And so that impedes the investigation a little bit because it is difficult to find where that studio is located, but we do, we do a lot of interviews. So that is quite a large area. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: So don't bother looking for it. So over the last ten years people get online and purchase a transmitter and get it delivered to their door and so that makes, you know, everybody a hobbiest now and to have an interest to start a pirate radio station because it's so available. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: So there are no doubt some good samaritans listening to this show that want nothing more than to help with the scourge of pirate radio. "The government decided that radio was too influential as a means of mass communication to be in private hands," Peter Moore explains in an email. Marshals went in with us and we seized the equipment. Radio Caroline because so influential that, pretty soon, other ships were broadcasting rock off the coast as well. We have had meetings with broadcast associations where we went a room with other broadcasters and that's a very big concern of them, the financial end of it. Pirates Week: http://shortwavepirate.info. It has become more common for pirates to transmit images using SSTV.A few have experimented with FM or digital modes like RTTY, PSK31 . MR. DOMBROWSKI: Okay. Now this is not just a focus of the FCC, Congress is also interested in this. That would allow us to increase the fine to $100,000. (Listen to one of Ronins broadcasts below.). It lasted three years there and then I had an opportunity to get to the Philadelphia Office Enforcement Bureau with the field work and that's been -- I was there for 20 years. Enter ZIP code or city, state as well. MR. DOMBROWSKI: So this equipment helps us track us down. Let's say they are listening, they think something is suspicious they get a tip, they see something weird in their building, what can they do to help you and the FCC tackle this problem? Ive noticed increased pirate radio activity during the winter months, as well. They also have potential to cause interference to the adjacent channel stations, you know, up above their frequency and below their frequency. This radio in a single case is also capable of re-broadcasting any audio source. For many of the people in those communities, who may not be able to afford a computer or a smartphone and a broadband connection, pirate radio is an affordable medium. And so, yes, we may -- We have a warrant for the property. The British government, though, didn't appreciate what Radio Caroline and other pirate broadcasters were doing. Pirate radio stations are a crucial part of British music culture. It could be computers, antennas, coaxial cables. Some pirates simply key down their mike and begin talking, sharing their political or social views; others offer near-professional music productions, complete with listener feedback, and often acknowledge listener reports with QSLs (radio postcards). PIRATES RADIO NETWORK AFFILIATES Pennsylvania PITTSBURGH: KDKA-FM 93.7 Altoona: WVAM-AM 1430 Ambridge: WMBA-AM 1460 Beaver Falls: WBVP-AM 1230 Bradford: WESB-AM 1490 Butler: WISR-AM 680 MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Ten times as much, that's big, yes. But the interesting thing about this was that it was operated by a group of people who considered themselves Moors, which are indigenous people of the United States who were here before the United States was colonized. Want to buy me a cup of coffee? Thank you! To track pirates, youll need a radio with both AM and SSB modes. I have four offices, it includes Chicago, it includes Boston, New York, and Columbia, Maryland. So how do you escalate the situation, you know, what tools do you have to say, okay, we're not getting cooperation let's take this up a notch? Want to know why the usually run them out at sea. MR. DOMBROWSKI: It is. Radio Caroline founder Ronan O'Rahilly had another claim to fame, in that he influenced actor George Lazenby to give up the role of James Bond after playing in just one film, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," in 1969. And did I mention the cool QSL cards? It's about $200,000 worth of equipment. Click here to donate via PayPal. 14 July 2020. But please note that we will never create a post and product link explicitly to receive a commission. Pirate stations want listeners to discover them, so they broadcast in various "watering holes." As this 2009 article from the Independent, a British newspaper, details, O'Rahilly obtained a 63-ton (57-metric ton), Danish passenger ferry, the MV Frederica, and renamed it Caroline, after the daughter of the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy. MR. DOMBROWSKI: That's not going to be my cell phone is it? Many of you have suggested in the past that the SWLing Post join an affiliate links program. They also spent the regulatory fees that they have to, you know, spend I think yearly, and so they have an investment in their service and these unlicensed stations NP that. MR. DOMBROWSKI: You know, that's hard to say. So that's why the licensing process is so important to avoid that interference. And they come -- I've worked with them when they have bulletproof vests on and automatic weapons. They inventory it all and then they sign it over to the FCC to hold and then we finally get the courts to order that it's released to the federal government and it's our property. There is a reason that those devices operate in an unlicensed manner because they are not transmitting very far. