12:42:58 GMT
One way you could simplify things is a small National Guard training base. There are tons of these across the US. However at this one, it has a the largest hill/mountain in the area as part of its property. Because of that hill, it is an ideal site for local communications towers. On this hill top, the base lease land to various civilian companies to put up their communication gear. (cell phone, radio station, emergency services, paging, etc ) You could even have local ham radio or GMRS clubs also have repeaters on the site. You could even have legit government broadcasters like NOAA Weather Radio or TIS/Highway Advisory Radio.
Geographically, this site is the best place in the area to put up radio towers. Because it is a military base, civilians would have to make appointments to come in and work on their equipment and would have to be escorted while on base. Such appointment are not uncommon at commercial radio sites. This happens often at sites in national forest areas. If this base had a live firing range as part of it, that would give additional reason for civilians to be escorted to make sure they don't wander into a potentially deadly are.
With all this civilian radio equipment, it would be easy to slip in a military setup or two. If they do a descent job of not making it look interesting, anyone who comes up and sees it would simply assume that it is property of some other civilian company's equipment. Military escorts can also encourage people to not look to closely and mind their business.
How better to hide something than surround it with perfectly normal stations and set it up where you encourage people not to look around too much.
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Post by the light works on Oct 22, 2023 13:51:25 GMT
"wow, there's a lot of traffic to and from that base for being a redundant time signal transmitter." everybody you don't want paying attention. however, having it be a special training facility might work. I forget whether this is the alien port of entry idea or the super secret special forces idea - but either way, have a specialist program that provides a plausible excuse for the activity that happens. like an experimental rocket and telemetry facility. then they could actually be launching experimental rockets, and doing balloon lifted reentry vehicles, and even have the occasional explosion sending bits winging out into the desert if people get too nosy. or if its the super secret special forces, do maybe desert vehicle adaptation at the base. good excuse to have people charging around the desert. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CONELRADFor plot purposes, I'm looking to have the base be broadcasting *something* plausible on one of the two CONELRAD civil defense frequencies (640 AM and 1240 AM) in order to ensure that it remains "open" under normal circumstances. A time & temperature station is the kind of thing one might expect a government entity to transmit that most people wouldn't think twice about. I probably will keep the "training base" angle, and may scale things back to "the local base broadcasts the station as a convenience because they have so many people coming and going that time zone differences and jet lag are an issue". (For the record, the other civil defense frequency will be taken up by a news talk radio station operated by the same civilian company that runs the local not!NBC affiliate; I'm thinking of having it that they started as a radio broadcaster and acquired the affiliation once they realized there was local demand for TV back in the 1950s.) again, a radio station that is predominantly automated and can be run remotely doesn't give an excuse for a large amount of traffic to and from the base.
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Post by ironhold on Oct 22, 2023 14:13:01 GMT
One way you could simplify things is a small National Guard training base. There are tons of these across the US. However at this one, it has a the largest hill/mountain in the area as part of its property. Because of that hill, it is an ideal site for local communications towers. On this hill top, the base lease land to various civilian companies to put up their communication gear. (cell phone, radio station, emergency services, paging, etc ) You could even have local ham radio or GMRS clubs also have repeaters on the site. You could even have legit government broadcasters like NOAA Weather Radio or TIS/Highway Advisory Radio. Geographically, this site is the best place in the area to put up radio towers. Because it is a military base, civilians would have to make appointments to come in and work on their equipment and would have to be escorted while on base. Such appointment are not uncommon at commercial radio sites. This happens often at sites in national forest areas. If this base had a live firing range as part of it, that would give additional reason for civilians to be escorted to make sure they don't wander into a potentially deadly are. With all this civilian radio equipment, it would be easy to slip in a military setup or two. If they do a descent job of not making it look interesting, anyone who comes up and sees it would simply assume that it is property of some other civilian company's equipment. Military escorts can also encourage people to not look to closely and mind their business. How better to hide