Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations
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I for one welcome the interference.
What is Radio being used for that’s so critical these days anyways beyond emergency spectrum stuff (that doesn’t get messed with on these spectrums to begin with)?
Just remember that the system generally wants to shut down any media it can’t control. And that’s bad in times of social crisis. Pirate radio is one of those uncontrolled media forms, and its ability to disseminate unapproved information to an entire city on receiving devices that can’t be tracked is critical and NOT reliably possible using the Internet especially during crisis periods when the big dogs get involved.
Support your local pirate.
Its haphazard and low tech nature is the uncontrollable resilience most Internet systems lack.
Pinpointing the source of these radio transmissions isn't hard with modern equipment. Amateurs do it all the time. It's trivial to map these things out in the era of accessible flying machines and cheap technology.
Sure, you'll anger the bigger stations, but you'll also hurt all the smaller stations that play by the rules and do something interesting, and interfering with that will only hasten their inevitable death to newer (and cheaper) technologies. There are plenty of other, open broadcast mechanisms to use out there.
Which makes it a business interest; they are beholden to businesses for survival, and businesses are generally backers of the state. Being beholden to those forces and the need to make money limits the range of interesting things a traditional station can engage in.
I would agree with OP, though. The utility I get from broadcasters is so low that I would support rolling the commercial wavelengths into the non-commercial one just to see if someone can do something more interesting with it. The current approach to the spectrum seems to have run its course.
I will certainly acknowledge that I don't consume any radio which colors that view, though that's not a weird situation these days. I hate radio enough that I'd rather actually pay for cell data to play my own stuff than listen to radio for free.
> There are plenty of other, open broadcast mechanisms to use out there.
Not with the qualities of radio. It's geographically scoped, every car has a built-in receiver for it, it's free listening is communal/simultaneous, and it's difficult to censor (relative to something centrally managed like YouTube).
Various combinations of those properties give interesting possibilities that are much harder to replicate via Twitch or YouTube or IceCast.
Lawfulness has locked us down to the point where all we do is work to make rent. A little chaotic neutrality in the form of civil disobedience frees up the constraints so we can live again.
I'm woefully unfamiliar with Loki philosophy, but I feel it entering our collective psyche again through the return of magic. Which loosely puts free will, awareness and consciousness above science in the material plane. Since the powers that be work through ego, a Global Awakening of the soul threatens them. Hence the million dollar fines directed at.. churches.
Which tend to not go over so well, so the status quo is finding itself in a pickle for the first time since maybe the 1960s, along a number of fronts in this Silent Depression.
Everything?
The only reason we're able to have nice things like GPS and Bluetooth connectivity to our cars and WiFi for our laptops is that we regulate radio frequency emissions.
You may imagine non-compliance as a punk rock pirate radio station broadcasting music you like on unoccupied spectrum, but that's an edge case of an edge case.
> and its ability to disseminate unapproved information to an entire city on receiving devices that can’t be tracked is critical and NOT reliably possible using the Internet especially during crisis periods when the big dogs get involved.
How do we jump from pirate radio station broadcasting some music to a dystopian fantasy about people getting unauthorized information in a way that can't be tracked in a theoretical future authoritarian scenario?
If you really want to communicate via radio, please look into modern amateur radio and get your FCC license. It's relatively affordable to get gear these days and as you study for the licensing test you'll start to understand why it's important that we don't just have a free-for-all on the radio spectrum.
Pirate radio stations broadcast frequency modulated audio centered around 87-127MHz, aka FM radio. This is because they are intended to be picked up on FM radio receivers, which nearly everyone has access to.
This is a case of the FCC protecting future income from sale of FM spectrum, not any issue of safety or interference with anyone who isn’t a radio station.
It’s broken window theory.
So the two pirate radio stations transmitting at 88.5 MHz and 87.7 MHz would most likely be interfering with noncommercial stations, presumably the kind of radio you say you want to protect.
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FCC Low-Power Radio, Time to Apply 1 Week Now!
This will be the first Low-Power FM (LPFM) filing window to apply for a legitimate broadcasting license since 2013.
