Is it when you are driving in, you know, to and from work? And I have had to make this clarifying point on other podcasts that I have done at the FCC. I know at least in our region we get them everywhere. There is a reason that those devices operate in an unlicensed manner because they are not transmitting very far. 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. That would be inappropriate, particularly given my employer, but is it hard for the average listener, particularly in a dense metro area, you're dialing your car radio or your home radio to even know the difference? But most of the current American pirates are based on dry land, broadcasting from clandestine antennas on rooftops in places such as Brooklyn. My most recent logging of a Euro pirate from North America was Radio Borderhunter on 15,500 kHz; his signal was quite amazing. 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. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Right. That happens a lot. Now this is not just a focus of the FCC, Congress is also interested in this. 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. 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. It has become more common for pirates to transmit images using SSTV.A few have experimented with FM or digital modes like RTTY, PSK31 . They can be just talk radio stations, they could be religious broadcasters, or they could be full-fledged stations that have a staffing of 20 people that make commercials, that create the jingles for their station ID, and the ones that have more money and the money advertisers are the ones that are very hard to distinguish. They have a bill circulating around called the PIRATE Act. Thank you, too, for your support of these sites. "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. "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. To prove my point, here are some MP3 recordings of some of my favorite recent pirate radio stations/broadcasts: 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. Total . MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Oh, yes. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes. Violators faced two years of imprisonment and fines. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: No. Created on. To track pirates, youll need a radio with both AM and SSB modes. David, thanks so much for joining. 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. 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. Some stations think that it's best to flood the FCC with complaints. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: All right. Stations such as Weekend Rush, Kool FM, Pulse and Innocence wanted to represent the streets and promote local scenes.. Here's a test shot without the line or antenna attached. There is a studio somewhere. If we can't get in touch with the property owner we try to use a locksmith and if we can't get the locksmith then the door comes breaking down and then we try to secure it before we leave. 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. In January, President Donald Trump signed into law the Preventing Illegal Radio Abuse Through Enforcement (PIRATE) Act, which gives regulators the ability to hit pirate stations with fines of up to $2 million, according to this summary from Radio World. 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). We take it all. (Click to enlarge). Click here to view a list of all sponsors. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: And that is obviously at the highest importance when we are talking about public safety. "He was waiting several months to come back on the air (and therefore was only willing to speak off the record to me). It has a radio receiver in it, it has a computer screen with a map, and it has a little compass rose that tells us what direction the signal is coming from. It was the strongest pirate station I have ever witnessed. 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. 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. So we try to shut down, you know, that equipment coming in to the purchasers. These include Amateur Radio Newsline, a weekly audio news [] Find this podcast in the iTunes store or Google Play or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. Thanks to e-commerce, it's also easier than ever for a would-be pirate to find the necessary equipment and have it delivered to his or her door, as FCC enforcement official David Dombrowski described in this 2019 podcast. And another thing, also, we would have to direct our attention annually to five markets that are most affected by pirates and we would do some step-up enforcement. We also recommend that the complainant contact the station that they are getting interference to --. Do you hear it on the weekends or is only a station that operates during the weekends? It is portable, but can also be used as a permanent FM radio station. Well joining me to discuss this topic is David Dombrowski, Regional Director for Region One in the FCC Enforcement Bureau. Wolves are looking to climb up the table (Picture: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images) This will be the fourth time this year the two . "While Radio Caroline is no longer 'illegal' the philosophy is unchanged," Moore says, noting that the station's staff has the motto "New Technology, Same Ideology.". Moreover, summer conditions in the North American 43 meter band are often much noisier, thus pirates know theyll be fighting static crashes to be heard during the summer months. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes, this is the fun part, the (inaudible). 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. I was still a teenager. Our agents are pretty smart on the tricks. A new, raw, grassroots kind of pirate radio exploded from 1992 onwards. 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. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Right. If they have some skin in the game, an operator or a landlord or a property owner that let somebody put a station up on their rooftop, you know, it's illegal for them to have that station there. 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. So that is a big concern for the broadcasters in those areas. MR. DOMBROWSKI: It's not, you know, and we didn't talk about, there are other legal ways to go about it. We do a field strength measurement to see if their power exceeds that threshold and if they meet the Part 15 requirements or not. Now you usually get one of your top, you know, first or second choice. 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. MR. DOMBROWSKI: We do make them aware that they are contributing to this illegal activity. MR. DOMBROWSKI: So you could cause like a catastrophe if we, you know, let this continue. This is likely due to the early sunsets and cold winter nights of the northern hemisphere that tend to keep people indoors, which in turn encourages pirates to hit the air. Now stop your Googling right now because that is illegal, right? It would create chaos if we allowed them. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Is that a point of pride for you from Philadelphia? MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Right. So those are some of the challenges that you all have to tackle in taking on this important enforcement function. Ive had great results in the past with an old Icom IC-735 and a 40-meter dipole antenna. And when KIWI went silent, that was it. I mean you got to give it to Congress for the bill naming that they do. Radio GDay came on from Australia occasionally, but no one else. And they also would be able to contact us and find out where the complaint is in the queue and, you know, what's going on with the complaint and have we investigated it yet. So hopefully that's enough for them to get the station taken down and maybe share some information about who the real operator is. And so, yes, we may -- We have a warrant for the property. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes. 