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New Britain Pirates report

DJKraze

DJKraze

Yesterday morning, I was up just before 5AM and decided to tune some analog TV, and picked up some very clean Boston signals: 2, 4, 5, 7, 25, 27, 56 & 66. Providence wasn't even coming in (odd, but not unheard of).

Anyway, I was up that early as I had to play taxi driver to someone and carted them off to New Britain, so since I was in the area and DX was doing some interesting things, I figured I'd check out the FM band and see what I got. WESU was still being blocked in the southern section of town by that spanish pirate on 87.9 and the audio sounds like crap, left channel is still the worst, and they are way to over modulated. On the other hand, the other spanish pirate in the downtown area on 90.9 has fixed the audio and has a better balance on both channels and the audio is much cleaner, if I didn't know they were a pirate and I were an average joe on the street listening, I wouldn't know they were as they have jingles and other production elements. They seem to not really cause much noise to second adjacents WPKT and WWUH except when very close, almost like they are trying not to be a problem unlike 87.9 which seems to just be happy with plunking down where either they feel like (unless the device they use can't do any better frequencies) and toss a noisy mess on the air.

At the very least they could pull up an open frequency chart from sirius and see what channels they suggest people in that zip code set the FM transmitters on the sat radios, as those channels would possibly work better for "not upsetting the neighborhood".
 
What does that other station play? I'm getting the very faintest hint of Spanish 90.9 FM, if anything. I get a little from WSHU-FM 91.1 of Fairfield next to it, but that's it.
 
Hispanic radio pirates? Aren't there enough of these legit stations in and around Hartford now? Or does the piracy thing seem to be the thing to do to get on the air no matter what language is spoken??
 
DJKraze said:
Yesterday morning, I was up just before 5AM and decided to tune some analog TV, and picked up some very clean Boston signals: 2, 4, 5, 7, 25, 27, 56 & 66. Providence wasn't even coming in (odd, but not unheard of).
Click to expand...

Not too unheard of. You have local digitals on 10 (WTNH-DT) and 12 (WTXX-DT) which would kill 10 and 12 locally. IIRC, 36 is not at full power. 64 might have come in however.
 
It's getting worse! Now I'm getting another Spanish pirate here in the south end. This one is on 90.1 FM and sounds like crap. The STEREO pilot light comes on. I hear static on the left channel and "music" out of the right channel. I'm also getting a weak signal of that other pirate on 90.9 in mono with some static. When is this s--- going to end? :(
 
NECRAT: Normally, if I'm getting stations in those areas, I tend to get both Providence and Boston stations. I just found it odd that only Boston was coming in, not even 28 in Providence, which usually comes in long before I see a trace of 56 Boston.

RE Pirates: Yesterday, I was in New Britain again and I'm starting to think the 90.9 pirate is around North & Willow streets, mainly because there is an antenna similar to the one on the former Willow Brook Pharmacy building and because when I was in town with my laptop the other night, just as I was near that building, a wireless network came up with a spanish name followed by FM, as soon as I saw that come up on my laptop, I started looking around for antennas and saw one on the building there. B TW: the audio is fine these days if I haven't said it yet.

Now as far as 90.1, I heard it too, the signal was stereo, kinda distorted and weak, this was as I was heading back here to Middletown, I decided to head back via Arch St. I stayed on the frequency and waited for some kind of ID, it came up as WECS, which is a legitimate station, they were just doing spanish programming at the time.

Now here's the really interesting news, normally I get 87.9 very strong as soon as I get to the south end, and I noted in the past that it causes alot of noise on 88.1 in the entire area wiping it out when within a few blocks of the station. Not the case yesterday, I had perfectly clear 88.1 almost up to the building and on 87.9 there was almost nothing until I got within 2 blocks of the station (still same audio problems though) and as I drove away, it faded within 2 blocks, 88.1 was virtually unaffected at that point.

