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. The most popular frequency used by U.S. and Canadian pirate radio stations is 6925 kHz, transmitting in the AM or upper sideband (USB) modes. Has it evolved over the years? There is always a building manager they call the supra and he has a shop down in the basement and a lot of times we find the equipment down in his shop. And I have had to make this clarifying point on other podcasts that I have done at the FCC. 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? Addeddate 2022-03-13 23:21:58 . But what hast made the problem really expand is the equipment is readily available with the internet now. Like if a pirate, you know, gets his station up and running, he finds that no one is in a channel, and he says, oh, I guess I'll set myself here, other than the law, which is obviously important to some people, most people it should be, but why should we care that they are using vacant spectrum? To have a radio station here helps to establish the station's operator as an important source of information and influence in the community.". Give us a little of your background. Unlike major broadcasters, many pirates dont stick to AM as a preferred mode. We usually go with the police just for our protection and also for the protection of the occupants inside the residence. Now that maybe gets us down to the building, you know, where it might be operating. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Okay. Some pirates have even shown in in the SWBC bands, including 49, 31 and 25 meters. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Oh, yes. 14 July 2020. Be specific. Marshals went in with us and we seized the equipment. Pirate stations want listeners to discover them, so they broadcast in various "watering holes." This article originally appeared in the February 2014 issue of The Spectrum Monitor Magazine. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes. An excellent and active pirate radio forum hosted by Chris Smolinski. VIEWS. You might need that sensitivity and an outdoor antenna to pull these relatively low-powered signals from the ether. 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. MR. DOMBROWSKI: So all that good equipment just gets recycled. It's about $200,000 worth of equipment. Back in the 1980s, before the Internet and its online bulletin boards, I thought finding pirates was truly a huntrandom and altogether unpredictable. 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. 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. Ive hunted pirates with a range of such radios, among them the Sony ICF-SW7600GR, the Grundig G3, the Grundig G5, the Tecsun PL-600 and PL-660, and even the new Tecsun PL-880. 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. Enter a location to find a nearby pirate radio stations. MR. DOMBROWSKI: That's not going to be my cell phone is it? MR. DOMBROWSKI: Well they had their antenna up really high. Pirate stations want listeners to discover them, so they broadcast in various watering holes.. The FRW is an email-only newsletter devoted to the hobby of pirate radio listening, and is distributed free to those who contribute. 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. Not just Aussie and NZ pirates, but stations in places like The Phillipinesmaybe Japan, South Korea, or Thailand. 2022-03-13 23:21:58 Storage_size 430.7 GB (in 25,393 files) Title Pirate Radio Airchecks. Pirate radio or a pirate radio station is a radio station that broadcasts without a valid license. Airchecks from unauthorized broadcast radio stations throughout the years. 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. Marshals actually seize it. Well I want to, you know, just emphasize the importance of this issue. "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. They spent the fees to get the license. The U.S. has had its share of pirate broadcasters over the years as well. 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. Everyone should agree that pirate radio stations - by any definition - are completely illegal. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: They could stream it just like this podcast we're doing. He was going around the country and stirring the pot and getting a lot of people excited about microbroadcasting, so that's really where it started to really proliferate. That doesn't prohibit somebody from filing an anonymous complaint, we still take those. And they could also --. 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. 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. The history of pirate radio stations is inextricably linked with the development of countless genres, including hip-hop, garage, punk, and grime. "How Pirate Radio Rocked the 1960s Airwaves and Still Exists Today" 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. Ads are what helps us bring you premium content! 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. Created on. But the easiest way to file a complaint is go online. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: My guest has been David Dombrowski, Regional Director for Region One in the FCC Enforcement Bureau. All you need is a location to host the antenna and access to electricity unless you've got batteries, then just the location.". But they also encroach on those legitimate stations that made significant investments and secured the necessary regulatory approvals to obtain a license. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Is that a point of pride for you from Philadelphia? I received this QSL from the amazing Radio Ronin Shortwave shortly before he received the knock from the FCC and stopped transmitting. ( Disclaimer) Transcript: MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Welcome to "More Than 7 Dirty Words," the official FCC podcast. And those rules dictate a lot of restrictions and cover your wireless transmitters that we use every day, remote controls for you car, your headset, bluetooth sets. Our agency was delegated by Congress to allocate frequencies and allocate it in the public interest and it's a resource. There was a case that I worked back in Philly back in the day --. And as a bonus, Radio Caroline still exists though, ironically, it's gone legal. So we have a team here in the Enforcement Bureau that does that, our Spectrum Enforcement Division. Having that exposure helped boost the careers of scores of British bands whose music eventually made it to America. As soon as there were laws on the books, there were pirate radio stations on the air. 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. They lose advertisers because of it, they lose coverage area because of it, and it all comes down to dollars and cents. They came and seized all of my equipment. 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. 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. Of course, the chaos of the radio spectrum was one of the reasons this agency was created in the first place, including our predecessor agency The Federal Radio Commission, but there are other issues that broadcasters in particular complain about. 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. 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? Pirate radio operators usually have day jobslike most of usthus only transmit while home from work. It's something we have been doing as long as the equipment has been available we've always had pirate radio operators. I know that lots of pirates operate there, mostly on AM and FM, but no one is on SWand if they are, they arent sending QSLs, [or] operating in places where radio hobbyists would hear them. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Right. Enter the dawn of pirate radio. Is it when you are driving in, you know, to and from work? If you live in other parts of the world, pirate hunting can pose serious DX challenges. ACTIVITY. Carl McIntire, a fundamentalist preacher who briefly broadcast fire-and-brimstone sermons from a converted minesweeper off the coast of New Jersey, as this 2014 NJ.com article details. It was a three bay antenna for any of the those tech-y's out there, so it was a high efficient antenna and a very high powered transmitter. That's part of it, right, and you rely on some cooperation in some instances to get it done. And when KIWI went silent, that was it. 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). Each issue also contains a CD of sound clips from various pirates, several articles about the state of pirate radio, and other relevant info. They just twist the dial. I know out on the West Coast in California we have more significant numbers than other areas, so that probably would be one of the five markets identified, maybe the L.A. area would probably be another market that we would look at. Its a simple technique, and although it takes some practice, will work on most any radio with a stable BFO (beat frequency oscillator). 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