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Is this True or is it a Fairy Tale?

I can't estimate or know how much of the tale is true, and how much is embellished, but it is a reminder of another day when the FCC operated under different circumstances and philosophy than today. But much of the story rings with memories of days gone by. Short wave radios that brought in something that was impressive. Receivers that even had a terminal to hook up an external antenna. My dad was not all that involved in radio thinking, but instead of putting up a suspended wire from the house to a tree or the barn, he would take insulated wire and attach it to the terminal and just lay the wire on the ground in the crawl space under the house.

There was a time back in the late 1940s when back pains caused him to choose to stay home on many Sunday mornings. We would come in from church and find him using his strange antenna, listening to German broadcasts on shortwave. It was a treat for him. He had grown up in a home where that was the language of choice.
 
This story was discussed on part15.us about a year and a half ago. None of the posters believed the story. I don't believe it either. It just doesn't make any sense technically. It may have been "based upon actual events," but it is just a tall tale.

Correction: The poster who calls himself druihillsradio on this website believed the part about the FCC inspector being a "dumbass" (his expression). "It happens, guys," he said.
 
Any story where is 16 year old boy is attaching anything to a pole behind a Police Station is not going to end well for the boy ;D

Funny how young boys are color blind and unable to see all the red flags waving when they are doing such things ;)
 
This story brings back the passion and love for radio I had as a teenager.
It was radio's 2nd golden age. Rock & Roll! I have no doubt, this was an
untuned and unfiltered transmitter. This kid thought he was just broadcasting
around Knightstown, Indiana. But, he was also playing for the FCC in Chicago and
Cincinnati on short wave harmonics. I think FCC Inspector Peterson told the kid a
tall tale to give him and his father a scare. It's a great story. Guess he got to
read a lot about part 15, a little late.
 
Anyone else notice this? Peterson's name is not in the article.
Someone knows some extra details. Ha! Ha! Ha! I understand
your passion.
 
I suspect that Timewarp came up with the name Peterson to mean any FCC inspector. I remenber someone in an an old comedy movie calling a man she didn't know, "Freddie," just to call him something. Another woman was shocked, and asked, "How did you know his name is Freddie?"

But who knows?
 
I don't know if its true or not but I know for a fact that sometimes when a local daytimer in my area signs off for the evening that you can sometimes hear another station on the same frequency in the background that suddenly gets harder to hear as soon as the local station kills the transmitter. I've always assumed that the other station was "riding" on the local stations carrier. maybe an engineer can explain that phenomenon.
 
If the two stations are really at the same frequency, the diode detector in the receiver can act like a synchronous detector, which has better signal-to-noise ratio than a diode detector for low signal levels. The local station acts like the local oscillator of the synchronous detector. Of course, the two frequencies will not actually be exactly the same, and there will be interference in the form of flutter or fading between the stations because of the varying difference in phase of the carriers. The sidebands of the local station will also cause interference with the distant station.
 
Ermi Roos said:
If the two stations are really at the same frequency, the diode detector in the receiver can act like a synchronous detector, which has better signal-to-noise ratio than a diode detector for low signal levels. The local station acts like the local oscillator of the synchronous detector. Of course, the two frequencies will not actually be exactly the same, and there will be interference in the form of flutter or fading between the stations because of the varying difference in phase of the carriers. The sidebands of the local station will also cause interference with the distant station.
Click to expand...

:eek: Ummm okay if you say so...
 
Since the pirate was on 1610 its doubtful it would have interfered with the other station since there weren't any other stations on 1610. correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't some stations use some sort of shortwave transmitter as some sort of studio link? I'm thinking it may have been Voice of America or BBC that did that. If that were true and the other station had some sort of shortwave stl, and the 1610 pirate could have been accidently sending out a harmonic signal that would wind up being on shortwave. If it mixed with the stl of the other station it would be heard at the transmitter. Possible but highly unlikely. I once hear WAMY in Amory, MS on shortwave clear as a bell at night, but was too far away to hear it on AM. They didn't broadcast on shortwave. so my guess it was a technical problem that caused it. It only lasted a short time.
 
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