This is significant because it allows for a small enough transmitter to broadcast over the regular FM airwaves, that the purchase cost of the transmitter as well as the energy needs are small enough to be affordable to an individual, even though only organizations not individuals can qualify for this type license.
Looks like there is also no application fee, very uncommon.
This is the hobbyist size of transmitter no bigger than a shortwave Ham radio operator would have, that is otherwise forbidden or rarely licensed for use on your regular local FM radio airwaves.
Outstanding rare opportunity for educational nonprofit or Native American organizations.
https://www.fcc.gov/document/lpfm-new-station-application-fi...
Anyone eligible should really jump on this before it's too late.
The application appears especially bureaucratic, but Prometheus seems like they are there to help.
"LPFM Application Window Rescheduled to December 6-13
November 9, 2023
With the additional time, we have expanded capacity to assist nonprofit organizations applying for LFPM licenses. The best way to reach us is by email to info(at)prometheusradio.org or you can call 215-727-9620."
https://www.prometheusradio.org/18-days-until-the-lpfm-windo...
While I'm a geek and love the idea of broadcast over free airways, practically how is radio any more useful now than cable tv?
Here are some answers:
* We're talking about pirate radio, not commercial. Pirate radio is a person broadcasting to the world, or really to their neighbors. We can do that on the Internet, but,
* There's no universal, dedicated listening device like a radio, with the full stack of technology built in (antenna, receiver, amp, speakers, tuner, etc.). The listening devices have so many functions and access so much media of every type that audio streams get buried.
A solution might be a .radio TLD (or similar), only for audio streams (and maybe only live). Apps could solve the listening device and provide some discoverability; metadata might include locality. Another feature, maybe in the second or third release, might be open streams, like citizens band radio, which also could be based on locality, topic, etc. (yes, I know that's been done to an extent).
Broadcast radio has fewer deadzones than cell service. Additionally, while audio streaming is relatively low bandwidth, my current cell plan charges all bits against my usage allowance and there's a hard cap; if I used streaming audio instead of terrestrial radio while driving, I'd hit my usage cap most months.
While there's a lot of syndicated radio, local stations with real studios provide a real source of local information and character. My local dance station [1] doesn't provide a news show, but does give snippets about major local incidents. My streaming dance station [2] did do news content once, in 2001, but they're unlikely to tell me about things local to me.
I guess this depends a lot on where you live, but my experience has been the opposite. E.g., I get cell coverage inside buildings, basements and tunnels where FM turns to static, and there are more cell repeaters in mountains where the FM gets radio shadow
Since the 1970s, Boston DJ Oedipus has put on a Christmas Eve show from 6pm to midnight, with Christmas music from around the world, and even just from the local music scene. It started on WBCN, then moved to WFNX, and most recently landed on WGBH.
Oedipus doesn't maintain a set list - it's just whatever he's feeling like playing as he's doing it. His immense talent aside, it means that it's hard to learn about those songs, or even those bands. For the last few years, I've been recording it and trying to build the set list myself, from either what he says (he doesn't always!), or from Google searches.
Does it take the magic away? Maybe, but I feel that it's what little I can do for preserving something that's been actively disappearing.
It's both a creative feature of the medium and one which makes systematic study of it challenging, as there's often no official recording and study requires either researches making their own recordings or listening live, and in either event, listening at best at perhaps 2x realtime speed, which means that analysis is slow.
(How much AI and speech-to-text services might assist in this I don't know.)
Tor and similar tech is mostly outside the reach of the government, but is also way out of reach for the general population.
<https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/divided-dial>
Several times the point was made that radio is cheap, is accessible by virtually anyone, and in particular is effective at reaching rural regions and those travelling (often in cars or trucks), whether commuters, on-site work (construction, farming, etc.), or transportation work.
For many such audiences, radio is largely the only effective means of reaching them.
It has a lot of value for me. I don't have to subscribe to a streaming service, I don't have to have special equipment beyond the ubiquitous radio, it works in areas where there is no cell or internet service, etc.
Streaming has its place, but it has a different use case than radio.
