11 ms·

FCC warns Portland church to shut down pirate FM operating under its steeple

214 points by rmason 4y ago

gurumeditations 4y ago
[flagged]
- beambot 4y ago
  Revoke tax exemptions and see how fast it gets shut down...
  - lax4ever 4y ago
    Yelp reports this location as no longer being used as a church, and the domain for the church has expired. Beyond that, the article did not comment on what exactly was being broadcast from this particular location, just the frequency. It's a bit pretentious to assume that this is a religious broadcast just from it being in a closed down location. Also, a quick search for radio stations using 90.5 FM in Portland shows there isn't anything broadcasting on that frequency in the area. The FCC regulates this both for licensing and to avoid signal contamination. It's not doing any physical or mental harm when it's being broadcast on an unused frequency in a range of frequencies that are designated for exactly the purpose of radio broadcast. The operators of this broadcast station, whether it is actually the church or not, are not causing physical or mental harm but they are ignoring the FCC regulations around licensing a particular frequency for public broadcast use. Disagree with another's beliefs and viewpoints all you want, but let's try to avoid assigning motive and/or blame as well as spurious accusations where they are not due.
    - RF_Enthusiast 4y ago
      I'm on another forum that has been discussing this station for many months. It's been interfering with KBOO. The shoulders of this analog signal on 90.5 overlap with the licensed signal on 90.7. It's also blocking out a licensed low power FM signal on 90.3. It's Radio Faro de Luz, and they were running a Spanish language religious format. The church is currently abandoned and owned by another church in Salem, Oregon. As the landowner, the church in Salem is being threatened with the fine.
      - lax4ever 4y ago
        See, now that is valuable information to have, and I wish the article's author had included these details. I had not looked up the FCC registrations when I did my quick search, but this makes total sense. I'm all for making sure that you have a license when you do these things to avoid the problem that is happening here, which is the shoulder overlap. I don't care what your content is, if you need a license, get a license.
jamisteven 4y ago
[flagged]
- jimktrains2 4y ago
  What nonsense? There are so many worse things we spend money on, like weed busts and minor drug offenses, than tracking down unlicensed broadcasting, which can be disruptive to licensed users.
- wpietri 4y ago
  I'm happy to pay taxes for this. The airwaves are a shared resource. Shared things need regulations about how they're used. E.g, cops pull people over if they drive on the wrong side of the road. This is not 'Nam, Smokey. There are rules.
- renewiltord 4y ago
  Haha, I'm with you. Freedom to the people, man. But it's obvious that this is necessary to prevent a tragedy of the commons and having spectrum flooded with noise.
News-Dog 4y ago
'It's all Beer and Skittles' till 'spurious emissions' interferes with emergency services, aviation, etc.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  Yes, that's the real risk here. Especially if they are using crappy gear, it wouldn't be the first time that a badly designed end stage outputs more at a harmonic than at the principal frequency and your typical FM pirate isn't going to have a spectrum analyzer lying around.
  - News-Dog 4y ago
    'FM pirate-radio-transmitter interferes with aviation communications'
  - dreamcompiler 4y ago
    Which is ironic given that with modern cheap USB-powered SDRs one can build a scanning spectrum analyzer for the FM band for approximately $0. With an expensive SDR (e.g. $300) one can record and play back the entire FM band for a time duration limited only by one's available disk space.
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      You'll want to go a lot higher than your fundamental.
      - sgtnoodle 4y ago
        RTL-SDR goes up to 1.8Ghz. Should be enough to get a pretty good sense of the harmonics?
nimbius 4y ago
As an amateur extra I'm glad to see the enforcement. Most of these pirate stations are cobbled together from leaky baofeng trash, sizzly amps and random pot steel masquerading as antenna. They're dangerous radiation hazards at worst, and almost always a nuisance to the airwaves operating as overpowered noise across the spectrum. This is a great way to wind up sending randos to the urgent care with rf burns. To be clear I really hope for compliance here as many amateur hams are more than willing to help a nonprofit set up a commercial radio station to further their mission. Proper grounding, signage anchoring safe operation and maintenance are all things were well versed on and can lend a hand with, oftentimes free of charge
- jacquesm 4y ago
  > This is a great way to wind up sending randos to the urgent care with rf burns. In my - ahem - personal experience with RF burns that would require rather close contact at those frequencies. Though I have it from a reliable source that you should always first check if there are any pigeons sitting on your antenna before powering up anything over a few hundred Watts.
