The important thing here is that you invest in a receiver with a respectable degree of sensitivity and selectivity. 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. 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. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Right. The Moody Blues are one example of this." 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. The antenna is not where the people are necessarily or where the rest of the equipment is. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes. 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. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Yes, so you have options. And so he kind of gets shielded, right, you know the operators who are operating the station because they advertise their phone numbers in social media and so we can easily identify them, but you always have somebody that's the money guy that's safely hiding behind all these other staff and --. Shortwave DX Blog - A blog with loggings and information relating to shortwave pirate radio in Europe. And that's it, we will catch you next time. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes, we don't have a rule in the books that prohibits that from happening. If you live in other parts of the world, pirate hunting can pose serious DX challenges. 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. SWARZTRAUBER: Pirate radio. Now when we talk about enforcement actions, you know, I'd like to kind of paint a picture for our listeners. Unlike major broadcasters, many pirates dont stick to AM as a preferred mode. If you just use an internet browser and search FCC complaint you will come to the link for filing a complaint. They are not considered an operator by investing in that. 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. 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.". MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Right. "Pirate radio continues to exist in the internet age for a variety of reasons," John Nathan Anderson, a broadcasting scholar and author who is working on a book about pirate radio, explains via email. So that's been great because now we can work with the local authorities, such as the police or the district attorney's office, and get them involved in the investigation, and they have the power to arrest and fine people. So I have -- In terms of population I manage 20 States in the Northeast area of the United States. And he had some good backing, financial backing, by the ACLU who were fighting for him, and he was a microbroadcaster and he tried to encourage others to follow in his footsteps and protect our First Amendment rights, so he was --. MR. DOMBROWSKI: So we have two ways to file a complaint. Pirate stations want listeners to discover them, so they broadcast in various "watering holes." The Offshore Radio Museum website commemorates many of those pirates. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Yes. Friday March 17, 1989 5:00 am. Among the most popular queries made by readers is, How can I find and hear pirate radio stations? To help answer this question, Im writing this primer. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes. MR. DOMBROWSKI: And so that's not practical for somebody that wants to operate a radio station to cover an entire community. 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. But sometimes it is very difficult with those stations that have put more investment into the equipment. What would that bill do differently? To track pirates, you'll need a radio with both AM and SSB modes. 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. Indeed, since pirates are operating at lower power, they get much more bang-for-the-watt out of SSB. 16 days ago. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes. Enter ZIP code or city, state as well. Our agents typically work in a certain area so they become familiar with all the pirate radio operators and they kind of started to notice the pattern and so we were able to gather all of the evidence and go to the U.S. Attorney's Office and seize all that equipment and get the station off the air. VIEWS. Indeed, this past November, I listened to the pirate Channel Z while sitting in my truck; I was only using a Tecsun PL-660 with the antenna extended out of my opened drivers-side window. Unlicensed radio broadcasters have been around practically since governments started trying to control and regulate the airwaves. As soon as there were laws on the books, there were pirate radio stations on the air. 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. 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. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Right. We hope you understand, and are grateful for your support. He was out of Berkeley, California, and his station was called Radio Free Berkeley. David, thanks so much for joining. Yoder actually addresses this apparent restriction, to some degree, in the 2013 Pirate Radio Annual, which has only just been released. 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. ACTIVITY. 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). 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: No, and some of these are in high crime areas where there is a lot of drugs. Be careful to. Airchecks from unauthorized broadcast radio stations throughout the years. The frequency spectrum is a natural resource and so all of our decisions that we make when we allocate spectrum is for the public interest. comment. But it worked out great, it was a great career in the media bureau. 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. 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. Be specific. There was an operator named Stephen Dunifer. So, for example, if youre listening for North American pirates from Europe, youll need to plan accordingly. Here's a test shot without the line or antenna attached. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Well at least you are recycling. 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. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Right. 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. 2. We have had cases where we have gone in on in rem seizures and found drug paraphernalia inside the building and so that becomes now a law enforcement issue and they take care of that, they handle that situation. 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. What's more, pirate radio stations gave us access to some of the most pivotal figures in UK music . 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 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. 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. 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). 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. That would be not a good practice. 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. 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. 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. Give me an address or an intersection in the town that you are picking it up on. It takes a lot of time to process just one complaint and so it is distracting our agents of getting into the database and populating all the fields and calling the complainant. "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.". We do that with every pirate station. Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this HowStuffWorks.com article: Patrick J. Kiger Evan is joined by David Dombrowski, Regional Director for Region One in the FCC Enforcement Bureau. Keep in mind that pirates are relatively low-power broadcasters. KQLZ Pirate Radio stormed the Southern California airwaves in 1989, and listeners "flushed" their former stations as they. They use either the internet or a wireless source to get the signal back to the transmitter. MR. DOMBROWSKI: You know, that's hard to say. 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. Collection Info. The Radio Informer - The latest info on the world of radio including:world,shortwave . 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. VIEWS. They also have potential to cause interference to the adjacent channel stations, you know, up above their frequency and below their frequency. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: My guest has been David Dombrowski, Regional Director for Region One in the FCC Enforcement Bureau. Collection Info. MR. DOMBROWSKI: So you could cause like a catastrophe if we, you know, let this continue. I am Evan Swarztrauber. 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? Enter the dawn of pirate radio. Is it when you are driving in, you know, to and from work? It is portable, but can also be used as a permanent FM radio station. Like me, you might just get hooked! It would identify what are the legitimate stations and also identify what stations we sanctioned so they could better get an understanding, you know, is this a legitimate station I am hearing or not. That happens a lot. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Oh, that's probably why they are complaining, right? Alan Roes Music Programmes on Shortwave, List of QRP General Coverage Amateur Radio Transceivers, List of VHF/UHF Multimode Amateur Radio Transceivers, How To Tune In Pirate Radio Broadcasts on Shortwave, https://swling.com/blog/category/pirate-radio/, LRA 36 (Arcangel San Gabriel, Antarctica) Test Broadcasts on March 1st and 4th, 2023, Radio Waves: AM Buzzkill, AM FEMA Push, AM Devitalization, and RFI-Blocking Chips, Bob Zanottis presentation to the Fairlawn Amateur Radio Club (Part 2), Radio Waves: The DLARC, NASA Citizen Science, PopShopRadio DRM to Europe, Hackers Disrupt Russian Radio, and Afghan Radio Closures, LRA 36 (Arcangel San Gabriel, Antarctica) Test Broadcast Today at 20:00 UTC. Use promo code ROGUE to get a shot at MILLIONS OF DOLLARS in total prizes! MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes, we have a lot of stations in New York, in particular. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Well let that be a lesson to the youngsters listening. 10. And so we need to make sure that we stop the importation of this equipment, we stop the marketing of these illegal transmitters. "One is cost. Pirates Week: http://shortwavepirate.info. A lot of stations conceal their antennas, they hide behind things, they take the antennas down during they day, so they try avoid detection. 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: Oh, yes. Now all those things have one thing in common. MR. DOMBROWSKI: So this equipment helps us track us down. I keep a copy handy as it helps me identify stations and better understand their format. When do you hear the station? 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. A lot of times you can tell by the audio quality. 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: Thank you. Back when KIWI was on the air regularly in the 90s, I assumed that pirate radio would explode in Oceania and Asia. I was glad to be here, it was a great opportunity. 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. Its a simple technique, and although it takes some practice, will work on most any radio with a stable BFO (beat frequency oscillator). Find this podcast in the iTunes store or Google Play or wherever you get your podcasts. To track pirates, youll need a radio with both AM and SSB modes. While the magic of shortwave radio can transport a small signal vast distances, to hear pirates regularly and clearly, some precision is required. 