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Despite FCC's Promise To Take Aggressive Action To Stamp Out Radio Pirates, Illegal Stations Are Flourishing (newyorker.com)
Last year, when Donald Trump appointed Ajit Pai chairman of the F.C.C., Pai promised to "take aggressive action" to stamp out pirates. In early May, the Preventing Illegal Radio Abuse Through Enforcement, or PIRATE, Act was introduced in Congress; it would increase fines from a maximum of a hundred and forty-four thousand dollars to two million dollars. But the stations aren't going away, The New Yorker reports. From the article: Transmission equipment has only become cheaper and more sophisticated. "The problem, as I see it, is that the technology has gone beyond what the law has been able to do," said David Goren, a local resident who works as a producer on licensed radio shows. Between 87.9 and 92.1 FM, Goren counted eleven illegal stations, whose hosts mainly spoke Creole or accented English. Pirates, he said, "offer a kind of programming that their audiences depend on. Spiritual sustenance, news, immigration information, music created at home or in the new home, here."
The reality is that the FCC is an underfunded and incompetent extension of the RF industry. They will attempt to protect broadcast spectrum, and fail. While leaving the rest of the spectrum to rot on the tree.
They rarely enforce and have been reduced, through ongoing budget reductions, to in some cases turning the enforcement over to the actual users of licensed spectrum. They've closed there local offices, fired their engineers, all while giving lip service to the job they should be doing. Heck- I'm pretty sure they do not even have the ability to triangulate to find a pirate station.
They don't even stop illegal radio equipment from being imported- then sold everywhere from big box stores to truck stops.
Good luck... They cannot even clean up problem frequencies where *everyone* knows who the offenders are.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
Do they actually have advertisers? One would think that if an ad for Bob's Discount Autos was heard on a "pirate" radio station then a visit from the FCC and a fine would encourage Bob to not advertise and thus the radio station would go away fairly quickly. If the power requirements are so low that the stations need not advertise then perhaps a more reasonable approach would be a low cost for low power broadcast license?
I'm curious how their audience finds them? If you setup a pirate radio station, do you always use a specific frequency even if you're forced to abandon your transmitter or gets seized?
Is the transmission equipment so cheap that pirate stations essentially don't care if it gets seized? They're probably more worried about finding another choice rooftop location with power than the transmitter itself?
How do they manage backhaul? My guess is that you would have the "studio" and the transmitter at different locations.
So...you want them to flip it and offer the 2 million to anyone who turns in a pirate radio operator? You'll have pirate bounty hunters lined up!
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K