  - codetrotter 4y ago
    > you should always first check if there are any pigeons sitting on your antenna before powering up anything over a few hundred Watts Portland Fried Pigeons o_O
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      You can make fluorescent tubes light up at considerable distance with a beefy enough transmitter.
      - wil421 4y ago
        I went to a Tesla museum in Belgrade, Serbia. Towards the end they handed out fluorescent tubes and powered on a device that lit them up. I’m assuming it was a small Tesla coil but I’m no EE.
s1artibartfast 4y ago
I think the interesting question regarding these events is if these are victimless crimes or not. That is to say, is there a license holder for that frequency that is being disrupted or not? For commons that are not being used, and are not damaged, I think the think reasonable use should be allowed.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  The FM band is pretty crowded in most places, and there are a bunch of very important frequency bands right next to it and on multiples of those frequencies so if it wasn't designed very carefully there is a good chance of interference with something that matters. And people operating something that matters tend to have a hotline to the FCC for such cases. I'm surprised they issued a 'warning' rather than that they just took it down and confiscated the gear.
- lax4ever 4y ago
  It certainly poses an interesting question. In the context of this article I ran a quick search for any registered stations in the Portland area using 90.5 FM and I didn't find anything. Not saying that there isn't, but nothing I could find quickly. Also, I don't know many pirate stations that would broadcast solely for the purpose of disrupting another station. My understanding was that most pirate broadcasters do so in order to send their own message, and so finding open signal space would seem to be key.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    Check the harmonics too.
  - RF_Enthusiast 4y ago
    This station was interfering with KBOO on 90.7 and a licensed low power FM on 90.3. The shoulders of the analog signal on 90.5 overlap the signals on 90.3 and 90.7.
    - pstuart 4y ago
asn0 4y ago
The "in related news" story in this article is way more interesting, someone who apparently feels pretty strongly about running a pirate radio station. - FCC is proposing $80,000 fine against a man in Oregon for operating an FM pirate radio station since 2018 - first complaint was in 2018, agents tracked it down, warned the man, and he gave them his transmitter - second complaint in 2019, agents tracked it to the man's new home, they warned him again, he gave them his transmitter - 2 stern warnings wasn't enough, because third complaint came in 2022, agents tracked it to the man's home again, the man's wife gave them 2 tranmitters - the man then posted many videos on Facebook about his pirate radio station, and dared the FCC to lock him up. He then started another pirate radio station
- jacquesm 4y ago
  Amsterdam pirate stations in the heyday of pirate radio (and TV!) had spares on the shelf. It usually wouldn't be more than an hour or two after a raid and they'd be back on the air as if nothing changed. In rare cases stations were off the air for more than that, and usually only because the studio itself had been raided and that took a lot more to put back together again than the transmitter location (usually far removed from the studio).
  - dmix 4y ago
    How much does a transmitter (station) cost?
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      Depending on the output power anything from a few hundred to many thousands, especially if you want it to be clean.
- LinuxBender 4y ago
  I've sat next to an FCC officer whilst operating just above and just below citizens band. He was more curious than anything about our local CB group. This may no longer be the case but at the time they didn't really care about people doing their own thing unless they were interfering with a business or any other revenue impacting shenanigans. We were careful to not interfere. Well, most of us. One of us could be heard through ceiling fans, toasters, light bulbs, TV's but he rarely spoke. We noticed that the FCC would make an example of an extreme clown about once a month and it would get published in a magazine but they always left us alone I think in part because we all used nice gear and only operated with the power required to get the job done. We would only step it up when someone was trying to clobber the truck drivers.
