It appears that way, at least for any agencies that accept federal funding, which includes, well, all of them.

For anyone who didn't grow up watching Dragnet, or CHIPS, or who never owned a CB radio or listened to a police scanner, 10-codes are left over from the early days of mobile radio.

Like the typewriter keyboard, they are actually made to slow you down.

By forcing an officer or firefighter to say "ten" first, the system ensures that the real information -- the number that follows -- is broadcast to those who need it. The act of saying "ten" gives the speaker, who may be responding to a stressful situation, time to press the transmit button on the microphone.

Responding to communication problems that surfaced September 11, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is enforcing the National Incident Management System which, among many other things, requires agencies to use plain English.

Instead of reporting a "10-45" at West B and Tenth, for instance, dispatchers would be required to call it "an injury accident."

The purpose of the move, according to FEMA, is to use language that is easily recognized by the public.

The question is, what public? People who may happen to overhear an officer speaking into his microphone?

Anyone else, who has listened to a police scanner for more than a day or two, knows what a "10-45" is.

For the rare instances when a civilian might need to know and understand emergency radio communications, every dispatcher, officer, firefighter and other emergency responder in the country is going to have to change the way they do their jobs every day.

I'm not sure the federal officials are completely 10-90.*

It doesn't make much difference to 90 percent of the television views in McCook, but I think it's exciting.

Tuning around my rabbit ears a while back, I noticed a new UHF signal -- the strongest I could receive -- coming from NTV.

McCook has notoriously bad electromagnetic reception -- try picking up a good, consistent public radio station, for instance.

But my sources tell me that NTV's ABC repeater signal will soon be joined by a Fox broadcast. NTV, headquartered in Kearney and anchored by McCook's own Seth Denney, makes a promotional point of providing a free television signal.

If it comes to fruition, McCook cheapskates like myself will be able to receive ABC, NBC, PBS, CBS and Fox via rabbit ears.

Not a bad entertainment package, especially when it's time to pay for $2.61 gasoline.

We won't talk about the coming switch to mandatory digital signals.

-- *Tower lights burning properly.