Re: Seeking Articles on Airwave Privatization

ama gi — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 07:01:46 GMT

Try looking up Edwin Howard Armstrong.

This man invented frequency-modulation radio. It performed better than the older, amplitude-modulation radio signaling. Unfortunately, the big corporations did not want the competition, so they convinced the FCC to change the rules.

Wikipedia:

RCA began to lobby for a change in the law or FCC regulations that would prevent FM radios from becoming dominant. By June 1945, the RCA had pushed the FCC hard on the allocation of electromagnetic frequencies for the fledgling television industry. Although they denied wrongdoing, David Sarnoff and RCA managed to get the FCC to move the FM radio spectrum from (42-50 MHz), to (88-108 MHz), while getting new television channels allocated in the 40 MHz range.

This single FCC action rendered all Armstrong-era FM receivers useless overnight, and protected RCA's AM-radio stronghold. Armstrong's radio network did not survive the frequency shift up into the high frequencies; most experts believe that FM technology was set back decades by the FCC decision. This change was strongly supported by AT&T, because loss of FM relaying stations forced radio stations to buy wired links from AT&T.

Armstrong later killed himself while feuding with the big businesses over frequency rights and intellectual property.

Seeking Articles on Airwave Privatization

Fox McCloud — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 04:26:33 GMT

Anyone know of any good articles (books, magazines, blogs, etc) on the privatization of the airwaves?

I know Rothbard covered it briefly, here:http://www.mises.org/rothbard/lawproperty.pdf

I'd like to know more details about the court-cases Rothbard mentions, and any other information I can get my paws on.

Economics Questions

Re: Seeking Articles on Airwave Privatization

Seeking Articles on Airwave Privatization