something than surround it with perfectly normal stations and set it up where you encourage people not to look around too much. Might do that, thanks. Antiquated military base ostensibly kept alive as a training facility and because that prominent hilltop is federal property. ** This is the media from within the county itself, with me having the county now at 81,000 people once I refigured a few numbers and included more cities to support each other. I'm just using the real names that I've dummied out until I can figure actual substitute names for everything. I'm giving the base both a traveler's information station and a time and temperature station, ostensibly brought on-air decades ago because of the need to quickly get incoming service members up to speed and help them integrate. This could be at least partial cover for other broadcast and reception facilities. I'm also having it that the introduction of the mega-church inadvertently set off an arms race as the church had its own TV & radio station and that caused other religious groups to want air time, creating a surge in new stations that could have helped to conceal additional construction on that hill since so many other groups were having towers built throughout the county. By my count, that's at least 11 transmitter facilities, and someone who isn't paying attention could easily not notice a few extra. In fact, the FCC may have been a bit lax in allowing companies to set up to help increase the sheer number of broadcasters and resulting broadcast towers to help hide everything. AM0530 traveler's information station from the military base 0640 time & temperature station from the military base on one of the old civil defense frequencies 1010 Classical 1020 3 Angels Broadcasting (Spanish) 1130 Red Dirt Country (only broadcasts 12 hours a day)1190 radio reading service from the county's A&M college 1230 Arirang Radio (Korean) 1240 Biz Talk radio, operating on the other civil defense frequency 1250 Deutsche Welle radio (German) 1320 Air 1 Christian (Spanish) 1580 ESPN Radio 1590 Vatican Radio 1710 secondary channel for the traveler's information station FM88.1 FM version of the base's time and temperature station 88.5 "Simply Beautiful" station from the county's A&M college 89.1 Air 1 Christian (English) 90.1 EWTN Radio 95.9 Americana 96.3 Community 99.3 Deutsche Welle radio (English) 102.3 Soft Adult Contemporary 105.1 Classic Rock (only broadcasts 12 hours a day)105.3 3 Angels Broadcasting 105.5 Country TV 2.1 NBC 2.2 Telemundo 2.3 TeleExitos 2.4 Cozi TV 2.5 Quest (real channel focused on travel shows) 2.6 Twist (real channel focused on trends and lifestyle) 2.7 True Crime Network 2.8 YTA TV (real channel that was a failed attempt at a new TV network but still exists) 2.9 Biz Television (business news and programming) [first and for several decades only TV station in the entire county]3.1 PBS 3.2 PBS Kids 3.3 PBS Create 3.4 PBS World 3.5 First Nations Experience 3.6 Deutsche Welle 3.7 Classic Arts Television 3.8 NASA TV 3.9 Public Information Station [All from the A&M college. Not sure if this is too many digital side band stations for a single PBS network to plausibly air]10.1 EWTN English 10.2 EWTN Spanish [From the Catholic college in the county]12.1 Ion Television 12.2 Ion Mystery 12.3 Bounce TV (real-life network with programming aimed at black audiences) 12.4 Court TV 12.5 Laff TV (real-life network that focuses on sitcoms) 12.6 Grit (re: old cowboy movies) 12.7 Scripps News 12.8 Jewelry Television 12.9 Defy (real network devoted to reality shows) [This I could probably cut, as I don't even remember why I decided to have it being broadcast from within the county]16.1 Trinity Broadcast Network 16.2 TBN Inspire 16.3 TBN Smile 16.4 TBN Enlace (Spanish) 16.5 TBN Salsa (Spanish) 16.6 TBN Positive 16.7 TBN Francophone [when fictional company Snell Media bought the broadcasting facilities owned by the mega-church, they agreed to keep broadcasting religious content but switched to a series of canned national feeds as the mega-church was no longer in operation, allowing them to focus on expanding the facilities themselves to broadcast more commercial content]19.1 Lone Star Entertainment, a fictional broadcast TV network that includes a wide variety of content 19.2 NewsNet 24-hour TV news 19.3 Airwaves Music & More, a fictional digital sideband channel Lone Star maintains that is comparable to 1990s VH1 19.4 Macho, a fictional digital sideband channel Lone Star maintains that broadcasts programming aimed at teen and twenty-something men 19.5 local weather radar (from the military base?)19.6 BYU-TV 19.7 RFD-TV (real-life TV station that has programming meant for rural audiences) 19.8 Buzzr (real-life TV station dedicated to classic game shows) 19.9 Arirang TV (real-life TV station that broadcasts Korean content) [Snell's real goal in purchasing the broadcasting facilities was because they saw the area as under-served, especially when it came to specialty programming)20.1 3 Angels Broadcasting (brought in by a regional religious group for purposes of "equal time" given the introduction of TBN)20.2 3 Angels Broadcasting Spanish feed 20.3 3 Angels Broadcasting Proclaim! 20.4 3 Angels Broadcasting Dare To Dream 20.5 3 Angels Broadcasting Kids 13 AM frequencies, 11 FM frequencies, and 7 TV stations (plus individual digital sideband channels for those stations).
