MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Right. Bruce will host a new daily show for Bauer's station Greatest Hits Radio, taking his iconic PopMaster game with him. Addeddate 2022-03-13 23:21:58 . So we have had the most success in getting stations off the air when the district attorney is involved, because the U.S. Attorney's Office when we do the in rem seizures, they have a lot of case work and very high profile cases so there is a little reluctance sometimes because of the case precedence for the U.S. attorneys to take on our cases. The Radio Informer - The latest info on the world of radio including:world,shortwave . So that is a big concern for the broadcasters in those areas. Jason Scott Archivist. We have been at in rem seizures we call them where the U.S. marshals come with the local law enforcement and there is 20 of them and they have to secure the whole block off, the have to secure the building for our protection. Total Views 29,203 (Older Stats) ITEMS. They are not advertising. When do you hear the station? We'd like to contact you. And when KIWI went silent, that was it. Enter Ronan O'Rahilly, who learned that the U.K. government's jurisdiction ended 3 miles (5 kilometers) off the coast, and that stations from other countries already were exploiting that loophole by putting transmitters on offshore ships, according to Moore. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Well there was a version of the bill that passed the House first and now there is a similar bill being considered by Senate. We do contact the property owner before we execute the warrant to let them know we are at the door and we don't want to break the door down but we need them there to open it. The reason is, no matter what time of the year it is, no matter what the space weather (yes, I said space weather) or conditions of the ionosphere are--FM stations are relatively few, local, and always broadcast in the same spots on the FM dial. 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. It is illegal for companies to market equipment that hasn't gone through what we call a certification process, equipment authorization process, where they get a company to look at their transmitter to make sure it complies with our technical rules and doesn't have potential to cause interference to other radio services. "By playing nonstop current pop music in a situation where this had never before been available, Caroline had within months a larger audience than all the BBC stations combined," Moore explains. We do that with every pirate station. For consistencys sake, I will use the term pirate radio in this article. "To enforce the law and protect American radio listeners and lawful businesses, the Federal Communications Commission has made a concerted effort in recent years to step up our enforcement efforts against pirate radio stations.". I mean you got to give it to Congress for the bill naming that they do. Not just Aussie and NZ pirates, but stations in places like The Phillipinesmaybe Japan, South Korea, or Thailand. 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? To track pirates, youll need a radio with both AM and SSB modes. But just as the British government's stiff penalties didn't deter Radio Caroline, at least so far, the U.S. government's crackdown doesn't seem to have deterred the pirates. 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. The price of the equipment is $2,960.51. Unlike trying to locate China Radio International, Radio Australia, or the BBC World Service, hunting pirates requires a decent-quality radio and antenna. The Moody Blues are one example of this." "He created Radio Caroline operating in that way and the station was at once called a 'pirate,'" Moore says. There were helicopters flying over and taking videos, so we got on a little TV, and that helps to go a long way when we get a little media coverage. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes. One of the FCC's top enforcement priorities is cracking down on pirates. Everyone should agree that pirate radio stations - by any definition - are completely illegal. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes, to lease some air time off these legitimate stations. 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. 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. 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 -. Do you hear it any other time, you know, at night time? It might be illegal in terms of IRS about the taxes that aren't be collected off the exchange of funds in the business that's going on behind doors. Its a simple technique, and although it takes some practice, will work on most any radio with a stable BFO (beat frequency oscillator). Please support this website by adding us to your whitelist in your ad blocker. 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. 2. So if they don't meet the Part 15 requirements they need a license. Has it gotten worse, has it gotten better? Set up your Raspberry Pi You'll need to get Raspbian, the Linux-based operating system for the Raspberry Pi. Where the "modern" history of pirate radio seems to begin, though, is in the 1960s when pirate radio operators would get on the air to spread their music to a wider audience. Ive noticed increased pirate radio activity during the winter months, as well. I have four offices, it includes Chicago, it includes Boston, New York, and Columbia, Maryland. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: So let's say that either a broadcaster or a listener files a complaint, what happens then, what tools do you, your colleagues in the FCC, have to go about finding a station, shutting it down, bringing people to justice? They also cover your wireless routers in your house. So we have a team here in the Enforcement Bureau that does that, our Spectrum Enforcement Division. So a pirate radio by simple terms is a broadcast station operating in the FM band, 88 megahertz to 108 megahertz that you dial up on your car radio, that is operating without a license. Listening to Other Stations: Click on the tuning arrows ( TUNE >) to listen to stations up and down the dial. Google Maps is a web mapping service developed by Google. MR. DOMBROWSKI: There is a variety of pirate radio stations out there. Hobby Broadcasting Blog: http://hobbybroadcasting.blogspot.com/. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes, well just in the FM band particularly, if we just let everybody operate where they want it just creates chaos, and that's always been our argument that it creates chaos it the spectrum. Chasing pirates has also increased my technical know-how. Ask your local radio club or search the Internet for local/regional pirate stations. Most pirates transmit using SSB with modern ham radio equipment, others use AM utilizing vintage or homebrew equipment. 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. Once you get a license it restricts you where you can operate, how much power you can use, what antenna you can use, and how high your antenna is. MR. DOMBROWSKI: A lot of these stations are streaming at the same time so it really boggles my mind why an FM station that's unlicensed, you know, has its stream content and then also it's broadcasting over the airwaves. We want them to be as descriptive as possible. This little book by Andrew Yoder is the equivalent of the WRTH (World Radio TV Handbook) of the pirate radio world. MR. DOMBROWSKI: So this equipment helps us track us down. So for that period of time they lose communications and they have to try to find another available channel to keep that communication line open. . What's more, pirate radio stations gave us access to some of the most pivotal figures in UK music . Buy me a coffee: https://www.paypal.me/ringwaymanchester Email: ringwaymanchester@mail.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/m3hhyofficial Facebook:. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Right. David, thanks so much for joining. I was hired into an engineering training program down in Norfolk, Virginia, where we got classroom orientation on all the different radio services and the bureaus and offices for the FCC. Revealing the. Stations such as Weekend Rush, Kool FM, Pulse and Innocence wanted to represent the streets and promote local scenes.. I am a Philadelphia native, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and I graduated Temple University and my first job was the FCC right out of college and interestingly --. comment. They are not considered an operator by investing in that. MR. DOMBROWSKI: The majority of the people do not give us truthful information and so our agents have to be trained to do interviews to know when people are telling the truth or not and it may just require keep asking the right questions and keeping after it. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Right, he's no the public face of it. He got the craft back and kept at pirate radio for nearly another quarter century. 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. If you have information about a pirate radio station, you can notify the FCC by calling 888-CALLFCC or filing a complaint online at https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes, it's -- Pirate radio has been around for decades. 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. Some pirates have even shown in in the SWBC bands, including 49, 31 and 25 meters. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: It's not working properly and that's why it's going into air traffic control. 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. Ive had great results in the past with an old Icom IC-735 and a 40-meter dipole antenna. The SWLing Post now participates in two affiliate advertising programs with two large retailers that still sell shortwave radios, the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and the eBay Partnership, designed to provide a means for sites like ours to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to these retailers of radio products. Whether youre a QSL collector, a content DXer, or the casual SWLer, I find theres something in pirate radio listening for everyone. An excellent and active pirate radio forum hosted by Chris Smolinski. I was still a teenager. 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. What can the average person do? They have a bill circulating around called the PIRATE Act. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes, the legitimate one, the licensed station. Right now it is $10,000 per day per occurrence. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes, very creative on that, wasn't it? 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.". The FRW is an email-only newsletter devoted to the hobby of pirate radio listening, and is distributed free to those who contribute. 2022-03-13 23:21:58 Storage_size 430.7 GB (in 25,393 files) Title Pirate Radio Airchecks. Airchecks from unauthorized broadcast radio stations throughout the years. 