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Well that's what I went up with. MR. DOMBROWSKI: We do make them aware that they are contributing to this illegal activity. Click here to view a list of all sponsors. The BBC played catch-up launching Radio One and recruiting the same pirates for their roster. There is a lot of misconception about what a low power transmitter is. Unlike the rock 'n' roll hipsters of 1960s British pirate radio, who aimed at a mass audience, most of Brooklyn's unlicensed broadcasters seem to be immigrants and members of ethnic and religious minorities trying to reach their own groups and neighborhoods. But most of the current American pirates are based on dry land, broadcasting from clandestine antennas on rooftops in places such as Brooklyn. It will also help to have some sort of adjustable bandwidth filter (wide/narrow). MR. SWARZTRAUBER: So when it comes to local law enforcement are they generally uninterested in taking this on or, you know, because you mentioned federal agents are often involved, it's federal courts, U.S. The history of pirate radio stations is inextricably linked with the development of countless genres, including hip-hop, garage, punk, and grime. Marshals actually seize it. I mean are there tell-tale signs or are some of these stations so sophisticated that it's really hard for the average person to distinguish? KQLZ Pirate Radio stormed the Southern California airwaves in 1989, and listeners "flushed" their former stations as they. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Do the pilots only complain if it's a song that they don't like? ACTIVITY. To have a radio station here helps to establish the station's operator as an important source of information and influence in the community.". I mean you got to give it to Congress for the bill naming that they do. MR. DOMBROWSKI: And so they said well because we were here before it was colonized our federal laws don't apply to us. Well I want to, you know, just emphasize the importance of this issue. Now stop your Googling right now because that is illegal, right? Give us a sense of the universe of this problem given that it is such a priority for this FCC to crack down on it. Additionally, we always try to include links to other retail options if they are available, as we support and freely advertise independent ham radio retailers. MR. DOMBROWSKI: It's not, you know, and we didn't talk about, there are other legal ways to go about it. The original converted ferry sank in 1980, but the five DJs on board and the ship's canary, Wilson, named after British Prime Minister Harold Wilson all were rescued, according to O'Rahilly's New York Times obituary. If you click on "radio" you'll come to a page where you can input your address and your phone number and email and a description of like what, you know, what you are experiencing. And what the pirate radio operators do is they don't obtain a license, they don't go through this process, and they try to find vacant spectrum between these stations. March 13 2022 . But the FCC, Congress and the commercial broadcasting industry don't see the pirates as serving such a benign purpose. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: And it's important to clarify that FCC enforcement agents are not law enforcement agents, but I was struck by how some of the work that goes into identifying and shutting down a station is like good old-fashioned police work, like knocking on doors saying, hey, have you seen anything weird, have you seen people carrying around transmitters or antennas. In the quieter winter months, stations seem to pop out of the ether. If you live in other parts of the world, pirate hunting can pose serious DX challenges. Total . Additionally, pirate broadcasters don't have to deal with all the legal complexities of setting up and running a streaming internet service, such as writing terms of service or meeting contractual obligations, he notes. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Just because it's easy to buy it doesn't mean it's legal. And so when a station operates say on 95.5 megahertz they now have potential to cause interference to other stations on 95.5 that may be a little distance away. So a transmitter that complies with the Part 15 requirements has a very small operating range, about 100 feet. A new, raw, grassroots kind of pirate radio exploded from 1992 onwards. It's eminently cheaper to purchase or build an unlicensed radio station than it is to set up a robust streaming channel online, especially if you're looking to cover a local area. Now one thing I want to talk about is Part 15. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: And obviously as a good citizen I have never to my knowledge listened to a pirate radio station. So, the F. The plot is based loosely on the saga of an actual former pirate station, Radio Caroline, that was founded by an offbeat Irish entrepreneur named Ronan O'Rahilly, the inspiration for the character portrayed by Bill Nighy. To track pirates, you'll need a radio with both AM and SSB modes. So when we license stations, you know, I used to work in the FM branch so I am very knowledgeable about the process, but there is a whole legal and engineering study that has to be done before you get a license and it takes resources to do that, financial resources. The important thing here is that you invest in a receiver with a respectable degree of sensitivity and selectivity. 10. If you just use an internet browser and search FCC complaint you will come to the link for filing a complaint. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Yes. We would also have to create a database for the public access. So we have a team here in the Enforcement Bureau that does that, our Spectrum Enforcement Division. Pirates are always active during holidays, too, most especially on Halloween (31st of October), which seems to be pirates favorite holiday. Airchecks from unauthorized broadcast radio stations throughout the years. Pirate stations want listeners to discover them, so they broadcast in various watering holes.. In the late 1980s, unlicensed operators tried broadcasting from a Honduran-flag freighter in the waters off Long Island, according to The New York Times. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Right. We also had a case in Queens, New York, where several pirate radio stations got involved together and they were using each other's equipment in order to change location to avoid detection. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes, it's -- Pirate radio has been around for decades. In the U.S., pirate stations have popped up in recent years all over the country, from West Virginia to Washington state, according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which plays a continual game of whack-a-mole in an effort to keep them off the airwaves used by licensed broadcasters. MR. DOMBROWSKI: No, it doesn't have -- It's not marked with pizza delivery guy either. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: -- and you always try to go with the least destructive one. If you are given ten choices make sure the one you actually one is your eighth choice because that's going to be the one that you get. Wolves are looking to climb up the table (Picture: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images) This will be the fourth time this year the two . I mean they have a significant financial investment in their stations, they have gone through proper FCC process, and now they are competing for listeners with stations that did not go through that process, did not necessarily bear the same financial burden to get up and running, and they are not maybe just competing with listeners, as we have mentioned we've been competing with, they are competing with advertisers as well. Speaking for myself, Im passionate about pirate radio listening because it combines my listening/technical skills, my appetite for highly unique content, and for building a collection of quirky QSL cards. I apologize to the listeners in advance if I make any horrible, corny jokes throughout the course of this podcast, but it would probably help to start with a definition, right. It could be harmful if we let a pirate radio station operate because sometimes they cause interference to other services, like aeronautical communications. So we have a lot of those stations operating, so it's big revenue for them. We have pirate radio there, too, not as bad as we did in New York. Listening to Other Stations: Click on the tuning arrows ( TUNE >) to listen to stations up and down the dial. Revealing the. * Explains how to buy and use equipment to listen to pirate stations. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes. Radio and electronics were my hobbies. I used a pneumatic spud gun to launch an arborist's bag to deploy my 50' end fed antenna 40' up into a tree. Ads are what helps us bring you premium content! For consistencys sake, I will use the term pirate radio in this article. One of the FCC's top enforcement priorities is cracking down on pirates, and, no, not the Pirates of the Caribbean or the Pirates of East Africa, we're talking about pirate radio. It's not. Where are you hearing this interference problem? Addeddate 2022-03-13 23:21:58 . Please support this website by adding us to your whitelist in your ad blocker. Airchecks from unauthorized broadcast radio stations throughout the years. Now, of course, my favorite thing that I want to ask you is what are some fun examples, maybe not fun, but interesting examples of cases that you have closed where maybe the circumstances were a bit bizarre or interesting that might help a listener understand just how weird some of this stuff can get and just how interesting some of these operations can be. Join. Now when we talk about enforcement actions, you know, I'd