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). As Yoder goes on to explain in his introduction of the 2012 Pirate Radio Annual, pirates are often confused with radio bootleggers (who conduct unlicensed two-way conversations), clandestine stations (usually political stations), and jammers (who intentionally try to block broadcasts). Our agency was delegated by Congress to allocate frequencies and allocate it in the public interest and it's a resource. * Explains how to buy and use equipment to listen to pirate stations. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Well let that be a lesson to the youngsters listening. Be careful to. On Easter Sunday in 1964, the station went on the air, playing the Rolling Stones' single "It's All Over Now" as its first song. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Well they had their antenna up really high. So when the FCC licenses FM stations those stations are generally not going to interfere with aeronautical operations because we make sure that they are not. That's part of it, right, and you rely on some cooperation in some instances to get it done. 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. The FCC argued that we were here to regulate the airwaves. Many are confused by the term pirate radio, otherwise known as free radio. Either term is sufficient, and some stations prefer one designation or the other. And, of course, just finding the antenna is not the end of the story, because it's not like when you find the antenna the DJ is standing right next to the antenna being like, uh, you got me. "Caroline now has two stations, one playing album music and one playing the original pop music for which the station is remembered," Moore explains. 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. This book makes it easier for you to locate and tune in pirate stationsand tells you all about the unlicensed broadcasters who play David to broadcasting conglomerates' Goliath. But the FCC, Congress and the commercial broadcasting industry don't see the pirates as serving such a benign purpose. 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. 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. 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.". I used a pneumatic spud gun to launch an arborist's bag to deploy my 50' end fed antenna 40' up into a tree. 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: So all that good equipment just gets recycled. Winning a con. "In Haiti during the Duvalier regime, people depended on radio to get news from independent sources off the island. 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. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: There is not a sign on the box that says illegal pirate radio transmitters. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Well it depends what level we are at with the investigation. But if we sign it into law we would have some additional resources, first increasing the fines. Now all those things have one thing in common. While this reality is not surprising, we . For his new show, Bruce promises "me and my musings and all the great . Like me, you might just get hooked! Ive noticed increased pirate radio activity during the winter months, as well. 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. MR. DOMBROWSKI: That's not going to be my cell phone is it? So if they don't meet the Part 15 requirements they need a license. An excellent and active pirate radio forum hosted by Chris Smolinski. Friday March 17, 1989 5:00 am. In fact, it's possibly more widespread than it was in the 1960s, even in an age when streaming internet services such as Spotify and Pandora put the equivalent of a jukebox in the pocket of everyone with a smartphone. We would also have to create a database for the public access. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Ten times as much, that's big, yes. They label the equipment as something else. Thank you! They also have potential to cause interference to the adjacent channel stations, you know, up above their frequency and below their frequency. Join. Very old school, and cheap enough for anyone's budget. 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. A lot of times the studio is not co-located with the transmitter. We also would be required to file a report to Congress annually on our enforcement activities in pirate radio. 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: Because you don't know what you are running into. So we get complaints from the FAA quite often, more than a few times a month in New York, and that the pilots are flying over the city and they are trying to communicate with air traffic control and all of a sudden they pick up a radio station. Radio and electronics were my hobbies. 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. Interestingly, the antenna was so high up on the tower we had to bring a bucket truck in from a fire station and raise it --. We have pirate radio there, too, not as bad as we did in New York. 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. "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.". To track pirates, you'll need a radio with both AM and SSB modes. Having that exposure helped boost the careers of scores of British bands whose music eventually made it to America. 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. Want to know why the usually run them out at sea. The Radio Informer - The latest info on the world of radio including:world,shortwave . "These transmissions can interfere with licensed radio signals including broadcasters' sharing of vital public safety information with their communities," FCC chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement. If you live in other parts of the world, pirate hunting can pose serious DX challenges. That would be not a good practice. If we are out there just gathering evidence for the first time our agents will go to the door, they will identify themselves with their badge. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes, just 20. 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. 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? 2 talking about this. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes, we have a lot of stations in New York, in particular. To determine the wavelength of your signal in inches, divide 11811 by your transmitter's frequency in megahertz (MHz). Everyone should agree that pirate radio stations - by any definition - are completely illegal. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: So don't bother looking for it. "He created Radio Caroline operating in that way and the station was at once called a 'pirate,'" Moore says. So you couldn't be blamed for assuming that it depicts a long-vanished phenomenon, like Nehru jackets with iridescent scarves and psychedelic-patterned paper mini dresses. 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? The Offshore Radio Museum website commemorates many of those pirates. You have somebody that puts a station on the air and then what that person does is he leases air time for his station for other DJs and they come in and so he is getting a kickback from the DJs and he is getting advertising revenue. Collection Info. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: We only waited 15 minutes into the episode to get to the fun part so I hope you are listening. Again, I turned to Andrew Yoder for insight about pirate radio activity in the rest of the world; his reply: Im always amazed at how few areas in the world have pirates that are connected to any scene. Give us a little of your background. There is a lot of misconception about what a low power transmitter is. MR. DOMBROWSKI: And so they said well because we were here before it was colonized our federal laws don't apply to us. We have talked about other challenges in densely populated areas just like traffic jams, you're driving around in this van and you can't go anywhere because it's rush hour in New York City. And so we need to make sure that we stop the importation of this equipment, we stop the marketing of these illegal transmitters. I am Evan Swarztrauber. The U.S. So that's why the licensing process is so important to avoid that interference. VIEWS. 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