Sunday, December 21, 2008

Newsbreak: You know you’re breaking my heart and you’re taking me down

Good morning...it’s 7 o’clock and this is an FM 89.3 newsbreak:
Trade barriers among the Pacific Rim nations are coming down. Indonesian President Suharto says the leaders of the 18 Asian and Pacific nations gathered in his country for an economic summit have agreed to drop all trade barriers among themselves within the next twenty years. President Clinton was calling for the bigger industrial economies of the region to drop trade barriers by the year 2010 or earlier. Suharto said at the conclusion of the summit that human rights were not discussed.

Tropical storm Gordon is passing between Florida and Cuba as it heads for the Gulf of Mexico. Sustained winds are about 50 miles per hour and forecasters expect a lot more rain today. The storm hit Haiti over the weekend killing 100 people. Heavy rains yesterday disrupted telephone services, cut power to more than 200-thousand people, and force the space shuttle Atlantis to land in California.

Showers today with highs only in the 70s; cloudy and humid tonight with lows in the 50s. Currently it’s 66 degrees.

That’s the news for this morning. Today is either Tuesday or Thursday and we’ve had to deal with the bothersome Bob and the Big Dog or laidback Mike and James.

About midway through the semester the news staff was asked by our director, Troy Meadows, to take our scripts into the newsroom when we were done. The idea was to allow the next newsreader to see what was used the previous hour and then “update” anything for the next hour. Apparently, for me to have all my scripts, I did not follow this practice, or I did and managed to still retrieve them a day or two later. I tend to think I just kept the scripts because nothing I read would ever need updated. All my stories were international and probably of little interest to those listening. I don’t think I ever met who did the news after me, either; on Mondays I was out the door to class and on T-days I usually wanted to get into Propel’s class a few minutes early.

Why? Probably to look over the last notes we took to prepare for a quiz. Yeah, we’d probably had at least one quiz a week, sometimes one on both Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Now it’s your turn.

Take out two sheets of paper...it’s time for a quiz.
  1. Define broadcasting. [Sowing of seeds by scattering them over a wide field.]
  2. The pulling apart of thinning of vibrating air molecules, creating low pressure or partial vacuum? [Rarefaction.]
  3. The changing of energy from one form into another? [Transduction.]
  4. Anything that interferes with the communication of the signal from the source to the receiver? [Noise.]
  5. The height of a sound wave? [Amplitude.]
  6. A contest is a lottery if it involves what? [Chance, consideration, and prize.]
  7. Monaural literally means? [One ear.]
  8. The sound source coming closer to the microphone and increase of bass response? [Proximity effect.]
  9. Substance or device through which a signal is channeled? [Medium.]
  10. What controls the output level for each channel? [Potentiometer.]
  11. Which pick-up pattern is the most directional? [Hyper-cardioid.]
  12. The scale to measure the relative loudness of amplified sound, where 0 is used as a reference level for the proper audio output level? [Volume Unit meter.]
  13. What is the phone number of the FCC? [202-418-0200.]
  14. One of the biggest problems with carts and/or cart machines? [Don’t cue automatically.]
  15. What wave-form is a representation of the original signal? [Analog.]
  16. SESAC stands for what? [The Society of European State Authors and Composers.]
  17. The 3-pin cable and connectors used in audio? [XLR.]
  18. The laser in a compact disc player uses what substance? [Gallium arsenide.]
  19. Plug-in connector are also known as? [Jacks.]
  20. In Communication 136, if you had no absences you would enter the penalty area on which tardy? [Your eighth.]
  21. What is the variable electromagnetic field which affects the particles on a recording tape, thereby recording or erasing information? [Flux.]
  22. What is the address of the FCC? [1919 M Street, N.W., Washington D.C. 20554.]
  23. Which is vertically propagated? [AM Radio.]
  24. The Chairman of the FCC? [Reed Hundt.]
  25. What is the most common format of non-commercial radio stations? Second most common? [Classical. Religious.]
  26. How many classes of AM radio stations are there? [Four.]
  27. Radio stations are licensed for how many years? [Seven.]
  28. The process by which radio waves weaken as they travel through space? [Attenuation.]
  29. The FCC wants DJs to know what? [Know how to give/receive EBS test, perform station identification, read meters.]
  30. Announcing songs already played on the air is what? [Back selling. Come on!]
Time's up!

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Question
(Rick Johnson/Tony Pomilla)
Temper Scarlet
From the album The Crayon King
1996