The 1996 Telecommunications Act removed all national
and local restrictions on national ownership that
specified the number of stations one company could own
in a set market.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
If it is, it was quite succesfull, as at least some of them are using the term themself, also in the warez scene (pirate bay). Romanticizing pirates is not a new thing (while ignoring the bloody murder part).
The auto industry co-oped it and used it as a wedge to get city streets turned over to cars so they could sell more cars.
Calling people broadcasting on 'protected frequencies' pirates is a similar slur.
Pirate radio in the UK in the 1960s was often from actual ships floating just offshore in international waters (or disused forts/installations located in them).
There was more of a "evading the authorities at sea" aspect than I think you're giving it credit for.
Nautical pirates were called "pirates" specifically because they didn't have a license to engage in the activity. The ones who had licenses ("letters of marque") were called "privateers".
As you may remember, around 2009 or so, the US mandated that all TV signals had to be sent digital. And of course if you set up an antenna, you can receive crystal-clear HD broadcasts of local TV stations over the air.
However, I used to live near a lot of towers and I was actually able to pick up a stray ANALOG station. It was a Spanish-language station but it came through. I didn't even know my HDTV was capable of picking up an old analog station but there it was.
Am I confused about the law about digital transmission or was maybe this just some old station that they never bothered to update to digital?
One of the problems with the switch to digital is the usable signal doesn't go as far as analog, so if you're in a rural area even with an antenna you lost access to some of the stations you were used to being able to receive. A lot of people in rural areas switched to cable or dish tv as a result.
And one of the perks of analog is that you can use a crappy signal, as a kid we didn't have cable and you could usually get the higher stations like UPN or Fox by messing around with the antenna.... usually the audio would be okay but the picture would be fuzzy or have interference/noise. Was it a perfect picture? Hell no. But you'd be able to sit and watch a show successfully. With digital if the signal is not good you just got pixelation as the tuner tries to buffer & compile the signal unsuccessfully.
I have to wonder if the switchover was encouraged by TV manufacturers because, while they made converter boxes, the public mostly reacted by turning all their existing tvs into e-waste and buying new ones instead. And in states where throwing out tvs is illegal and it costs money to dispose of them (if you can find a place that will take it if you pay them), so the public reacted by dumping them in the woods, creeks/rivers, swamps etc when no one was looking.
The radio dial now is now mostly content that can be syndicated across the country - classic rock, Top N Hits, NPR, and so forth. The occasional local morning show dots the programming.
There are some holdouts. I find that Emerson College's WERS carries much of the original WFNX spirit. I'll give an honorable mention to WXRV up in Andover as well.
Some interesting documentaries about the Boston radio scene, for those interested:
* https://theamericanrevolution.fm/
* https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/295945558/we-want-the-a... (the original site seems gone)
Radio in Boston is atrocious these days. It is really hard to believe there is actual demand for what Clear Channel has jammed the dial with. I think the only reason some of the stations are there is because Clear Channel owns everything and it's cheap for them to air it.
So having stations spread around the dial is a moat. It makes it harder for others to enter the market.
See, that's the kind of culture I miss.
One of WFNX's greatest-of-all-time bumpers was, "WFNX... It's 'WBCN sucks!', spelled backwards."
This was long, long ago, but I believe we had something like a 10 watt tower.
REACHING THE BEACHES...kinda, STORMING THE DORMS, sorta. ;)
It's almost like there should be a station in every metropolitan area that is reserved for public access — divide the week up into 30-minute spots and let the public sign up for those slots to DJ.
Air time on AM is cheap, like super cheap, so often people rent their own airtime and do shows. Nothing amazing, but it does happen quite often.
The other thing that makes up for the dearth of quality commercial radio in Boston is the ability to stream stations from all over the world. I stream to WMHT classical from Albany and the BBC Radio new music channels even though I don't live in the broadcast areas.
Not making an ethics call on pirate radio, just commenting that the argument that they regularly cause dangerous interference is somewhere between nonsense and propaganda.
