We'd like to contact you. Are people generally cooperative or are people just like I have no idea what you are talking, I have never seen anything, what is this, I don't want to deal with this? What's more, pirate radio stations gave us access to some of the most pivotal figures in UK music . Additionally, you can always tune a remote receiver, via the Internet on the Global Tuners website, or via the University of Twentes SDR in the Netherlands. Meanwhile, the Ross Revenge was repaired and converted into a floating museum for tourists. Many of our links now function as affiliate links. Some of those, you know, if you tune your dial and find some spaces where there is some dead air, well those are intentionally put there in order so that stations don't cause interference to each other. That would allow us to increase the fine to $100,000. That happens a lot. Most pirates transmit using SSB with modern ham radio equipment, others use AM utilizing vintage or homebrew equipment. The important thing here is that you invest in a receiver with a respectable degree of sensitivity and selectivity. Unauthorized stations are particularly prolific in the New York City area, where a 2016 study by the New York State Broadcasters Association (NYSBA) found that there actually were more pirates then on the FM band than legal licensed stations. Pirate radio operators usually have day jobslike most of usthus only transmit while home from work. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes, we have a lot of stations in New York, in particular. And they come -- I've worked with them when they have bulletproof vests on and automatic weapons. I mean you got to give it to Congress for the bill naming that they do. 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. Broadcasting at 250,000 watts, XERF was five times as powerful as the most high-powered Top 40 AM stations on the West Coast. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Is that a point of pride for you from Philadelphia? If you just use an internet browser and search FCC complaint you will come to the link for filing a complaint. So we would rather take one single complaint from a broadcast licensee saying, hey, I've gotten 50 listener complaints in this area, here is where we are hearing it, do a little leg work yourself and verify that it's an unlicensed station, and then we can work with them in getting the station off the air. 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. 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. 2 talking about this. Want to buy me a cup of coffee? Open up the transmitter Locate the seam on the transmitter's case and pry it open with a putty knife (if your transmitter is screwed shut, you'll need a screwdriver to open it). They could stream. I have four offices, it includes Chicago, it includes Boston, New York, and Columbia, Maryland. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: So don't bother looking for it. But if you are buying something off of the dark web or whatever and it's coming into the U.S. you don't know, and when we talked before the show you mentioned that a lot of times with these FAA complaints it's a malfunctioning transmitter. It had a 20-mile range. Tribute to Pirate Radio, KQLZ 100.3 FM Los Angeles. 14 July 2020. Do a little pirate radio hunting yourself. KQLZ Pirate Radio stormed the Southern California airwaves in 1989, and listeners "flushed" their former stations as they. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: And obviously as a good citizen I have never to my knowledge listened to a pirate radio station. It could be computers, antennas, coaxial cables. URL Here: https://dkng.co/rogue-----For entertainment purposes only. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes, well, you know, they operate in the AM band so it sounds really distorted when you are trying to listen to FM radio on an AM radio. The bulk of the pirate radio broadcasters I log transmit just below the 40-meter amateur radio band: anywhere from 6,850 kHz to 6,970 kHz and typically on a frequency spaced at 5 kHz. They can be highly entertaining or thought-provoking, and thus are, themselves, a unique art form. There is a studio somewhere. The government authorities in charge of the surveillance of the radio-electric spectrum can use the PROWATCH instruments to detect and locate the pirate and irregular broadcast stations of radio and TV. Now many listeners as you know have the experience of tuning their dial and there appear to be vacant channels you have said that one of the reasons for that is to guard against interference, but someone listening might say well why do we care, right. I used a pneumatic spud gun to launch an arborist's bag to deploy my 50' end fed antenna 40' up into a tree. Ragnar Daneskjold hosts an occasional podcast serving the shortwave pirate community; it includes pirate radio news, off-air recordings, and more. While the magic of shortwave radio can transport a small signal vast distances, to hear pirates regularly and clearly, some precision is required. March 13 2022 . Do you hear it on the weekends or is only a station that operates during the weekends? 2. A lot of stations conceal their antennas, they hide behind things, they take the antennas down during they day, so they try avoid detection. Total . So those are some of the challenges that you all have to tackle in taking on this important enforcement function. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Right. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Ten times as much, that's big, yes. Launched just five months ago, Internet Archive's Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications has expanded to more than 61,000 items related to amateur radio, shortwave listening, and related communications. But if we sign it into law we would have some additional resources, first increasing the fines. To determine the wavelength of your signal in inches, divide 11811 by your transmitter's frequency in megahertz (MHz). The U.S. has had its share of pirate broadcasters over the years as well. It will also help to have some sort of adjustable bandwidth filter (wide/narrow). Pirate stations want listeners to discover them, so they broadcast in various watering holes.. Now all those things have one thing in common. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Sure. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Right, he's no the public face of it. Do we have a right under the first amendment to speak via a radio station even if it is unlicensed by the FCC and is there potentially a case that can kind of exemplify why pirate radio is not protected under the First Amendment? Fortunately for the beginning pirate-hunter, there are now online message boards, free radio logs, and even publications (like Yoders excellent treatise on the subject) to help guide your tuning (see resource links below). 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. tyson jost dad; sean penn parkinson's disease; mockingbirds attacking my cat And I have had to make this clarifying point on other podcasts that I have done at the FCC. MR. DOMBROWSKI: So some States have laws on the book that prohibit pirate radio operation, States like New Jersey and New York and Florida. As a self-proclaimed content DXer, what interests me in pirate radio is that the listener never knows what to expect, but you can guarantee that the content will be different from that of the major broadcasters. Oh, it happens a lot, especially in these urban areas like New York. MR. DOMBROWSKI: So the complainant needs to tell us where they hear the station. We do that with every pirate station. And so he brought this argument up when we tried to get his station off the air by using the court proceedings and he fought that we were violating his First Amendment rights. But so when we say Region One I think even most people in the FCC are not necessarily aware of how the country is carved up when it comes to enforcement and the field offices, et cetera, so can you give the listeners a brief sense of what do we mean by Region One, what areas do you cover? (Disclaimer). MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes, if it's imported. 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? MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Welcome to "More Than 7 Dirty Words," the official FCC podcast. Now I know that finding pirates is reasonably achievable; at least, it is possible to know roughly where, and generally when, to find them. And an overall limit of $2 million. Ive also been encouraged by pirates to hone my weak-signal DXing using exalted carrier reception (ECR)zero-beating an AM signal in SSBin an attempt to hear weak AM pirate stations. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: It doesn't say FCC pirate agent? Indeed, since pirates are operating at lower power, they get much more bang-for-the-watt out of SSB. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: -- and you always try to go with the least destructive one. Though pirates can be located anywhere on the planet, and therefore can broadcast, hypothetically, anywhere on the radio dial, patterns are actually fairly predictable in order to draw a listening audience. But by the 1960s, the postwar baby boom filled the U.K. with millions of teenagers who were eager to hear the rock 'n' roll records that the BBC declined to play. Want to know why the usually run them out at sea. "He convinced me to not stay on as Bond I'd be in danger of becoming part of the Establishment," Lazenby wrote on in an Instagram tribute after O'Rahilly's death in April 2020, noting that he had no regrets about taking that advice. Tracking a Pirate Radio Station The Modern Rogue Discovering Secret "Numbers Stations" The Modern Rogue Detecting a Wire and Hidden Spy Cams The Most Notorious TV Hijack of All Time Rodney P -. Hobby Broadcasting Blog: http://hobbybroadcasting.blogspot.com/. We Owe It All to Radio: The Inside Story of CES, Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Pictures, Special Offer on Antivirus Software From HowStuffWorks and TotalAV Security, Radio Caroline: The True Story of the Ship That Rocked. Well I want to, you know, just emphasize the importance of this issue. Pirate radio guru Andrew Yoder started his own pirate blog last year, and has already began populating it with regular updates, QSLs, and recordings. Total Views 29,203 (Older Stats) ITEMS. The result was a border-blaster that covered a wide geographical area. Google Maps is a web mapping service developed by Google. "One reason I've found as to why people are still using pirate radio is that these communities have very strong cultural and historic connections to radio," Goren explains. They also have potential to cause interference to the adjacent channel stations, you know, up above their frequency and below their frequency. Radio plays such an important role when you talk about hurricanes striking or other natural disasters, people turn to their local broadcast, including radio for information, and to have that be interfered with is a public safety concern let alone the FAA issues which are very serious. Note:Even though it is illegal to broadcast on the shortwave bands without a license, and those who do so are subject to hefty fines, it is not illegal to listen or to send and receive QSL cards from such operators. