On this day in 1984, California Comments was started. California Comments, or "Calcom" for short was a telephone "commentline" based in the San Fernando Valley, CA. Commentlines were phone lines with automatic answering devices that would play a weekly produced recording from 6 to over 30 minutes in length. The recording would consist of messages that were left by callers on an answering machine (called an "input line"). Callers would talk about whatever was on their mind. It was sort of a "talk radio of the telephone".

UPDATE:  We have secured the funding necessary to make the trip to Urbana for this year's GRC.  We are cancelling this specific fundraising campaign but we are still asking for help paying our bills this summer in our ongoing Summer Campaign.  We need to raise another $400 by the end of August.  We know times are tough for all of us, but any assitance, no matter how small is always appreciated.  Thank you.  =m

Michi here..

A few years ago, REC did a podcast called "The REC Report" and it included a section called "DINGERS!" which was a rundown of the notices of apparent liability (NAL) and forfeiture orders (FO) that the FCC issued to broadcasters and other entities for rules violations. There have been quite a few of them this week:

Today, the Audio Division of the Federal Communications Commission has swept the whole KUSF case under the rug with a miniscule $50K handslap and a granted transfer application.

In this modern day of the FCC, they find it more convenient to reach a "consent decree", sort of a plea bargain in the communications world instead of truly investigating potential wrongdoing. 

To prepare for the many steps that will be involved in Auction 83 processing as well as having the most up to date status information available for the next LPFM filing window, starting on Friday, June 8, 2012, REC Broadcast Services will update the status of all broadcast applications from the FCC's Consolidated Database System (CDBS).

On Tuesday through Friday mornings at 2AM REC Operations Time (same as MST in Arizona), 5AM EDT, REC will update the FCC's application tracking file in the our database.