howard941 4y ago
The Low Power FM (LPFM) [0] service provides for 100 watt stations covering small areas and should have relieved the pressure to pirate but for some reason there hasn't been an LPFM application filing window since 2013. The question I have is why has it been so long since new applications were accepted? [0] https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/lpfm https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/lpfm
- RF_Enthusiast 4y ago
  The application filing windows need to be timed out to give other services their opportunity. An LPFM station can be impacted (or impact) the following signals which get their own filing windows: Non-Commercial FM (uses same spectrum); Commercial FM (uses same spectrum); FM Translators (uses same spectrum); Full Power TV (uses adjacent spectrum that LPFMs must consider); Low Power TV (uses adjacent spectrum that LPFMs must consider). The above filing windows can not overlap, and there needs to be a time buffer between each window in the event there are competing applications, or if there are objections filed by the public and other spectrum users that need to be considered. LPFM will likely be the next window to open. The FCC is wrapping up decisions related to the recent Non-Commercial filing window. When that is done, they can move on to the next window.
  - askiiart 4y ago
    Yeah I'd say that's one hellullva(n) accurate username.
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  I don't know the answer to timing of application windows, but I believe last time almost all of the permits went to religious stations, which may not be what someone sick of what's currently available on the proverbial "dial" is looking for. (there are no "dials" anymore ha)
  - AviationAtom 4y ago
    WVMO
ThinkBeat 4y ago
In Norway the government decided to shut down the entire FM network to force people to move over to DAB+. This "official" end of the FM band happened years ago but some radio stations under certain conditions have been allowed to operate on the FM band still. I have never heard about pirate stations here in Norway. I lived most of my life in Colorado and there used to be a few :) It would seem fun to operate a few FM pirate radio stations in Norway since nobody is supposed to use the frequencies anyhow.
Gwiz462 4y ago
This is near my house!
user3939382 4y ago
They should allocate a portion of FM for the public to use as a wild west. May the strongest transmitter win.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- RF_Enthusiast 4y ago
  They (governments) can't do this without some kind of control over the transmitter used. "Wild" transmitters would have spurious emissions that could land in critical frequency bands-- for example, they could interfere with air traffic frequencies, or frequencies for first responders.
  - user3939382 4y ago
    I met wild in terms of interference within the theoretical band range, not bleeding outside it. Poor transmitter quality can always be an issue.
    - RF_Enthusiast 4y ago
      I think technology exists that could make that part of the concept work, but it would require certified transmitters that automatically check in with a database daily or hourly. There's also the issue of radiation danger. A human can not be close to a high (or medium) power FM antenna for any length of time without adverse health effects. And a human can't really be around a low power FM antenna (i.e., 10-100 watts) for extended periods. The health issue would be a problem with the "wild" idea. New Zealand has a popular service like you mentioned, but the limit is 1 watt. But in many cases, that can cover a town.
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  Isn't that what shortwave is for? Somewhere in the 5 MHz if I recall. It isn't installed in cars but you can buy receivers on Amazon. I think the licensing is minimal.
haupt 4y ago
This feels like something straight out of Disco Elysium.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jjcon 4y ago
How powerful of a transmitter can you operate legally in the USA? How much space does that cover? I know there is some limit cause drive in theaters used to transmit on FM and I believe there even used to be adapters for cars that would transmit a very very short distance.
- cvoss 4y ago
  According to [0], a 200 ft radius is permitted for unlicensed AM/FM stations. [0] https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/low-power-radio-general-information https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/low-power-radio-general-info...
- RF_Enthusiast 4y ago
  In the United States, without a license, on FM you can operate with 250 microvolts per meter, measured at a distance of 3 meters. That comes out to about 11 nanowatts. Depending on your receiver, that's probably about 200 feet. On AM, with some exceptions, you can operate with 1/10th of a watt with a 3 meter antenna (a/k/a an inefficient antenna). Depending on ground conductivity, frequency used, local electricity interference floor and the receiver, that can get you out a few hundred feet up to about 1.5 miles (in the most ideal conditions). Bluetooth Auracast is the way to go with terrestrial microbroadcasting in my opinion.
