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| Profiles |
| Don Mussell
Consulting Engineer Broadcast Engineering Services of Bonny Doon 415 Emerald Forest Lane Bonny Doon, CA 95060 (831) 420-1571 (Office) Don Mussell is broadcast engineer with 35 years experience that has also worked directly with community radio. What kind of services do you offer or specialize in (example FCC paperwork, antenna installation, studios...)? Don: All of the above, and transmitter installation and repairs, STL allocation studies, just about everything. I have retired from erecting towers, but still work on light rigging of antennas and transmission line. What do you think the major purpose of community radio should be in serving the public (community affairs, news, being open to the public to volunteer at, alternative music…) All of those sound real good. As well as provide either an alternative viewpoint or perspective, or at the least, something different from everything else on the dial. Do you see any major difference in non-commercial radio today compared to 30 years ago? Well, for one, NPR and such have changed the tone of most of the big University stations who, in the past, might have had much more local programming and hosts. Many, but not all, community stations have drifted that way as well. Non-commercial broadcasts used to be fairly dull and predicable. It is somewhat less so today, given that there are more choices in many communities. But, in many cases, as above, stations have made the switch from one deadly boring (or safe) format to another safe and predicable format. Boldness and bravery is not a major player in most non-commercial operations. But most stations tend to play it safe because of funding scarcities, and with some real fear of political fallout from being too bold. Community radio seems to be a rare commodity. Why do you think there are not more community radio stations? Lorenzo Milam and I missed the boat, or were born too late. Both of us tried, with some success, to start as many non-commercial community operations as we could manage in a short time. We were fairly successful, but we missed a couple biggies like Philadelphia, Chicago, Richmond, Sacramento and other places like that. One can only do so much, it seems. What stations do you listen to? I listen to everything. But my favorite locals are KUSP in Santa Cruz, KZSC at the UCSC campus, and KPFA and KALW in San Francisco. I listen to KKCR in Hanalei (one of my babies, as I like to say), as well as WMMT in Whitesburg, Kentucky (another of my "babies"). Go to Don's site, www.well.com/user/dmsml/, for more information, including histories of KAZU and KUSP. Be sure to check out the awesome facility photographs. |
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