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Pirate Radio Stations Challenge Feds
Thundgelmir writes "Yahoo news has an article about how pirate radio is taking on the FCC. It describes the growing trend of low-power FM stations, and their crusade to be heard across the country and around the internet." From the article: "Over four days, a dozen men and women shyly bumped shoulders as they studied schematics and tinkered with romex connectors, resistors, microphone cords, meters, sockets and capacitors — the stuff of illegal radio stations. 'We're not stealing anything. We're claiming something that's rightfully ours,' he says. His goal is to create FM radio stations faster than the FCC can shut them down ... 'It's always been our position that if enough people go on the air with their stations, the FCC will be overwhelmed and unable to respond.'"
Some laws that are in place do make sense. The FCC rules for broadcasting are in place for safety actually. Granted, a pirate radio station probaly won't bring down an airline, but what if it does interfere with radio transmissions in the ambulance and 911 when the operator is trying to say got left on Pine and all you here is salsa music? That's a potential hazard. There are better ways to make statements now than broadcasting over a pirated radio broadcast.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
It is well beyond doubt that the FCC needs to be changed and the media ownership laws addressed. It is also obvious that the frequency spectrum needs to be regulated however; even a brief look at how the FCC is acting for the benefit of corporations should signal that change needs to happen.
There are numerous examples to the corrupt nature of the FCC; one of the most recent was the fact that the FCC had reports destroyed that directly contradicted the actions they have taken on behalf to their corporate masters.
The airwaves belong to the people and should be run to the benefit of the people. Obviously our government is not acting as it should in many areas, the issue is, how to affect change? With only a single political party in the US, I doubt voting helps.
Well, here in Poland we used to have resistors pinned into the clothes as the sign of resistance against the Soviet Union-sponsored government oppression. And the people caught wearing them were prosecuted.
The United States in unique in that the law explicitely states that the EM spectrum is the property of the American public. (This has been the law for almost a century, infact -- I think it goes all the way back to the 1912 Radio Act) Because it is a shared resource, however, the government issues licenses to use the spectrum. However, "moneyed interests" (corporations - especially clearchannel) dominate the landscape and the FCC does whatever the want, typically shafting the consumer in te process. The Communications Act of 1996 exacerbated the situation, because it removed rules governing how much of the spectrum one company could gobble up. So if these radio pirates are going to challenge the extremely corrupt FCC establishment, I say more power to them.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
This is actually a fairly interesting question.
From today's perspective, where we look at the EM spectrum and see that the majority of it is really suited more for short-range communication than anything else, it seems like something that ought to be regulated at least in part by the states.
However, the authority of the FCC comes from the Communications Act of 1934, and its predecessor agency from the Radio Act of 1927, which were drafted in a time when most of the radio spectrum in use was down in the HF bands, which travel hundreds or thousands of miles and thus require widespread regulatory authority. From this authority -- which began due to a need to keep civilian transmissions from interfering with maritime wireless service -- they simply continued to regulate as frequencies grew higher and higher, and transmission distances shorter and shorter, until the FCC frequently has a say in things in which there is little or no business for Federal regulation.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The FCC does exist for a good reason. The radio space within the US is something that is owned by the people of the United States. The rules that are in place are to protect the masses from having that resource rendered unusuable to them. Citizens' Band ("CB") was established so that individuals could express whatever they wanted on their spectrum.
The commercial radio stations that play music we don't like, and shove commercials down the ears of listeners, AND screw payola out of artists... also do pay their licensing fees to the people of the United States.
What you let your government spend the money on is another matter entirely.
Take off every 'sig' !!
During the sixties it brought down the state monopoly that only had old chums debating on the airwaves. It brought music to the airwaves. Not so bad for arr pirate!
Problem is that most "pirate" stations are put together by insane nutknobs that do not take a few minutes and dollars to make it right.
Here are some tips if you want your pirare radio station to not get turned in.
1 - plop the station on top of another one... Retarted. the megawatt station will kick you hard, so you get to annoy only a 5 block radius if you are lucky and far away from the station.
2 - use that $29.99 10 watt transmitter kit off ebay. Can you say splatter? your signal sucks and is splattering all over the band and probably into the avaiation bands. Nothing like that to get the FCC and FAA attention.
3 - do the transmitter right but overdeviate all over the place. Limiter and compressor is REQUIRED. as you scream your rants into the microphone you gotta make sure to not over deviate.
4 - spew hard profanity 24-7. Nothing will get you off the air faster than playing all the fowl mouthed 13 year old boy music out there, or screaming FUCK over and over and over again in the microphone. Someone will hear you, not like it and report you. Profanity on the airwaves is more of an issue to the FCC than you not being licensed.
sadly most pirate radio violates every one of those points.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Not sure if they're still operating, but we have a pirate radio station operating in the Quad-Cities Area on the Mississippi.
Basically their position is that federal regulations state they are able to operate a radio station without license during wartime.