yieldcrv 4y ago
Radio squatting Interesting This broken Federal law of fining the property owner might be a clever way to get some empty real estate back the market at firesale prices
sombragris 4y ago
More info: https://wirelessestimator.com/articles/2023/reading-isnt-required-for-fcc-enforcement-agents-tracking-down-pirate-radio-broadcasting/ https://wirelessestimator.com/articles/2023/reading-isnt-req... As far as I can gather, the building now hosts a Hispanic pentecostal church and the FM radio is operated by that church. > A big sign in the front says the worship facility that appears to have an FM antenna in the back states it is now the Iclesia Petecostes Alfa & Omega ministry. And if the agent wanted to contact them, the sign had a one-foot-tall telephone number visible a block away that the church’s pastor would answer. The radio even has an online presence: https://radiofarodeluzoregon.com/ https://radiofarodeluzoregon.com/
NoZebra120vClip 4y ago
Article is weird. It does not seem to draw any correlation between the church-based transmitter and the dude who's surrendered multiple transmitters and acted defiant. Other than placing both stories in one article, that is. Also, they don't give any hints as to the content of any of these pirate stations. Is it illegal to listen or report on that?
- RF_Enthusiast 4y ago
  Inside Radio has a reputation of simply rewording FCC press releases. The two incidents are not related, the second one is just a regurgitated story as "filler". The FCC generally does not mention the content of the broadcast since it's not relevant to their interference investigation. And it's bad optics for the FCC to mention content as it may be misinterpreted as a first amendment issue. The station in Portland ran a Spanish-language Christian religion format. The station in Eastern Oregon ran a music mix interweaved with far-right talk (not to be confused with conservative talk).
blast 4y ago
This reminds me of the church scene in "They Live".
- skywal_l 4y ago
  Came here to say this! Excellent movie. I love the "weirdness" of John Carpenter. He had his unique style. Too bad he's not making movies anymore...
saul_goodman 4y ago
Sadly the system is incentivized to kill off "harmless pirates", especially if they are doing something interesting. It's always going to be in the best interest of commercial broadcast operators to lodge complaints against pirates competing in their band. If you are in the business of selling advertisements on any band of radio (AM/FM/TV/etc), you don't want listeners possibly soaking up air time from anyone else when it costs you money to run your station. So the deck is always stacked against pirates in common broadcast bands. On the other hand, the shortwave broadcast band has much less locality so it's easier to do interesting things on those bands. But of course there's only a fraction of people who actually listen to shortwave broadcast bands, at least in the US.
- RF_Enthusiast 4y ago
  It should be noted that the Portland pirate was interfering with a non-commercial licensed LPFM station on 90.3, and was operating on the same frequency as the digital signal of a non-commercial community broadcaster centered on 90.7. No commercial broadcast operators had a standing for a complaint in this case. 90.5 MHz to 90.6 MHz contained upper half of the pirate's analog signal, and the lower half of KBOO's digital signal, rendering KBOO's digital signal useless, and blocking all reception on some recievers. To summarize, the pirate was operating on KBOO's licensed spectrum in the same area KBOO serves and blocking reception of KBOO. It would be a different argument if the pirate was not blocking out another broadcaster.
Dwedit 4y ago
Imagine how many Codec2 streams you could multiplex together on one FM station.
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  Depends how you modulate it, but if you went for the widest possible 3.2kbps Codec2 stream and assumed 1kbps is roughly 1kHz of bandwidth (something like a G3RUH modem does about this) you'd be looking at about 60 streams.
at_a_remove 4y ago
I have a pretty dim view of how this whole situation has worked out. Originally, little Class D radio stations were supposed to be for the nearby community, since the reach is quite small. Local radio, for local people. We'll have no trouble here! But during the wild media deregulation of the 1990s, the barriers to entry were lowered, standards relaxed, and to the FCC's surprise, they provoked what could only be called The Night the Translators Came. Thousands of applications came in for "translators," which meant translate in the geometric sense -- to move. In other words, they merely rebroadcast other content, non-local content. This almost always means religious (re)broadcasting networks, like Moody, taking over. Local content suffered massively. Even today, most of your Low-Power FM (LPFM) stations are religious in nature, piped in content that might have been recorded decades ago. To make matters worse, now-tight FM space where LPFMs might live got tighter as NPR whined to Congress about how much space they needed around their signal. How they love to play the underdog. Real radio engineers disagreed but hey. I've held a small grudge ever since, only compounded when they muscle in on stations elsewhere. My old college station, well, they let us know the temperature in that town occasionally! So now there's just not much room for community radio.