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Post by wvengineer on Nov 13, 2023 20:17:33 GMT
For plot purposes, I'm looking to have the base be broadcasting *something* plausible on one of the two CONELRAD civil defense frequencies (640 AM and 1240 AM) in order to ensure that it remains "open" under normal circumstances. A time & temperature station is the kind of thing one might expect a government entity to transmit that most people wouldn't think twice about. "Holding a frequency" doesn't really make sense. All transmitters in the US have to be licensed by the FCC. Varous low power transmitter like Wifi, Bluetooth, etc may get exemptions, but they still have to follow the rules and be type accepted by the FCC to be legally sold in the US. For high power broadcasters, their frequency is assigned to them. They can request a frequency when they do their initial application, but FCC gets final approval. IF the FCC says that no one can use a frequency, then they simply do not issue any permits for that frequency. Without a permit, anyone using it is subject to fines, equipment forfeiture, and/or criminal charges. So that particular logic doesn't work. The Government "holding" a frequency would do more to attract attention than anything. Anytime you have a radio transmission that is not supposed to be there, people will invariably look into it. When they do, they will find that it is lacking proper FCC documentation and that will cause people to look into it ever more. Back to the idea of hiding in plain sight. If you need to have a transmission and don't want people to look to closely at it, make it as legit and boring as possible. Just make it a full-time time station like WWVB*. A traveler advisory station could work for something that doesn't need to transmit full time. Make it legit with FCC permit and all the paperwork. If it is a TAS station, then put up some signs on the local highways to let people know it is there. With the FCC permit, if someone else tries to transmit on that frequency, they would be interfering with a licensed broadcaster and can be dealt with the same way as someone were trying to interfere with a civilian radio broadcaster. *https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/time-distribution/radio-station-wwvb
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Post by the light works on Nov 13, 2023 20:28:56 GMT
For plot purposes, I'm looking to have the base be broadcasting *something* plausible on one of the two CONELRAD civil defense frequencies (640 AM and 1240 AM) in order to ensure that it remains "open" under normal circumstances. A time & temperature station is the kind of thing one might expect a government entity to transmit that most people wouldn't think twice about. "Holding a frequency" doesn't really make sense. All transmitters in the US have to be licensed by the FCC. Varous low power transmitter like Wifi, Bluetooth, etc may get exemptions, but they still have to follow the rules and be type accepted by the FCC to be legally sold in the US. For high power broadcasters, their frequency is assigned to them. They can request a frequency when they do their initial application, but FCC gets final approval. IF the FCC says that no one can use a frequency, then they simply do not issue any permits for that frequency. Without a permit, anyone using it is subject to fines, equipment forfeiture, and/or criminal charges. So that particular logic doesn't work. The Government "holding" a frequency would do more to attract attention than anything. Anytime you have a radio transmission that is not supposed to be there, people will invariably look into it. When they do, they will find that it is lacking proper FCC documentation and that will cause people to look into it ever more. Back to the idea of hiding in plain sight. If you need to have a transmission and don't want people to look to closely at it, make it as legit and boring as possible. Just make it a full-time time station like WWVB*. A traveler advisory station could work for something that doesn't need to transmit full time. Make it legit with FCC permit and all the paperwork. If it is a TAS station, then put up some signs on the local highways to let people know it is there. With the FCC permit, if someone else tries to transmit on that frequency, they would be interfering with a licensed broadcaster and can be dealt with the same way as someone were trying to interfere with a civilian radio broadcaster. *https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/time-distribution/radio-station-wwvb I thought it was more of a case of trying to justify the existence of a facility there, at all. at which point, using a service that can 99% be operated remotely really wouldn't justify the level of traffic a secret base would have.
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Post by ironhold on Nov 13, 2023 20:36:28 GMT
For plot purposes, I'm looking to have the base be broadcasting *something* plausible on one of the two CONELRAD civil defense frequencies (640 AM and 1240 AM) in order to ensure that it remains "open" under normal circumstances. A time & temperature station is the kind of thing one might expect a government entity to transmit that most people wouldn't think twice about. "Holding a frequency" doesn't really make sense. All transmitters in the US have to be licensed by the FCC. Varous low power transmitter like Wifi, Bluetooth, etc may get exemptions, but they still have to follow the rules and be type accepted by the FCC to be legally sold in the US. For high power broadcasters, their frequency is assigned to them. They can request a frequency when they do their initial application, but FCC gets final approval. IF the FCC says that no one can use a frequency, then they simply do not issue any permits for that frequency. Without a permit, anyone using it is subject to fines, equipment forfeiture, and/or criminal charges. So that particular logic doesn't work. The Government "holding" a frequency would do more to attract attention than anything. Anytime you have a radio transmission that is not supposed to be there, people will invariably look into it. When they do, they will find that it is lacking proper FCC documentation and that will cause people to look into it ever more. Back to the idea of hiding in plain sight. If you need to have a transmission and don't want people to look to closely at it, make it as legit and boring as possible. Just make it a full-time time station like WWVB*. A traveler advisory station could work for something that doesn't need to transmit full time. Make it legit with FCC permit and all the paperwork. If it is a TAS station, then put up some signs on the local highways to let people know it is there. With the FCC permit, if someone else tries to transmit on that frequency, they would be interfering with a licensed broadcaster and can be dealt with the same way as someone were trying to interfere with a civilian radio broadcaster. *https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/time-distribution/radio-station-wwvb Yeah, that's what I was proposing: having a WWV-style station broadcasting on that frequency, and having it be the Central Time Zone's station.
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