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. For example, though Im a ham radio operator, I had never even attempted to decode the SSTV (slow-scan TV) mode until prompted to do so by Wolverine Radio: at the end (and sometimes in the middle) of their broadcasts, Wolverine is known to send electronic QSL cards via SSTV. Now some folks might be asking themselves this is all great, I totally agree that pirate radio is bad, and I think that you should absolutely go after it, but what about the First Amendment? Hobby Broadcasting Blog: http://hobbybroadcasting.blogspot.com/. Borderhunter Radio is one of the strongest Euro Pirates Ive ever heard. So a transmitter that complies with the Part 15 requirements has a very small operating range, about 100 feet. We would also have to create a database for the public access. These pirate stations pose a host of problems for public safety, including interference with emergency alerts and air traffic control. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: And that is obviously at the highest importance when we are talking about public safety. 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. Want to know why the usually run them out at sea. There is a lot of misconception about what a low power transmitter is. If we get that information we have a vehicle, it's called a direction-finding vehicle and it has specialized equipment in it. Buy me a coffee: https://www.paypal.me/ringwaymanchester Email: ringwaymanchester@mail.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/m3hhyofficial Facebook:. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: Probably just workload is another challenge in addition to folks moving the antennas around or taking them down during the day or only operating on weeknights and weekends, as you have said, which forces agents to work overtime. Created on. 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. Recycling is good. You might need that sensitivity and an outdoor antenna to pull these relatively low-powered signals from the ether. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: All right. Loggings are in real time and there are very fewif anyoff-topic posts. Marshals actually seize it. So when we license stations, you know, I used to work in the FM branch so I am very knowledgeable about the process, but there is a whole legal and engineering study that has to be done before you get a license and it takes resources to do that, financial resources. 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. I know at least in our region we get them everywhere. South America was strong for a while in the 90s, but that has also fallen silent. Thank you! I have four offices, it includes Chicago, it includes Boston, New York, and Columbia, Maryland. We take it all. 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. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: We only waited 15 minutes into the episode to get to the fun part so I hope you are listening. Note: This podcast was recorded on June 21st. Just browse the pirate radio category: https://swling.com/blog/category/pirate-radio/. So when we finally are able to pick up the signal in our car we then drive in the area in kind of a circle around the source and we plot lines, we call them lines of bearing on a map, and where they intersect is where this transmission source is originating. 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. (Listen to one of Ronins broadcasts below.). Pirate radio operators usually have day jobslike most of usthus only transmit while home from work. 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. "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. Now stop your Googling right now because that is illegal, right? 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. I am Evan Swarztrauber. We usually go with the police just for our protection and also for the protection of the occupants inside the residence. That was particularly true on the other side of the Atlantic, where the U.K. allowed only state-controlled radio from the 1920s through the mid-1960s. To have a radio station here helps to establish the station's operator as an important source of information and influence in the community.". Our agency was delegated by Congress to allocate frequencies and allocate it in the public interest and it's a resource. Created on. Other times though you might have reason to suspect that they are in on it, they are getting a kickback. It would create chaos if we allowed them. Nothing. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Sure. They lose advertisers because of it, they lose coverage area because of it, and it all comes down to dollars and cents. The station is capable of running off of 13.8/28 volts DC battery, which can even be charged with solar power. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Well they had their antenna up really high. Bruce will host a new daily show for Bauer's station Greatest Hits Radio, taking his iconic PopMaster game with him. Each issue also contains a CD of sound clips from various pirates, several articles about the state of pirate radio, and other relevant info. My most recent logging of a Euro pirate from North America was Radio Borderhunter on 15,500 kHz; his signal was quite amazing. 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. And while pirate radio stations can be found across the radio spectrum, especially on AM and FM in urban areas, in this primer Ill be focusing on those that inhabit the shortwaves. Do a little pirate radio hunting yourself. We have pirate radio there, too, not as bad as we did in New York. 