Pirate on 106.1 busted

[livingfruitvirus]

Not the one in Broward mind you, but one in Port St. Lucie.

Another Florida Pirate FM Busted
Another SOUTH FLORIDA pirate station has been shut down by the FCC, according to the PALM BEACH POST, which reports that police, acting on FCC intelligence, raided a home in PORT ST. LUCIE and shut down a Haitian pirate FM at 106.1 on WEDNESDAY night.

Homeowner ROUBENS MAIGNAN was charged with unauthorized operation of the station and remained at ST. LUCIE COUNTY JAIL on THURSDAY in lieu of $2,500 bail.

 

[Groove1670]

I got to go to South Florida this week and heard pirates on 99.5 and 104.1. What is wrong with the audio on CALL FM format sounded great but modulation was in the mud almost like there was very little audio going into the transmitter?

 

[The-Major]

What is wrong with the audio on CALL FM format sounded great but modulation was in the mud almost like there was very little audio going into the transmitter?

YES - I'm a loyal listener of CALL-FM, and it's been like that for most of this past week. I have a pretty nice boombox here at home, and I can turn the volume way up but it doesn't do much to the station. (It doesn't get much louder.) If I turn the (frequency) dial just a little bit the high volume blows me away on all of the other stations and even the non-station frequencies (with static). While driving in and around the local Homestead area CALL-FM's reception was occasionally fading in and out. They seem to be experiencing technical difficulties.

THE MAJOR

 

[callfm]

CALL FM signal

I knew you guys would catch that!

We're trying to mitigate an "alleged" harmonic "interference" issue with a county UHF public safety receiver on our landlord's very mismanaged tower site. We installed a filter to provide an additional 50 dB of harmonic attenuation in addition to the FCC required 80 dB attenuation. With greater then 130 dB of attenuation the UHF receiver is still reacting to something that correlates to our audio, but with all of the filtration we're pretty sure it's not a harmonic we're introducing, but a likely a signal being translated by another tenant's equipment (maybe an intermod signal). We're bringing in an engineering firm in the next week to certify that the 91.7 FM signal is clean, as we expect, and then restore the modulation (and all of the processing) to a more appropriate level. We may try flipping it to mono for a few days to get some loudness back and reduce noise. Until then please crank it up, and don't channel surf. Rob/CALL FM

 

[The-Major]

Re: CALL FM signal

I knew you guys would catch that!
We're trying to mitigate an "alleged" harmonic "interference" issue with a county UHF public safety receiver on our landlord's very mismanaged tower site. We installed a filter to provide an additional 50 dB of harmonic attenuation in addition to the FCC required 80 dB attenuation. With greater then 130 dB of attenuation the UHF receiver is still reacting to something that correlates to our audio, but with all of the filtration we're pretty sure it's not a harmonic we're introducing, but a likely a signal being translated by another tenant's equipment (maybe an intermod signal). We're bringing in an engineering firm in the next week to certify that the 91.7 FM signal is clean, as we expect, and then restore the modulation (and all of the processing) to a more appropriate level. We may try flipping it to mono for a few days to get some loudness back and reduce noise. Until then please crank it up, and don't channel surf. Rob/CALL FM

THANKS for the information. I knew that it was something extremely technical-related like that !

I'll be looking forward to when everything sounds normal again. I love to crank-up that volume and play your positive rock, pop, hip hop, and dance loud and proud in my home and all over the greater Homestead-Florida City area !

Oh by the way please play Eleventyseven's "Nostalgiatopia" and Relient K's "Forgiven" much more often ! ;D

THE MAJOR'S REQUESTS

 

[The-Major]

CALL-FM: CRANK IT UP !!!

CALL-FM IS BACK TO NORMAL AGAIN !

This (Tuesday) afternoon it was off-the-air (nothing but static) as I was driving home from work. This evening I turned-on my boombox to CALL-FM (set at the same high volume level that it's been on for the past couple of weeks), and it literally frightened me and blew me away with how LOUD it was (as one of their hardest-rocking songs was playing no doubt). I'm sure that the neighbours heard that one !

I have actually received 'several' (OK - 3) E-MAILs to my web site regarding this problem. I don't work at CALL-FM. I can only report on here what I actually hear on the radio as a loyal fanatic.

THE MAJOR

 

[callfm]

Major:

Today we brought in an engineering firm from Sarasota to make precise measurements at several monitoring points between our transmitter and the antenna. It appears that some of the observed signal interference issues may be associated with the model of FM exciter being used. A same brand exicter from another station used showed the same effects, while a more expensive exciter borrowed from yet another station showed much improved results. With a lot more precise information, including mutilple spectrum analyzer results to digest, we'll be reviewing the results and working towards an immediate and permanent remedy to the signal issues involving the co-located antennas at our tower site. In an effort to regain some of the loudness we turned off the stereo pilot and will broadcast for a bit in mono, same modulation level, but louder. Thanks again for noticing - though still not back to normal yet. We're confident that the signal and audio will be stronger and louder than ever in the weeks to come. Rob/CALL FM.

 

[The-Major]

CALL-FM: CRANK IT UP !!! ... IN MONO

Major:
In an effort to regain some of the loudness we turned off the stereo pilot and will broadcast for a bit in mono, same modulation level, but louder. Thanks again for noticing - though still not back to normal yet. We're confident that the signal and audio will be stronger and louder than ever in the weeks to come. Rob/CALL FM.

My boombox at home can't tell the difference between mono and stereo, so the loudness factour is a good thing. I'll have to check this out in the car tomorrow morning on my drive back to work to see how good mono sounds on my (nicer) stereo.

By the way - What on God's Great Earth happened to CALL-FM's official web site yesterday ? I went to it (in the afternoon), and suddenly it was the Summer Of 2005 all over again ! I appreciated the 'Retro Classic Flashback' of all things 2005-related, but I'm guessing that it was not intentional. ???

THE MAJOR IS OBSERVANT

 

[callfm]

I'm actually still wondering about the website issue myself. The problem somehow originated on Sunday where the web hosting service was directing browsers to a different default main page. They got it resolved on their end. Rob/CALL FM.

 

[The-Major]

CALL-FM: CRANK IT UP !!! ... IN MONO

Major:
In an effort to regain some of the loudness we turned off the stereo pilot and will broadcast for a bit in mono, same modulation level, but louder. Thanks again for noticing - though still not back to normal yet. We're confident that the signal and audio will be stronger and louder than ever in the weeks to come. Rob/CALL FM.

I see what you mean about the mono. The 'stereo' indicatour is obviously not on for CALL-FM on my car's stereo, and the audio quality is noticeably 'dirty' (although louder than it was before the tweak was made).

I'm looking forward to when you guys are back to full rich FM stereo !

Incidentally the 'CALL-FM Charts' (TOP 10) on the home page is an old one, but when you click on the 'Full Chart' it's the new one.

THE MAJOR IS OBSERVANT

 

[PaulBWalkerJr]

Forgive me for asking a silly question but who(call letters) and where(frequnecy) is Call-FM?

 

[The-Major]

CALL-FM: CRANK IT UP !!! ... IN MONO

Forgive me for asking a silly question but who(call letters) and where(frequnecy) is Call-FM?

WMKL-91.7 FM (50,000 watts serving Key Largo, most of The Florida Keys, most of Miami-Dade County, and southern portions of Broward County).

www.callfm.com

THE MAJOR

 

[PaulBWalkerJr]

Thanks Not being from the area, I wans't aware at all what you guys were refering to