I get the feeling maybe they are suffering from a pin in the coax or someone told them the true limits of part 15 and they are trying to readjust.
 
88.1 FM was a tad bit better for me here yesterday. Remember, I can see their transmitter when I look out the window here to my left. The 90.1 station was still there to some extent this morning.
 
Looks like I need to make a correction, I know I heard an ID for WECS the other day when I was out in NB, but the last few times I've been out there, I tuned into 90.1 and each time hearing spanish, but when I check it here in Middletown, it's either not there or something other than spanish, so I left it on for a longer period. I must have just randomly caught the real WECS that one time or they are using the same calls to throw people off, as I didn't hear any ID's this time, but I did hear some commercials, every other one was in english and those were only national spots (a life insurance ad, then an "eliminate your credit card debt" thing, the kind you'd hear on Business Talk radio or similar).

Audio was crap, a Beyonce track came on and it was hardly better than phone line quality X 2, lots of distortion, didn't pay attention to whcih channel had the noise this time, seems to be a trend with these pirates, I wonder if the same person is going around and setting these things up they all seem to have a certain similarity to them.

Also, I wonder if 87.9 has dropped down to 87.7, they seem really off freq these days, my car stereo doesn't do that channel, so I'd have to bring a radio with me that does.
 
DJKraze said:
... I did hear some commercials, every other one was in english and those were only national spots (a life insurance ad, then an "eliminate your credit card debt" thing, the kind you'd hear on Business Talk radio or similar)...
Click to expand...

Are these the same commercials that, despite selling completely different items, have the same guy delivering an 800 number three times in a row, with the same forced excitement and angry pitch?
 
DToTheJ said:
DJKraze said:
... I did hear some commercials, every other one was in english and those were only national spots (a life insurance ad, then an "eliminate your credit card debt" thing, the kind you'd hear on Business Talk radio or similar)...
Click to expand...

Are these the same commercials that, despite selling completely different items, have the same guy delivering an 800 number three times in a row, with the same forced excitement and angry pitch?
Click to expand...

Yep, you nailed it.

Also, I decided to bring that radio (a DX400) with me on Tuesday as I was in town looking at a car, I parked across the street and noticed my car was getting them on frequency this time (either they've been moving around or have no lock on the channel they use) and the DX400 confirmed that they are on 87.9 and not down at 87.7 as I guessed earlier. Then as I was heading towards West farms mall, and passing by CCSU, I was scanning the dial and found not 1 but 2 stations mixing together on 105.3, one was the expected Hartford pirate, but you'll never guess the format of the second station, yep, spanish. Now I know an LPFM in Farmington is eventually supposed to start operations on this frequency, but I get the impression that this isn't them.

Who is going around and littering the city of New Britain with unlicensed transmitters?
 
Our south end pirate is on the last block of Arch Street near the corner of Wallace Street. The building has a "church", a baber shop and a botched attempt for a community market. The antenna on the roof is very obviously the source of the problems. I should know because I can see the top of the damn thing when I look out my second floor window. By the way, they are still indeed on 87.9 FM.
 
I was just in town again last night and as I was driving down South Main St., I decided to tune in the pirates. I couldn't get 87.9 at all, I didn't hear 90.1, and I got 90.9 sounding as strong as they usually do. This time I caught them speaking in english and they called themselves "Restoration radio" (which in Spanish is the name of the wireless network I got via my laptop and how I traced them down to the corner of Willow and North Sts.) and they claimed to be operating as a community radio station operating under the part 15 regulations as set forth by the FCC (might not be an exact quote, but you get the idea). If these guys are part 15, then who needs LPFM?
 
87.9 FM is still there, but sounds very unstable. The stereo is bouncing in and out and almost sounded like something was interfering with them. (Remember, I'm 1 1/2 block from this one and I can see their "transmitter" from my window as I type this.) I'm not getting 90.1 FM and the 90.9 FM signal is almost not there.
 
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