5 ms·

i have no idea what this is about, and the translation from (i assume) the japanese is awful. small personal pirate radio stations are nothing new - my little

i have no idea what this is about, and the translation from (i assume) the japanese is awful. small personal pirate radio stations are nothing new - my little brother ran one intermittently in the early 70s covering quite a bit of lincoln, uk. as this was broadcasting from very close to the then lincoln police hq, my dad eventually shut it down, with prejudice.

ilyt 4y ago
Funnily enough now it would be quite easier to make a hidden one. Slap a GSM modem on one and just hide it anywhere where there is power source and you're essentially done and very hard to track.
- pomatic 4y ago
  Very easy to track... radio direction finding for a static source, even operating at low power output, is a solved problem. Adding a GSM uplink provides zero annonymity because you still need to connect via IP, which can ultimately be unpicked even with TOR or VPN masking if the infrastructure has been compromised.
  - ilyt 4y ago
    Right, if you get FBI on your case maybe.
- squarefoot 4y ago
  The GSM modem will need a SIM card with your number on it to work. Unless you can obtain an anonymous one, but I believe that is almost impossible in most countries.
  - grendelt 4y ago
    SIM swapping and spoofing is a thing.
  - nibbleshifter 4y ago
    Its usually trivial to obtain a sim card anonymously even in countries with mandatory registration and ID laws (eg: certain European countries)
detrites 4y ago
Found this explainer post by the same author: http://anarchy.translocal.jp/non-japanese/radiorethink.html http://anarchy.translocal.jp/non-japanese/radiorethink.html "The term mini-FM was first used in a mass-circulation newspaper in 1982, when a very low-watt FM-station movement started. Mini-FM stations have very little power judged by any standard-usually less than a hundred milliwatts. Although such a weak signal may seem to be of no use for broadcasting, the purpose was not broadcasting but narrowcasting. The birth of mini-FM is related to the peculiar situation of radio in Japan. When mini-FM originated in the early 1980s, most cities in Japan had only one FM station, if any at all, because only government-operated stations could obtain licenses;station administrators tended to be retired government officials. The situation is not so different today, although there are seven stations in Tokyo now instead of two. In this constricted atmosphere many people wanted more open programming. Throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, we had become familiar with American popular and countercultures, since American films and records were easy to obtain. People were longing for diversity in culture yet there were no radio or television stations in Japan covering subcultures. When mini-FM started, therefore, it became a cultural craze."

ilyt 4y ago

Funnily enough now it would be quite easier to make a hidden one. Slap a GSM modem on one and just hide it anywhere where there is power source and you're essentially done and very hard to track.

pomatic 4y ago
Very easy to track... radio direction finding for a static source, even operating at low power output, is a solved problem. Adding a GSM uplink provides zero annonymity because you still need to connect via IP, which can ultimately be unpicked even with TOR or VPN masking if the infrastructure has been compromised.
- ilyt 4y ago
  Right, if you get FBI on your case maybe.
squarefoot 4y ago
The GSM modem will need a SIM card with your number on it to work. Unless you can obtain an anonymous one, but I believe that is almost impossible in most countries.
- grendelt 4y ago
  SIM swapping and spoofing is a thing.
- nibbleshifter 4y ago
  Its usually trivial to obtain a sim card anonymously even in countries with mandatory registration and ID laws (eg: certain European countries)

detrites 4y ago

Found this explainer post by the same author: http://anarchy.translocal.jp/non-japanese/radiorethink.html http://anarchy.translocal.jp/non-japanese/radiorethink.html "The term mini-FM was first used in a mass-circulation newspaper in 1982, when a very low-watt FM-station movement started. Mini-FM stations have very little power judged by any standard-usually less than a hundred milliwatts. Although such a weak signal may seem to be of no use for broadcasting, the purpose was not broadcasting but narrowcasting. The birth of mini-FM is related to the peculiar situation of radio in Japan. When mini-FM originated in the early 1980s, most cities in Japan had only one FM station, if any at all, because only government-operated stations could obtain licenses;station administrators tended to be retired government officials. The situation is not so different today, although there are seven stations in Tokyo now instead of two. In this constricted atmosphere many people wanted more open programming. Throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, we had become familiar with American popular and countercultures, since American films and records were easy to obtain. People were longing for diversity in culture yet there were no radio or television stations in Japan covering subcultures. When mini-FM started, therefore, it became a cultural craze."