It’s about time the folks at gatekeeper.fcc.gov showed up for a look-see; they took in 14 pages late last week.
There’s plenty of unresolved numerical IPs that hit this site, and many government agencies contract out their telecommunications services (like internet access), especially at field offices. But it sure is nice to finally get hits from the HQ, so to speak. Continue reading “Big-Ups to FCC Goons”
Category: Pirate Radio
Kentucky Shortwave Militia Pirate Arrested In North Carolina
“Colonel” Steve Anderson, a former member of the Kentucky State Militia kicked out of the group for his operation of a shortwave pirate radio station advocating white supremacy, was arrested yesterday in the mountains of North Carolina. According to the story in the link above, it’s implied that Anderson had a license for his radio station but got it revoked by the FCC. This is incorrect. Anderson once held an amateur radio license which was revoked by the FCC, but he never had any permission to operate on the shortwave broadcast bands.
Anderson used to run “Kentucky State Militia Radio (KSMR)” out of his rural home, running 300 watts of power on two shortwave frequencies. His openly racist rhetoric and the fact that he named the station after the state militia alarmed the militia’s commanding officers, who kicked him out of the group and publicly disowned him in 2001. Continue reading “Kentucky Shortwave Militia Pirate Arrested In North Carolina”
Lucky Bastards
I got the following request for ideas from a merry band of microbroadcasters located somewhere in flyover country. They have a problem – one most microradio stations would kill to be saddled with.
This particular station recently moved to a new location in a building on top of which is a three-story steel smokestack (pictured at right, click for a larger photo). The smokestack isn’t in use anymore and our friends would love to use it as a mast for their antenna. They have permission from the building owner but nobody can figure out a plausible way to: Continue reading “Lucky Bastards”
FMC Rebuts FCC; Miscellaneous Piracy Afoot
The Future of Music Coalition, a group of independent musicians and socially-conscious inside-the-Beltway lobbyists, released a study today calling into question the FCC’s official reports on the effects of deregulation on the radio industry. FMC’s study uses a statistical analysis of radio industry ownership trends and the playlists of radio formats, coupled with a small public survey, to paint a significantly different picture of the state of radio than the FCC’s analysis.
According to the report, the idea of judging diversity of voices on the airwaves by the number of program formats available is absurd. Some formats overlap in their choice of music – some by as much as 76% – while in many markets there is quite a bit of format redundancy (two stations that basically play the same stuff). And when it comes to news, four companies program all the stations that two-thirds of Americans listen to for news.
Among survey respondents, an overwhelming majority favor localism over cluster-programmed stations, think there’s too much advertising on the radio now, and want the new low-power FM service expanded. Continue reading “FMC Rebuts FCC; Miscellaneous Piracy Afoot”
Bad Spin Alert: Feds Raid Michigan Militia Microradio Station
Mark Koernke, a member of the Michigan militia, has been in prison for two years after leading police on a high-speed chase. While he’s been out of circulation, someone has been running an unlicensed microradio station from his home in the village of Dexter. The station can apparently only be heard for a couple of miles and mostly runs information sympathetic to the militia.
It’s an undisputed fact that people involved with militias love weaponry. So, when federal marshals went to raid the station on Wednesday, they should not have been shocked to find a shitload of it on the Koernke property.
Seeing the stuff apparently sent the FCC men and their badge-carrying chaperones into some sort of fit, as they called in the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms and any other police they could find in the surrounding several square miles. Continue reading “Bad Spin Alert: Feds Raid Michigan Militia Microradio Station”
Freak Radio Reporter Arrested for Taping Public Meeting
Robert Norse, a reporter with Freak Radio Santa Cruz, had no idea his mini-tape recorder would cause so much trouble.
On Monday, Norse attended the inaugural meeting of a special committee empaneled by the the Santa Cruz, CA city council. The “Downtown Issues Task Force” is charged with implementing a controversial city plan to “clean up” downtown Santa Cruz. In addition to effectively outlawing panhandling, the plan would also place severe restrictions on street theater, leafleting, and the ability to set up informational tables. Continue reading “Freak Radio Reporter Arrested for Taping Public Meeting”
Microradio Notes
The FCC has fined a Naples, FL man $10,000 for running an unlicensed station out of a church. Radio Mision Posible got multiple visits and warning letters before getting a pending-fine notice and, ultimately, the forfeiture itself. The Enforcement Action Database has logged 28 actions to-date for the year, bringing the overall running score to 239.
We’ve also updated our Mosquito Fleet Operational Analysis with additional information emailed from fellow participants. It looks like a total of 11 frequencies were occupied during the event, one more than previously estimated. Some frequencies were shared by more than one station. Continue reading “Microradio Notes”
Behind the Numbers @ the FCC Enforcement Bureau
At its October 10 meeting, the Commission’s decision to approve a standard for digital radio drew the headlines. But there were three items on the meeting’s agenda, one of which was the Enforcement Bureau’s release of its yearly Progress Report.
We’ve condensed the microradio-related enforcement news from the presentation and assembled a special report on what was revealed. My favorite highlight involves the Bureau’s number-fudging on enforcement actions finally catching up with it: the report claims fewer “pirate radio” enforcement actions than previous agency statements suggest. The discrepancy is not gigantic, but large enough to be noteworthy. Continue reading “Behind the Numbers @ the FCC Enforcement Bureau”
FCC Enforcement Bureau: Year Three Progress Report
Linda Blair, Deputy Chief, FCC Enforcement Bureau (32kbps/22KHz MP3, 2:24, 562K)
Notable quotes/analysis:
“Here in Washington, we have worked closely with other federal agencies concerned with national security and emergency preparedness, and our field agents have helped insure interference-free radio operation for law enforcement and security personnel in venues across the country, including, most recently, the IMF protests here in Washington.” Continue reading “FCC Enforcement Bureau: Year Three Progress Report”
Supreme Court Declines Grid Radio's Appeal
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the appeal of Jerry Szoka and GRID Radio, an unlicensed microradio station in Cleveland, Ohio who’s been sparring with the FCC since 1998 and went off the air after receiving a federal court injunction in 2000.
This is the second microradio case to be declined recently by the Supremes; the first was Minneapolis’ Beat Radio, whose petition for certiorari was turned away last year. Continue reading “Supreme Court Declines Grid Radio's Appeal”