I think the bigger critique I would have is why even bother to do pirate stations anymore now that the Internet is here and it's much easier to subvert corporate media that way anyways. Clear Channel's radio monopoly went from a dangerous culture lock that could ban Beatles songs "because of 9/11" to useless junk pretty quickly, there's a reason I got out of the space a long time ago. The commenter alludes to this when they describe how important the station is by referencing their Spotify playlist (BIG 103.3, which doesn't look dancehall, subversive or frankly very good).
Nobody casually scrolls through urls and and finds a radio station.
Sound great. I hope you'll post a link.
> they operate at very low wattages (sometimes 100 watts or less)
Since the original article is about a station on the shoulder of the TV VHF-Low and FM bands here's my take on it.
Even a very low power transmitter rated <5 watts in the FM band can have its ERP (Effective Radiated Power) multiplied greatly by the combination of a good antenna and altitude above average terrain. A pirate with a small transmitter cabled to an omnidirectional antenna mounted atop a high apartment block can easily output a >100 watt ERP. Frankly the pirate's rig might even achieve ERP levels in the 6-8kw range if they get lucky, enough to cover a medium sized city. Interference issues crop up because the pirate broadcaster likely did not have the engineering knowledge or resources to analyze and predict problems in that chain, even if the transmitter is itself quite clean. That's why we have strict broadcast licensing technical requirements almost everywhere in the world.
By definition, an omni antenna has low gain. Narrow directional antennas will have high gain, resulting in higher EIRP, but would not be suitable for covering a whole city.
In this case, in Boston, the FM band is full. No new licensees can be fit in, due to the dearth of open channels and minimum power regs.
So any pirate is likely to be stepping on someone. Maybe not in protected contours, but I'm willing to bet that the complainants are not actually measuring interference anyway.
Thinking of some tech where low-power transmitters around the city could packet-dump compressed audio to some kind of car receiver that would then play, at a specified time/schedule, audio content (podcasts, music, etc.).
The car receiver could indicate which channel/content you prefer and then passing a transmitter would dump you the day's-worth of compressed content for that day's schedule.
But I really like your idea! Human-curated content with analog devices is an area I am a fan of.
The FCC's actions are public documents and published on their website. Its not a coincidence that the ONLY actions the FCC takes for pirate stations have to do with FM or TV. Try finding -any- instance where someone was fined for an AM pirate station in the last 20 years. People with part15 AM transmitters or signal generators have to go out of their way to get the attention of the feds.
https://www.prometheusradio.org/18-days-until-the-lpfm-windo...
87.7 in Dorchester MA: Operates on same frequency as low power TV station WVCC-LD/Westmoreland, NH (Bridge News LLC) blocking reception of much of WVCC's coverage area (out of band on TV Channel 6 spectrum [3])
88.5 Dorchester MA: No major interference (other than to fringe WWRN areas)
89.3 Boston MA: No major interference (other than to fringe WCDV-LP and WNPN areas)
96.5 Brockton MA: Uses same frequency as W243DC/Boston (Gois Broadcasting)
100.1 Brockton MA: Uses same frequency as WBRS-FM/Waltham (Brandeis University)
100.1 Mattapan MA: Uses same frequency as WBRS-FM/Waltham (Brandeis University)
105.3 Brockton MA: Uses same frequency as W287CW/Methuen, MA; operates over digital sideband of WWLI 105.1 FM/Providence, RI (Cumulus Media) within it's service area
105.3 Randolph MA: Uses same frequency as W287CW/Methuen, MA; operates over digital sideband of WWLI 105.1 FM/Providence, RI (Cumulus Media) within it's service area
107.5 Mattapan MA: Operates over digital sideband of WKVB 107.3 FM/Westborough, MA (K-Love) within it's coverage area
Just over half of the interference is to independent broadcasters. 4 of 9 are unauthorized analog stations operating over a licensed digital broadcast (meaning, they probably found what they incorrectly thought was a blank spot on the dial).
[1] https://radioinsight.com/headlines/261774/fcc-report-12-3-ho...
[2] https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/locate?select=city&city=bo...
[3] https://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station...