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1. The FCC has voted 4-0 to adopt a
digital radio technology created by iBiquity Digital
Corp, a company backed by large broadcasters including ABC and
Viacom. It will be in-band, on-channel, coexisting with regular FM
broadcasts. (It will probably mean further SCA-like
degradation to the analog FM, but who cares at this
point?--DBH). Proponents say the new technology will bring
CD-quality* (Hah!) to FM broadcasts , and an end to static,
and new data features. Broadcasts will be free, unlike satellite
services. (AP 11Oc02)
2. Under the title "Car-audio
training covers installation, all the basses" the Boston Globe profiles the Ritop School for
Mobile Electronics in Boston. Recently the antinoise group Noise Free
America put the Mass Dept. of Education on its "Noisy dozen"
list for licensing a "boom car academy", saying that boom cars are
destroying many neighborhoods across the country. They are making
people sick and depressed." Ritop's director said the
school turns out professionals who can install stereos, alarms,
monitors and other technology in cars. He pointed out that Noise
Free America considers movie trailers to be a form of noise. (The
group's Web site describes those film previews as "thunderous.")
"It's not about noise,' said the Director. "We just don't go out and
'boom, boom, boom,' all the time."
Rich Inferrera, owner of Rich's Car Tunes
(next door) (profiled in BASS 20-1), started Ritop in 1985 (that's
Rich Inferrera's Team of Professionals). The eight week program
attracts students from as far as Japan.
Mark Huber of Noise Free
America, who lives in Richmond VA, said that Ritop teaches
skills that bring more noisy stereos into the street, violating his
civil rights. "Where I live, those boom cars are shaking building
all over the place...There's a whole culture surrounding these cars,
and it's very misogynist and overtestosteronized."
One of the few women in the program, Brianna
Matthews, drives a silver 2002 Honda Civic with a Kenwood Excelon
head unit, MTX speakers and MTX Thunder 8000 subwoofers, and a
Memphis Belle 5-channel amplifier, which she drives in her commute
to UMass Amherst while listening to the haunting sounds of VAST, an electronic rock band. She did not install
the equipment, but now knows how. (19Se02)
3. Meanwhile Hawaiians are losing
sleep over a tiny male tree frog know as coqui, the size of a quarter. The high-pitched
shriek - co-KEE! co-KEE! co-KEE! - was piercing enough to awake Gail
Souza in the middle of the night. "The frogs have driven our
neighborhood nuts," said Mrs. Souza who runs a small nursery in her
backyard, and who may have unknowingly imported the first of the
amphibians to her neighborhood. Because the females lay several eggs
at a time, and make no sound, the frogs have continued to multiply.
The only remedy has been to spray concentrated caffeine in their
habitat, stimulating them to death. (NYT)
David Hadaway
President, Boston Audio Society
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