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Why is there "no" pirate radio in Chicago?

I and a buddy ran a station in Stickney while in High School. The calls were WSTI (that's original) and it was on 600KHz. We operated on Saturdays from 9:00-3:30 ubtil I got a part time job at a drug store, then we operated every other Saturday.
 
There may be a pirate in Lake Geneva, WI, on 1610 & 1650.

They call themselves "Lake Geneva Neighborhood Radio", running a very odd mix of CD music. They also run "PSAs" for local non-profit organizations. There's even a phone number if you want your organization mentioned on the station.

The cover from about highway 12 west well past the lake along highway 50, south past Badger High school & north to about the Pizza Hut.

This is all with a listenable signal on a car radio.

This seems to be more than just a Part 15 station. That's a good 7 miles end-to-end. This radio's AM is pretty noisy, too.
 
Guess What!
I am planning to be the new pirate in Chicago broadcasting over at 63rd & Austin Ave,
with my Talking-House AM Radio Transmitter coming to you from my new apartment complex
right across the street from 7-Eleven and Walgreens.

I will have much more listeners, than the place Ive lived at before, which was over on 64th and Menard.
I had hardly any listeners at all, over on 64th and Menard. because most of the neighbors were hispanics
rather than Americans.

I was playing and I will continue to play the old easy listening standards stuff from the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s.
I don't know what frequency I will be using, because I need to research it and find a quite spot on the AM Dial....
 
BobMSmith1959 said:
Guess What!
I am planning to be the new pirate in Chicago broadcasting over at 63rd & Austin Ave,
with my Talking-House AM Radio Transmitter coming to you from my new apartment complex
right across the street from 7-Eleven and Walgreens.

I will have much more listeners, than the place Ive lived at before, which was over on 64th and Menard.
I had hardly any listeners at all, over on 64th and Menard. because most of the neighbors were hispanics
rather than Americans.

I was playing and I will continue to play the old easy listening standards stuff from the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s.
I don't know what frequency I will be using, because I need to research it and find a quite spot on the AM Dial....

Lol! you mean Part 15 ;)
 
They've been absent a while, but now they're back on 89.7, someone running continuous old radio crime dramas.
I don't think they are a "pirate" because they're so weak, but in the eyes of the FCC, if you can hear an FM
part 15 more than something like 300 feet, it's a pirate.
I'll do some driving around and see where all I can pick this up beside home.
Definitely not full quieting.
 
LibertyNT said:
BobMSmith1959 said:
Guess What!
I am planning to be the new pirate in Chicago broadcasting over at 63rd & Austin Ave,
with my Talking-House AM Radio Transmitter coming to you from my new apartment complex
right across the street from 7-Eleven and Walgreens.

I will have much more listeners, than the place Ive lived at before, which was over on 64th and Menard.
I had hardly any listeners at all, over on 64th and Menard. because most of the neighbors were hispanics
rather than Americans.

I was playing and I will continue to play the old easy listening standards stuff from the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s.
I don't know what frequency I will be using, because I need to research it and find a quite spot on the AM Dial....

Lol! you mean Part 15 ;)

You've Got It Baby!!!
 
Two possible reasons:

The Chicago area may actually have a greater breadth of formats available on commercial and non-commercial radio, compared to many other metro areas.

More critically, the Chicago area has vastly more low-power, non-commercial F.M. high school and college stations which may fulfill the needs of some who would like to go on-the-air.

(In some metro areas, such as the Philadelphia area, two or three "professional" public stations have gobbled many of the frequencies - for relays - which might have otherwise gone to lower-power high school or college stations!)

And at least one of those stations (Lyons Township High School's WLTL -- 88.1 F.M. -- LaGrange) actually started in the 1960's after the FCC raided a pirate station, and those raided - having learned their "lesson" - channeled their energies toward putting a high school station on-the-air.

That was also the wonderful era when students, by in large, ran these stations with very minimal faculty or administration supervision. For the same reasons, some of these stations later left the air. (Glenbard West's WGHS -- 88.5 F.M. -- comes immediately to mind!)
 
Depending where in the chicagoland area: 95.1, 97.5 and 101.5. Even these are being gobbled up by religious translators.
 
The Knight Kit is NOT a pirate. Unless you operated over a milliwatt of power, you guys are confusing PIRATES w/ LEGAL part 15 broadcasting.

I was doing part 15 AM1060 on the NW side of Chicago 1964.
 
Prais said:
The Knight Kit is NOT a pirate. Unless you operated over a milliwatt of power, you guys are confusing PIRATES w/ LEGAL part 15 broadcasting.

Ahem... I used to attach a longwire antenna to my Knight occasionally when I was in high school, just to see what it would do...
 
(shortly after I got my driver's license) I once wired my Knight to a "cyclone metal fence" - and the range went from a block to about 5 miles. I ZOOMED home, afraid of the fcc, and behaved myself, after.
 
Prais said:
The Knight Kit is NOT a pirate. Unless you operated over a milliwatt of power, you guys are confusing PIRATES w/ LEGAL part 15 broadcasting.

I was doing part 15 AM1060 on the NW side of Chicago 1964.

I also ran the knight kit in 1964, but on 640AM. I ran over 200 ft of wire and got out about 5 blocks.
Never worried about the FCC, just had alot of fun broadcasting to the neighborhood.
 
radioman148 said:
Prais said:
The Knight Kit is NOT a pirate. Unless you operated over a milliwatt of power, you guys are confusing PIRATES w/ LEGAL part 15 broadcasting.

I was doing part 15 AM1060 on the NW side of Chicago 1964.

I also ran the knight kit in 1964, but on 640AM. I ran over 200 ft of wire and got out about 5 blocks.
Never worried about the FCC, just had alot of fun broadcasting to the neighborhood.
Hey! If i was able to do that with my iAM Talkinghouse transmitter, do you think i can get about 5 blocks with 100 milliwatt transmitter and 200 feet of antenna wire? BUT! For one thing, I live in a apartment complex right over by 63rd & Austin. and I am not able to run a 200 feet of wire out side my window, besides i don't think our landlord won't be happy about that one, aspecially putting anything outside our window.
But I added more antenna wire rapped around my large bedroom window like about 40 of wire insted of 10 feet.
Would I get more range when I added 40 feet???...
 
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