Our on-again off-again pirate friends are back on the air again (have been for about two weeks), and are now broadcasting on 100.1! (Once again jamming my frequency.)
Most of their liners and promos still identify them as "87.9 Pride FM." However, I actually heard them ID with a call sign of "WGAY-LP". At first, this might give the appearance that they are a licensed LPFM; however, a Google search of those calls, and a search of the FCC's website, turns up no such LPFM with that call sign, or any link to Pride FM whatsoever. The only licensed service with the WGAY calls that shows up is a full-power FM in Sugarloaf Key, FL. (It is possible for an LPFM to have the same calls as a full-power FM, albeit with the -LP suffix attached, but they would have to get permission from the licensee of the already existing station with those calls, as well as FCC approval.)
The FCC, and all other LPFM-related websites, do not show a single LPFM on 100.1 licensed anywhere in the entire state of South Carolina. Unless all of those sites are really that slow to update, I'm not 100% convinced that Pride FM is actually a legal, licensed service. (Nice try on adding the -LP suffix to your call sign, though.)
Until I see proof that Pride FM is, in fact, a licensed LPFM, I'm going to continue to operate my own Part 15 station on 100.1. (I can't move back to my original FM frequency (96.7), as there actually is a licensed LPFM operating on that frequency now; Pride FM operating on that frequency is the reason I moved to 100.1 in the first place.) I'll just live with the reduced coverage area until this alleged pirate ceases operation voluntarily or is busted by the FCC. (When I DO know for sure they are a licensed LPFM, then I'll move to another vacant frequency, although those are becoming few and far between with all the LPFMs and translators popping up.)
Before anyone claims that Pride FM is a Part 15, I can tell you by their coverage area that they are not! When driving down John B. White Blvd/Reidville Rd., I can hear them all the way from Southport Rd. to just past the Toyota and Hyundai dealerships on Reidville Rd., at which point they start to become staticky again. My own Part 15 FM is only listenable in the parking lot of my apartment complex and the stretch of road directly in front of it, as well as a small length of road in the neighborhood directly behind the complex; when the tropo comes in, co-channel WXBT from Columbia significantly reduces my little peashooter FM's coverage area. My AM simulcast gets slightly better coverage during the day, but is significantly less than the FM from sunset to sunrise when the skywave rolls in.
Over the past year and a half, Pride FM has come and gone, often broadcasting for only a couple of days to about a week. First on 87.9 (as their liners say), then on 96.7. Then they popped back up on 87.9 again. I also heard them on 97.7, between the time Chuck FM vacated the frequency and ESPN Radio moved there. And now, they're on 100.1 FM. I guess we'll just sit back and see what happens this time. While I personally won't report them, if they are opertating illegally, they are doing so at their own risk.