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. Wolves are looking to climb up the table (Picture: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images) This will be the fourth time this year the two . But the easiest way to file a complaint is go online. We also would be required to file a report to Congress annually on our enforcement activities in pirate radio. So the avenues of working with the district attorneys is a great way to get the injunctions, the court orders, for the pirate station to cease operating permanently. But O'Rahilly was undeterred, even after his ship was seized briefly by Dutch authorities. In some cases, radio stations are considered legal where the signal is transmitted, but illegal where the signals are receivedespecially when the signals cross a national boundary. And so, yes, we may -- We have a warrant for the property. We are not trying to teach you to do something illegal, we are trying to prevent you from doing something illegal, so you can stop your Google search. Some stations think that it's best to flood the FCC with complaints. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Thank you. It's about $200,000 worth of equipment. But with customs and border patrol seeing so much equipment coming in through the ports it's hard to identify. Marshals actually seize it. Other times though you might have reason to suspect that they are in on it, they are getting a kickback. Before we talk about where to hunt pirates, however, we need to talk about the necessary equipmenti.e., your radio and antenna. 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. That doesn't prohibit somebody from filing an anonymous complaint, we still take those. Some pirates have even shown in in the SWBC bands, including 49, 31 and 25 meters. They spent the fees to get the license. So just keep in mind next time you read some nice hipster article about how great pirate radio is in your community, that there are serious issues at play and what the FCC is doing is really important and that's why it's so great to have you on here to share your perspective and some of your history working on this and we really just want to thank you for your service. Jason Scott Archivist. He has taken, you know, money from under the table to allow the station to operate from the rooftop without the property owner's knowledge. 1. He anchored the ship in international waters in the North Sea, just off Frinton, Essex, and hired a crew of DJs to play music around the clock at the time, a revolutionary concept. I used a pneumatic spud gun to launch an arborist's bag to deploy my 50' end fed antenna 40' up into a tree. And so we need to make sure that we stop the importation of this equipment, we stop the marketing of these illegal transmitters. 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. Yes, they come with weapons. So sometimes the apartment owner, the building owner, or whatever, is totally in the dark about this, didn't know about. Now this is not just a focus of the FCC, Congress is also interested in this. A lot of times you can tell by the audio quality. Marshal Service and seize all of the equipment that is associated with the operation of a radio station, really anything physically connected to the transmitter. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: My guest has been David Dombrowski, Regional Director for Region One in the FCC Enforcement Bureau. Yes, so it's kind of like a cascade of options --. 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. But most of the current American pirates are based on dry land, broadcasting from clandestine antennas on rooftops in places such as Brooklyn. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: And we talked a little bit about why this is a problem. Now that maybe gets us down to the building, you know, where it might be operating. They lose advertisers because of it, they lose coverage area because of it, and it all comes down to dollars and cents. I will put in the show notes a link to the FCC complaint page and the phone number if you would like to get involved. There was an operator named Stephen Dunifer. Gimme Radio (for online listeners) Gimme Radio is one of the more modern American rock radio stations available today. There is a reason that those devices operate in an unlicensed manner because they are not transmitting very far. So --. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Okay. Marshals went in with us and we seized the equipment. 2022-03-13 23:21:58 Storage_size 430.3 GB (in 25,377 files) Title Pirate Radio Airchecks. ACTIVITY. Revealing the history of pirate radio from 1925 to today, author Andrew Yoder, pirate radio aficionado and long-time writer on radio, electronics, and audio subjects:. Where are you hearing this interference problem? In the quieter winter months, stations seem to pop out of the ether. It's covert surveillance equipment. They just twist the dial. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Right. Coffee helps fuel the SWLing Post! Andrew Yoder, author and publisher of the 2012 Pirate Radio Annual, defines pirate radio as: [A]ny unlicensed hobby broadcast operation that is using more power than the legal limit.. 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. Click here to view a list of all sponsors. Pirate radio or a pirate radio station is a radio station that broadcasts without a valid license. 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 obviously as a good citizen I have never to my knowledge listened to a pirate radio station. 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