RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

with FM . One such development is gated impulse modulation, a digital transmission technique utilizing far less power than conventional methods while maintaining digital audio puritv through transmitter output. As AM broadcasters taKe stock - of technical issues , programming and new transmission strategies - the medium will not merely survive but proliferate , DISPOSABLE RADIO It is an axiom in the United States and many other parts of the wor!d that the mix of stations on the AM and FM bands sounds pretty much the same from city to city - on!y the locations on the dial have been changed from one place to another . Typical program formats are so cut and dried that a word or two can usually describe them; top 40, mellow oldies and rock , news, jazz, harđ rock and so forth. Even educational radio stations by anđ large sound the same from place to place , with program fare largely network originated . The latter half of the 20th century can be characterized by a trend towarđ uniformity , a monotonous sameness seen everywhere. Mom.and pop дгосегу stores have been replaced by supermarket chains; diners and restaurants have yielded to the übiquitous fast food outlet; and what was china and silver has been become disposable plastic . Radio f are, too , has become plastic and disposable . "Hit" music formats are heard everywhere , sounding virtually the same in Seattle and San Juan; in London , England and London , Ontario . What is "hot" today becomes "gold" tomorrow, then f ades away into oblivion as some new trend catches the public's fancy . Fast food radio with disposable plastic programming . It is as though we have been herded together mto a walled enclosure labeled "utopia" in bright plastic letters . But "something there is that doesn't love a wall" , in the words of poet Robert Frost. Something đeep within us rebels at ali the plastic sameness . A counter -revolution is gathering momentum , as our "yuppie" generation frantically searches for something real, to nourish the being within. Little by little, we begin to look for our roots , to seek out cultural identity , to re _ es tablish a set of values more permanent anđ substantial than fleeting wealth and wall-to-wall entertainment so reminiscent of the caberet. But st.ll for most, the media is the caberet. The yuppies have easy compaređ to those forgotten souls in many mdigenous cultures . Some have been completely lost , while

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