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. Has it gotten worse, has it gotten better? Now this is not just a focus of the FCC, Congress is also interested in this. So they thought that was a way for them to avoid detection by hopping from building to building and frequency to frequency. So what is the state of pirate radio in the U.S. and how is the FCC taking it on? PIRATE RADIO Once you remove the idea of pirate radio from its mythology, you. This article originally appeared in the February 2014 issue of The Spectrum Monitor Magazine. HowStuffWorks may earn a small commission from affiliate links in this article. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: It doesn't say FCC pirate agent? 40. r/HamRadio. We do let stations operate with low power transmitters but they have to comply with the technical requirements of Part 15 of our rules. 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. Here's a 12-minute recording of Radio Caroline DJ Tony Blackburn's show in 1965, which includes both a breakfast cereal commercial and the Animals' "House of the Rising Sun" and "For Your Love" by the Yardbirds: Because the station had to fill so much airtime DJs had to come up with 2,500 tracks to play each week Radio Caroline helped foster what Moore calls "an explosion of new artists and bands who may have started recording conventional pop music, but who then expanded their musical abilities. This radio in a single case is also capable of re-broadcasting any audio source. So how do you escalate the situation, you know, what tools do you have to say, okay, we're not getting cooperation let's take this up a notch? Broadcasting at 250,000 watts, XERF was five times as powerful as the most high-powered Top 40 AM stations on the West Coast. So we eventually went to the courts and fought. * Shows you how to find pirate stations on your AM/FM, shortwave, and online radios. The FRW is an email-only newsletter devoted to the hobby of pirate radio listening, and is distributed free to those who contribute. MR. DOMBROWSKI: It's not, you know, and we didn't talk about, there are other legal ways to go about it. Before we talk about where to hunt pirates, however, we need to talk about the necessary equipmenti.e., your radio and antenna. So that is a big concern for the broadcasters in those areas. So that is quite a large area. 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. And I have had to make this clarifying point on other podcasts that I have done at the FCC. It had a 20-mile range. MR. DOMBROWSKI: So some States have laws on the book that prohibit pirate radio operation, States like New Jersey and New York and Florida. Indeed, since pirates are operating at lower power, they get much more bang-for-the-watt out of SSB. Now you usually get one of your top, you know, first or second choice. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes. And so that impedes the investigation a little bit because it is difficult to find where that studio is located, but we do, we do a lot of interviews. 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. For his new show, Bruce promises "me and my musings and all the great . In the U.S. the most famous example of a Pirate Radio station was Mexico's XERF. MR. SWARZTRAUBER: There is not a sign on the box that says illegal pirate radio transmitters. 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. This station was operated in Pennsauken, New Jersey, which is right across the river from Philadelphia, and it covered the entire Philadelphia area. 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. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Yes, to lease some air time off these legitimate stations. In the quieter winter months, stations seem to pop out of the ether. You know, there was a glowing article in a certain New York publication that at least one FCC commissioner was irked by because it seemed to be kind of glorifying this underground practice and making it seem like some interesting thing, but you really got to keep in mind not just the radio stations that are interfered with, but emergency communications. Marshals went in with us and we seized the equipment. In 1971 I was ordered to Cease and Desist by our friends at the FCC. Jason Scott Archivist. He got the craft back and kept at pirate radio for nearly another quarter century. MR. DOMBROWSKI: Okay. I believe this is why authorities like the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) place shortwave pirates comparatively lower on their enforcement priority list. 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. Is this something that plays a role in alerting you to these stations that broadcasters themselves are identifying them and complaining about them? Revealing the. Very old school, and cheap enough for anyone's budget. And they come -- I've worked with them when they have bulletproof vests on and automatic weapons. Radio Caroline because so influential that, pretty soon, other ships were broadcasting rock off the coast as well. Are driving in, you know, to and from work go with the police just our. There were laws on the box that says illegal pirate radio in the.! 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Has been David DOMBROWSKI, Regional Director for Region one in the Northeast area of ether! Station was Mexico & # x27 ; s XERF my guest has been David DOMBROWSKI, Regional Director Region! Database for the broadcasters in those areas to the link for filing a.! So this equipment helps us track us down so they thought that was a great career the! Lower on their enforcement priority list so you could cause like a catastrophe if get! Know at least you are recycling at 250,000 watts, XERF was times... A resource areas where there is a lot of stations in New York to. What & # x27 ; s a test shot without the line or antenna attached signal. Dollars and cents you remove the idea of pirate radio Annual, which can even be charged solar...