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Pirate Broadcast Radio Stations?

KF6IRK

Kapt. Irk
Mar 2, 2013
323
136
53
So Cal
I listened in on a conversation this evening regarding Pirate Broadcast Radio Stations. I have a keen interest, as I was part of a Pirate Station back in the early '70s - KMUF, located in Inglewood, CA.

Not to dwell much on the KMUF station, but I can say it was a good time in my life and we did our best not to get caught by the 'radio police'. We were successful, by the way (for almost two years) :tongue:

I was trying to remember the station's call and the operator's name who got busted in Redondo Beach back about the same time we started up, but these days, I just can't seem to remember certain particulars that far back. I do remember buying the 65 watt Army TX (after the bust) that he was using (for $65.) The FCC did not seize his equipment, just told him to cease and desist.

In any event, I tried searching for FCC incidents from that period (didn't find what I was looking for), but ran across the article below.

Not sure when this particular incident happened, but found it to be quite interesting ...



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20


"FCC RESPONDS TO MICROPOWER BROADCASTING COURT VICTORY WITH A SWAT TEAM"

Contact: Stephen Dunifer--(510) 549-0732/644-3779

One week after Federal Judge Claudia Wilken refused to grant the FCC a permanent injunction to shut down Free Radio Berkeley and ordered the FCC to respond to specific Constitutional questions, the response came not in the form of legal briefs, as requested, but in the form of a SWAT team busting down the door of Tampa, Florida micropower broadcaster Doug Brewer.

At 6 a.m. Wednesday, November 19, Doug Brewer and his wife were visited in their home by a 20-person Multi-Jurisdictional Task Force (comprised of Federal Marshals, a SWAT team, local police, customs, and a self-identified CIA agent) led by the FCC. With automatic weapons trained on them they were ordered to the floor where they were handcuffed face down with gun muzzles at their head. For the next 12 hours they were detained in their own home, not even allowed to go to the bathroom alone, while agents stripped their home of anything remotely related to radio transmission equipment. Police cordoned off the block around their home, the site of the micropower broadcasting station, and brought in a crane to dismantle his broadcasting tower.

At the same time other members of the same task force were busy shutting down two more micropower broadcasting stations in the Tampa area. One man, Loni Kobres, was taken to jail and not released until he signed papers agreeing not to take any action to recover equipment which had been seized. Radio X had its equipment seized as well with one of its members spending a brief time in jail.

Commenting on this latest development, Stephen Dunifer, of Free Radio Berkeley, said: "This certainly shows that the FCC has nothing but contempt for due process and the Bill of Rights. It is clear that the FCC is carrying out its marching orders given to it earlier this year by the National Association of Broadcasters who have begun a search and destroy campaign against micropower broadcasting. "Speaking for SF Liberation Radio, Richard Edmondson stated: "The raid against Doug Brewer and other microbroadcasters in Florida, coming as it has just a week after the Federal Court ruling in California, is a display of lawless thuggery which demonstrates to me more clearly than ever that the U.S. Government does not care about its own courts, its own laws, or its own Constitution."

In response to this latest attack on micropower broadcasting Bay Area micropower broadcasters will be holding a press conference and Free Speech support demonstration at the Oakland Federal Building on Tuesday, November 25 at 5 p.m.


Background material on the legal case and micropower broadcasting is available on the following WEB sites: http://www.surf.com/~graham; http://www.freeradio.org; All Teen Express.

****** A-Infos News Service *****

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EDIT 4/17: Most if the links above do not work (I tried them)
 
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the key is dont be a jackass in what you play and how powerful your transmitter is (and do not cause interference with a licensed station).

The 1mW i use gets the job done inside the warehouse. My only containment issue is the single window we have lets my signal out in a pinpoint spot that points towards daves house.

I dont think you could call mine so much a pirate station as wireless headphones.
 
KMUF started out with 7 watts, then increased to 15 watts, then 6months later, a whopping 65 watts. During the time we ran low power, our DJ skills were honed - and we sounded pretty professional before we went to high power transmissions.

An electronics engineer from Xerox (a HAM) designed and built a phased array that had a null to the S/E, where the FCC's listening station was located at that time.
 
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