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Right. So I never left, I've been here for over 25 years. We want them to be as descriptive as possible. But merely the act of purchasing this equipment is illegal and partly that's because it comes from overseas and it's not been tested by the FCC, correct? Over the past few years, Ive found that one of my favorite listening activities has become searching for unique pirate radio stations, and readers of my blog appear to have followed suit. "I spoke with a pastor of a church in the community which had a station and the antenna was taken down by the FCC," Goren says. And I am glad you mentioned call signs because that could be a potential suspicious signal is that pirate radio stations, because they are illegitimate by their very nature, are not doing typical radio station things like announcing their call sign at the top of the hour or doing, you know, certain regular scheduled activities, so that could be something that might mean you are listening to a pirate station. "Private radio was prohibited and only the British Broadcasting Corporation, which was part of the political establishment, sent radio to the British people with the remit to be morally uplifting, informative and educational," Moore says. We have a call center, it's 888-CALL-FCC where we have staff there during business hours to take your complaint. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes. 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. 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. If you live outside of North America and Europe, that doesnt mean there arent pirate radio stations to be found. Its much better, of course, if you have a table-top receiver, software-defined radio, or ham radio transceiver with a general coverage receiver hooked up to a resonant outdoor antennaespecially if you live outside Europe and North America. That would be not a good practice. He was out of Berkeley, California, and his station was called Radio Free Berkeley. Ask your local radio club or search the Internet for local/regional pirate stations. Shortwave DX Blog - A blog with loggings and information relating to shortwave pirate radio in Europe. And those parameters, you know, restrict your operation and the coverage of your station because we have a whole engineering study that needs to be done so you don't cause interference to other stations. These include Amateur Radio Newsline, a weekly audio news [] In 1967, Parliament enacted the Marine Broadcasting Offenses Act, which made offshore broadcasts from ships illegal, on the pretext that their broadcast interfered with marine weather radio and distress signals, as this contemporaneous New York Times account notes. If we get that information we have a vehicle, it's called a direction-finding vehicle and it has specialized equipment in it. MR. DOMBROWSKI: So we have two ways to file a complaint. Created on. Total . MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Pirate radio. Winning a con. There was a case that I worked back in Philly back in the day --. No, not the Pirates of the Caribbean or East Africawe're talking about pirate radio. Are we talking about U.S. marshals with machine guns kicking in doors, are we talking about politely knocking on a door and saying, hey, guys, your time is up, we found you, you know, what's the image that essentially you see when this goes down in your experience or is there kind of a spectrum of different cases, some are a little bit more intense than others? MR. DOMBROWSKI: Well that's what I went up with. Chasing pirates has also increased my technical know-how. In the United States, the term pirate radio implies the unlicensed broadcasting use of any part of the radio spectrum that is reserved for use by governmental, public or commercial licensees by the Federal Communications Commission. MR. DOMBROWSKI: It's not, you know, and we didn't talk about, there are other legal ways to go about it. Has it gotten worse, has it gotten better? VIEWS. Here's a test shot without the line or antenna attached. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes, it may not start to cause interference as soon as you open up and out of the box and operate it, but over time with the heating up of the electronics inside it starts to malfunction and cause what we call spurius emissions where signals are operating outside your intended band and cause interference to other radio services. The British government, though, didn't appreciate what Radio Caroline and other pirate broadcasters were doing. Ads are what helps us bring you premium content! They also cover your wireless routers in your house. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes. Last updated: December 2022 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. Join. 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 In addition to this 2019 BBC documentary, Goren also has created the Pirate Radio Map, which documents pirate radio stations in Brooklyn and even includes brief samples from their broadcasts. They spent the fees to get the license. * Explains how to buy and use equipment to listen to pirate stations. 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. We also would be required to file a report to Congress annually on our enforcement activities in pirate radio. Now that maybe gets us down to the building, you know, where it might be operating. The Moody Blues are one example of this." If you live in North Americaparticularly on the east coastor in Europe, youre in luck: these are the hottest geographic locations for shortwave pirate radio activity. After that when we don't get compliance from somebody he gets a warning letter and comes back on the air and then we do get the warrant with the U.S. marshals. PROMAX designs several monitoring and spectrum surveillance systems. Back when KIWI was on the air regularly in the 90s, I assumed that pirate radio would explode in Oceania and Asia. South America was strong for a while in the 90s, but that has also fallen silent. Is this something that plays a role in alerting you to these stations that broadcasters themselves are identifying them and complaining about them? I keep a copy handy as it helps me identify stations and better understand their format. Tribute to Pirate Radio, KQLZ 100.3 FM Los Angeles. Now stop your Googling right now because that is illegal, right? 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