The following is the (heavily) edited text of the microradio “mass turn-on” proposal/presentation given by Tom Ness of the Michigan Music is World Class Campaign to a packed house at the Metro Detroit Area Green Party Clearinghouse on September 19, 2001.
Tom lays out an exciting and potentially powerful vision for the future of microradio in America. It will take more organization then has ever been seen before to pull it off – but it IS possible.
Dare to dream….If you would like a copy of the full text, simply Tom and he’ll be happy to send a copy your way.
If you can control what people think — or even what they think about — you don’t need expensive and messy armies. If you can control what people think, you’ve no need for police because people will happily do what you want — and think all along it is their idea. That is the power of the media, and why this subject is so acutely important. Continue reading “Give Me Pirate Radio”
Category: Microradio
Tit for Tat
In the wake of the recent terror attacks on the United States, paranoia among both the people and the powers-that-be remains significantly heightened.
The Federal Communications Commission has not been immune to this paranoia. Shortly after the strikes in New York and Washington, FCC Amateur Radio Enforcement Director Riley Hollingsworth issued a public plea to the nation’s ham radio community, asking it to scan all radio bands and keep an ear out for suspicious activity, making tapes if possible. As Hollingsworth put it, “You never know.”
FCC agents have also been spotted on the streets of Nashville, Tennessee within the last week reportedly looking for two separate unlicensed outlets. Continue reading “Tit for Tat”
The FCC Awakens
Just two months ago it seemed like the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was taking a break in its enforcement efforts against unlicensed broadcasting.
That break is now over.
Since July, agents with the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau (EB) have definitely been busy in the field, doubling their number of station busts for the year in the course of a scant 60 days. Continue reading “The FCC Awakens”
A Modest Proposal
As the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) grinds forward with its implementation of a minuscule low power FM (LPFM) community radio service, media activists around America are looking at new ways to further the gains they’ve made in opening access to the airwaves.
The FCC tried to acknowledge pressure from unlicensed microbroadcasters as a reason for attempting to widely legalize LPFM, but these so-called “pirates” were eventually cut out of the new opportunities through lobbying by the radio industry and National Public Radio.
That spurred many stations to redouble their broadcast efforts and brought new blood into the unlicensed microbroadcasting scene. For example, recently-visited free radio station KBFR – Boulder Free Radio – in Boulder, Colorado was originally run by applicants for an LPFM license. They decided to buck the law only after Congress stepped in and killed potential LPFM stations in America’s cities, including Boulder. Continue reading “A Modest Proposal”
Links: Separating Transmitter from Studio
The act of broadcasting without a license is a very public thing; it is going on the air that makes it a crime, not what a pirate station does once it’s on. Because of this, a delicate game of balance has to be played by pirate radio station operators. As a pirate garners more notice from a community, the risk of having the powers-that-be notice also rises. But if nobody knows about the station, then what good can it do?
To try and prevent (or at least partially blunt) the eventual enforcement action, pirates have experimented with unique ways of “protecting” their studios. After all, transmitters are replaceable; dedicated people are not.
The easiest way to protect a studio is to separate it physically from the transmitter. Radio authorities find pirates by the signals they produce, and the place where those signals are coming from is the first place they’ll visit. If that place is not the studio, it forces enforcement agents to at least take one extra step to catch a pirate. Continue reading “Links: Separating Transmitter from Studio”
Scene Report: Tucson, Arizona
Within the last two weeks FCC enforcement agents have been spotted and encountered by unlicensed broadcasters in Virginia, Arizona and Colorado. Nowhere have the scene reports been flying faster then from Tucson, Arizona.
Tucson’s crackling with microradio activity. At least three stations have been on the air there recently, which made Tucson a prime target for the latest FCC sweep: we’ve gotten reports from all the affected stations that agents have definitely been nosy, to say the least, to varying degrees.
Contact has ranged from simple warning letters to the confiscation of equipment. In at least one instance FCC agents and their attendant Federal Marshals left a raid location empty-handed after barging in, weapons drawn, insisting there was a pirate radio station in operation there and finding no trace of it. Continue reading “Scene Report: Tucson, Arizona”
Enforcement Drought
2001 has been a remarkably quiet year on the American pirate radio scene. It’s not that stations aren’t broadcasting or their numbers aren’t growing; the FCC, it appears, has made microradio enforcement a lower priority.
According to our Enforcement Action Database, which attempts to keep track of the FCC’s enforcement activity, contact with pirates has been seemingly sparse. To date, only 12 enforcement actions have been reported. If this trend continues through the rest of the year, enforcement activity could be as much as 50% down from the previous two years.
In fact, for the entire year so far, the total number of enforcement actions only equals the (past) average monthly activity of the FCC. Continue reading “Enforcement Drought”
Shortwave Spike
It’s been years since the shortwave pirate scene has been this active.
Normally, the best times to catch pirate broadcasts on shortwave frequencies has been weekend nights. While the spring and summer months tend to see a slowdown in activity due to increased solar and thunderstorm-induced interference, this trend has all but disappeared.
Pirates are popping up at all hours during the week, with some broadcasting marathon shows on multiple frequencies.
In the United States, the FCC has spent the last few years devoting most of its enforcement resources to tracking down and busting FM microradio stations; this has left little effort directed toward monitoring the shortwave band. Continue reading “Shortwave Spike”
Telling it to the Judge
Regional Battles, National Goal
While the June 2001 court victory for Connecticut’s Prayze FM was an important event in the ongoing legal battle between pirate broadcasters and the Federal Communications Commission, it is only one front in a broader challenge to FCC authority currently taking place in the courts.
The Prayze case deserves special mention because of its fundamental attacks on both the FCC’s new low power FM (LPFM) licensing rules and on the general enforcement strategy the agency employs against the free radio movement. It is not the first station to attempt draw governmental blood in the courts, nor is it the only one finding success.
There are at least a half-dozen court cases wending their way through the federal judicial system at the moment. It is important to remember that there are basically three levels of activity in the federal court system: the District Court (where all cases begin), the Appeals Court (who can either uphold, reverse, or remand District Court judge rulings), and the Supreme Court (the ultimate arbiter of chosen disputes). Continue reading “Telling it to the Judge”
LPFM in Court
Prayze FM vs. FCC
Prayze FM has never sought publicity for its fight, preferring to quietly slug it out in court with the FCC over its right to broadcast, license or not.
Since February 1998, Prayze has methodically ground its way through the federal judicial system, winning some small battles and losing some big ones. Until this year.
Now, Prayze is full of hope again, and it holds hope for a forced expansion of the FCC’s new LPFM service as a result of its struggle. Continue reading “LPFM in Court”