Which places are infested with pirate stations?

[nd2023]

I think Newark, NJ is the pirate radio capital of the US, with a pirate station on every unused frequency. Boston, MA is a close second with several high profile pirates. And the Miami area also has quite a few pirate stations.

 

[vxo]

And the Miami area also has quite a few pirate stations.

The North Miami/south Broward county area, at one time, had every possible channel filled.

Once in a while, my station, WRGP, has issues with them popping up on our frequencies. We've got two translators, one of which is on 96.9... which is, historically, the most popular frequencies for pirates in this area. I literally fell over laughing back when I found out our CP was approved on there!

Yes, we have translators, no, we're not a godcaster. There is *some* practical use. ;D

 

[Studio1]

We don't have "pirate radio stations" here in New Zealand as such - anyone found transmitting on frequencies when they don't have a licence risks a hefty fine and having their gear confiscated.

What we do have though is the next best thing - "General User Radio Licence". This effectively a "free for all" that allows anyone anywhere to set up an FM station (on selected frequencies) and transmit whatever they want, as long as their EIRP does not exceed 500 mW. You don't need to obtain a licence, and there is no fee to pay to use the frequency.

Unfortunately there were no rules put in place about the need to use limiting, not to overmodulate and that it's a good idea to stay 400 kHz away from the next nearest station.
For these reasons alone, most of these stations are much akin to "pirates", and the frequencies where they operate are a sea of intermod and distortion. It's awful.

 

[pqgeorge]

Add Brockton, MA to the list. That city is inundated with pirates on both AM and FM. And were not talking about the "Mr. Microphone" type. These are stations with substantial power, upwards into the range of 100 to 500 watts ERP. Recently, there have been FM stations (all ethnic) on 88.5, 89.3, 90.1, 94.9, 96.5, 101.3, 102.1, 102.9, 104.3, 105.5. And I might have missed a few. Many of them have already been served with FCC papers, yet they keep on broadcasting. Even the bootleggers that used to shut down during the daylight hours in order to avoid FCC detection now stay on 24/7 with more commercials than many of the legitimate broadcasters do.

These guys make no effort of hiding themselves both physically and on various media including the Internet, complete with live streams to boot. It's a joke, plain and simple. I know that several complaints (according to DIY Media) have been lodged to the FCC regarding the over-abundance of pirates in Massachusetts. Yet they still go on like there's nothing wrong on what they do. Oh, well. Such is life.

 

[vxo]

Cool! This is actually something I'd really like to see in the US, perhaps on some of the spectrum to be freed up from analog TV.

What we do have though is the next best thing - "General User Radio Licence". This effectively a "free for all" that allows anyone anywhere to set up an FM station (on selected frequencies) and transmit whatever they want, as long as their EIRP does not exceed 500 mW. You don't need to obtain a licence, and there is no fee to pay to use the frequency.

 

[BobOnTheJob]

Cool! This is actually something I'd really like to see in the US, perhaps on some of the spectrum to be freed up from analog TV.

What we do have though is the next best thing - "General User Radio Licence". This effectively a "free for all" that allows anyone anywhere to set up an FM station (on selected frequencies) and transmit whatever they want, as long as their EIRP does not exceed 500 mW. You don't need to obtain a licence, and there is no fee to pay to use the frequency.

500mw EIRP at several hundred feet could be fun...I'd give it a whirl if it was legalized.

 

[kd8hho]

i had a good idea for the old channel 5 and 6. set aside some channels for the graveyard AM's to move to FM and shut down there AM.

leave a good chunk of the FM space for new stations. 1KW ERP commercial and only 1 owner per station.

 

[Studio1]

Cool! This is actually something I'd really like to see in the US, perhaps on some of the spectrum to be freed up from analog TV.

What we do have though is the next best thing - "General User Radio Licence". This effectively a "free for all" that allows anyone anywhere to set up an FM station (on selected frequencies) and transmit whatever they want, as long as their EIRP does not exceed 500 mW. You don't need to obtain a licence, and there is no fee to pay to use the frequency.

The frequencies currently available here are 88.1 through to 88.7 and 106.7 through to 107.7 [all are 100 kHz increments], with some restrictions including no use of 88.5, 88.6 or 88.7 within 120 km of the Sky Tower (in Auckland) as there is a commercial station operating off there on 88.6. This station's licence was issued long before the GURL system was even thought about and they won't shift the station to another frequency. So, in the biggest city of all, there are only four usable frequencies at the lower end of the band!

There has been talk for a long time about increasing the EIRP to 1 watt - but the controlling authority over radio usage here is nervous about this as there are fixed land mobile services at the lower end of the band (around 87.5) and the very sensitive and highly protected aviation band at the top (starting at 110 MHz for radio beacons).
That's another reason why they won't allow the use of anything below 88.1 at the moment - they are worried someone will splatter on the land mobile services.

Already there has been one station closed down - it was operating on 88.1 and due to lack of filtering on the output, it was getting right into the front end of a land mobile repeater on 84 MHz.
I am aware of stations that flout the 500mW rule - I know of one operator that is currently running 20 watts into a 3 element yagi.
Another station I heard was transmitting on 108 MHz which is a total no-no. This is a guardband, and despite two emails to the radio authority, I don't believe anything has been done yet.

Few if any of the operators of these "radio in a box" systems have any practical training in RF or broadcasting - and consequently rely on what the station sounds like on-air to determine if things are set properly.
A few of them may have a cheap SWR/power meter if they are fortunate, but given that many stations are run by people who have only enough money to string together the basic items, any kind of technical gear or test equipment is usually off the list.

With the move to digital broadcasting in its infancy here, I can see a time when eventually the commercial operators will relinquish many of their high power frequencies. When this happens, I suspect a larger chunk of the FM spectrum will become available for community groups and GURL operators.
Whether this is a good move or not remains to be seen.

Until they tighten up on the requirements for these low power users, or free up some more space, they are really the "Pirates" of the country.

 

[DJboutit3]

I read some stuff on the net a few yrs ago about trying to open up 85.1 to 87.5 for pirate ulicensed radio for 10 to 40 watts this could works easliy fcc could allow this not hard for them to do it then all radios would need to be made to tune down to 85.1. I think they should allow this for 150w ot 250w max and 100ft to 150ft high antenna I would start a station on the new bad with 150w like last yr