The FCC has issued the following Public Notice permitting non-commercial educational radio and TV stations, which includes LPFM to do fundraising for the Japan effort upon notification to the FCC. REC applauds the FCC in permitting non-commercial broadcasters to use their channels of communications to reach out to the public to raise awareness and gain support for the victims in the Tohoku and other impacted regions of Japan.

With the IP networks down in Japan and prorities on more important things while the rest of the world watches live coverage of the earthquake and tsunami, J1's average listening was down as much as over 55% during some portions of the broadcast day in the hours that followed the original 8.8 quake off the coast of Miyagi-ken.

我々は地震と津波の金曜日の後の日本の人のために祈ります。日本が強いと用意されています。日本が再構築されます。私たちの心は日本人とされます。

大田道子
最高経営責任者RECネットワーク
ディレクターJ1ラジオ

Friday's (JST) 8.8 earthquake off the northeastern coast of Japan's main island Honshu at Miyagi-ken and it's resulting tsunami has caused severe damage throughout Japan's eastern coast. Watching the homes in Sendai city and other coastal areas being washed away was devistating to watch. The structural damage and overall loss of property is enormous. So many people's lives have changed as a result.

Recently, Franny (remember her?) put up a Facebook group for the callers of K-Fone, another voice system that has ran until recently. The interesting thing about K-Fone and many of the REC systems was that it was developed on the same platform. First a quick tutorial on the generations of REC systems:

Generation 1 - Chatsworth 1987-1988 - Called the "REC Conference, Voice Mail and Information Access Service". Featured a live conference bridge, private voice mail and IAS boxes (one way recordings that callers can operate). Operated on an IBM XT.