Review: Access to the Airwaves

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Access to the Airwaves: My Fight for Free Radio
by Allan H. Weiner and Anita McCormick

Publisher: Loompanics Unlimited
ISBN: 1559501634

Often times, the legend is much more than the man. With Allan Weiner, the reverse is true.

Weiner was the man behind Radio NewYork International, a radio ship that broadcast off the East coast in a high-profile 1987 case that got him arrested. It turned Weiner into an instant martyr for the pirate radio movement. But how he got to that point, and what he's done since then, is seldom talked about.

Seems Weiner got his start early (at the age of six!), and had a bumpy ride ever since. Access to the Airwaves chronicles at least four other pirate stations that Weiner helped run and/or build, and he also bought and owned many a legal station before and after RNI. The man's body of broadcasting work is impressive - even more so when so much of it was literally built from scratch.

And it's that literal construction of stations that Weiner loves most. If you close the book and only come away with one thing, it's that Weiner's a tinkerer at heart. Radio electronics just happens to be his specific love; more than 30 years of playing with it all is described in just enough detail to keep it understandable for most pirate radio enthusiasts, and Weiner's kindred spirits out there will definitely want to know more.

Because of this, the text isn't as ideologically-weighted as the title may imply - Weiner's radio piracy is really only a means to an end - and with Weiner, it's not so much about making a statement as getting a broadcasting fix.

Even so, it's a very complete story of the Weiner you've only read about before - even down to some shockingly personal details, like the fact that Weiner's wife left him to move in with another woman, described in a lengthy passage taken from his own diary.

Like any sincere autobiography, it's got its rough points - Access starts out haltingly but flows well at the end. The flow remarkably mirrors Weiner's growing passion for the medium. But it's not a true autobiography, either; published in 1997, there's no chronicle of Weiner's current project, the shortwave station WBCQ, which was the culmination of the dream he'd worked for all his life.

That would make a good sequel. You can't help but be envious of what Allan Weiner's been able to accomplish. And if you can identify with only a fraction of his tale, you'll still be enriched by the read.