like to kind of paint a picture for our listeners. You still have to go down on foot and go out onto maybe the rooftop where the antenna is to confirm that that is the source. We have language to kind of consider them an operator, so they could be liable for a fine and we do issue them a warning letter. "He created Radio Caroline operating in that way and the station was at once called a 'pirate,'" Moore says. The station is capable of running off of 13.8/28 volts DC battery, which can even be charged with solar power. Radio 510 International - European relay station broadcasting every weekend on short-wave to all of Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East on 13840 kHz. (Disclaimer). MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Right, he's no the public face of it. The Pirates flagship radio station, SportsRadio 93.7 THE FAN, will air extended local pre-game and post-game coverage before and after every broadcast. They use either the internet or a wireless source to get the signal back to the transmitter. But they secure the property for us so that we feel safe going in there and then we help them identify what equipment we need to seize. Enter a location to find a nearby pirate radio stations. Ex-Beatle George Harrison was sufficiently appreciative of Radio Caroline's mission that he even wrote a sizable check in the early 1970s to help keep the ship in operation, according to Ray Clark's book "Radio Caroline: The True Story of the Ship That Rocked.". All you need is a location to host the antenna and access to electricity unless you've got batteries, then just the location.". This article originally appeared in the February 2014 issue of The Spectrum Monitor Magazine. Some pirates have even shown in in the SWBC bands, including 49, 31 and 25 meters. Now you usually get one of your top, you know, first or second choice. So they thought that was a way for them to avoid detection by hopping from building to building and frequency to frequency. Loggings are in real time and there are very fewif anyoff-topic posts. Total Views 29,203 (Older Stats) ITEMS. You know, is this a massive national problem, are there particular areas where it's a problem? So when we finally are able to pick up the signal in our car we then drive in the area in kind of a circle around the source and we plot lines, we call them lines of bearing on a map, and where they intersect is where this transmission source is originating. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Well at least you are recycling. Has it evolved over the years? "Pirate Radio" is a period piece, set in a time when the Rolling Stones' "Let's Spend the Night Together" and the Who's "My Generation" were still scandalous and controversial rather than nostalgic anthems for today's aging baby boomers. Is this something that plays a role in alerting you to these stations that broadcasters themselves are identifying them and complaining about them? MR. DOMBROWSKI: Sure. Radio GDay came on from Australia occasionally, but no one else. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: And we're talking about air traffic control? Euro pirates typically broadcast in the 48 meter band (6,200 6,450 kHz), but the HF Underground notes that you will also hear Euro pirates on the 75 meter band between 3,900-4,000 kHz, on the 19 meter band (15,000-15,100 kHz and 15,700-15,900 kHz), and even on the 13 meter band (21,000-25,000 kHz). MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes, if it's imported. I started as a field agent doing inspections and doing pirate radio enforcement was one of my jobs and then I moved into a senior agent position and then eventually the District Director, which the manager of the Philadelphia office. Tribute to Pirate Radio, KQLZ 100.3 FM Los Angeles. North American Pirate Radio Frequencies By far the most active ranges in North America are 43 meters (6800-7000 kHz), 46 meters (6200-6400 kHz) and 73 meters (4000-4200 kHz), with some activity in the 60 meter band (4700-5300 kHz) as well. Yes, they come with weapons. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: And those, and I think we mentioned New York, we mentioned Philadelphia, are there other hot spots in particular where this seems to just be a bigger problem than elsewhere in the country? Our agency was delegated by Congress to allocate frequencies and allocate it in the public interest and it's a resource. I asked him why he would still take the risk to go back on air and he said he wanted to reach the homeless, the shut-ins, the elderly who couldn't access the internet.". Here's a test shot without the line or antenna attached. While debunking myths about pirates, I can say that in my years of pirate radio listening Ive never heard a pirate intentionally jam a legal broadcaster. So I never left, I've been here for over 25 years. Be careful to. Let's say you don't get cooperation from a building owner, you don't get cooperation from the eventual studio, maybe it's in their apartment and they're not opening the door, obviously, because they don't want to get caught. 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