- RF_Enthusiast 4y ago
  Yeah, many of those translator licensees and LPFM organizers followed the rules, but not the intent of the rules. And they really pushed the limits of those rules.
mintplant 4y ago
Anyone know what they're broadcasting?
- RF_Enthusiast 4y ago
  The Portland station was broadcasting a Spanish language Christian religion format. The Eastern Oregon station was broadcasting a music format mixed with far-right talk (not to be confused with conservative talk).
pyuser583 4y ago
There was a problem a while back with churches using private band wavelengths for their microphones/speakers. Lots of church suppliers weren’t being diligent about using proper wavelengths. Church pastors were understandably ignorant of the matter. It wasn’t an issue until some telecom purchased the block. Lots of warning letters sent out. Lots of WTFs. Eventually a policy was “you can use the bandwidth until X date, then we’ll start enforcing it.” Not sure what happened on X date.
skipkey 4y ago
My uncle ran a pirate radio station in rural east Texas in the late 60s with a transmitter he built himself. He broadcast music, and I think some sermons on Sunday from the local Baptist church. It was very low power, probably no more than 15 miles range. Until my aunt ran a clothes line to the antenna and suddenly it could be picked up in Dallas. Within a few weeks the FCC had tracked him down and made him stop. Luckily they just confiscated the equipment rather than putting a teenager in jail.
Gordonjcp 4y ago
It's interesting that the pirate radio stations appear to have been broadcasting religious programmes. Here in the UK (and presumably other places too) there's an interesting thing that mosques do, that I looked into for a bit about 15 years ago for someone. Five times a day, mosques must gather the faithful to prayer, so someone climbs up the tower of the minaret and recites the Adhan. There is a different one for each prayer. In the olden days, this would be someone fit enough to climb a long steep set of stairs and then sing at the top of his lungs for ten minutes, then get back down, but these days in predominantly Islamic countries they often just use a bunch of PA speakers and a microphone - or just a prerecorded prayer. Fair enough, but this won't fly in the south side of Glasgow, where roughly 15% of the population are Pakistani. You'd get shot for making all that noise. But they still need to broadcast the call to prayer from the minuet. The minuet, being a big high tower on the top of the mosque, is a great place to put a "four stack" high-gain omnidirectional antenna. Little cheap UHF walkie-talkies are, well, little and cheap. There are a bunch of UHF voice paging frequencies around 464MHz. Sit there and tell me that the Adhan is not "voice paging", I dare you.

214 points by rmason 4y ago

gurumeditations 4y ago

[flagged]

beambot 4y ago
Revoke tax exemptions and see how fast it gets shut down...
- lax4ever 4y ago
  Yelp reports this location as no longer being used as a church, and the domain for the church has expired. Beyond that, the article did not comment on what exactly was being broadcast from this particular location, just the frequency. It's a bit pretentious to assume that this is a religious broadcast just from it being in a closed down location. Also, a quick search for radio stations using 90.5 FM in Portland shows there isn't anything broadcasting on that frequency in the area. The FCC regulates this both for licensing and to avoid signal contamination. It's not doing any physical or mental harm when it's being broadcast on an unused frequency in a range of frequencies that are designated for exactly the purpose of radio broadcast. The operators of this broadcast station, whether it is actually the church or not, are not causing physical or mental harm but they are ignoring the FCC regulations around licensing a particular frequency for public broadcast use. Disagree with another's beliefs and viewpoints all you want, but let's try to avoid assigning motive and/or blame as well as spurious accusations where they are not due.
  - RF_Enthusiast 4y ago
    I'm on another forum that has been discussing this station for many months. It's been interfering with KBOO. The shoulders of this analog signal on 90.5 overlap with the licensed signal on 90.7. It's also blocking out a licensed low power FM signal on 90.3. It's Radio Faro de Luz, and they were running a Spanish language religious format. The church is currently abandoned and owned by another church in Salem, Oregon. As the landowner, the church in Salem is being threatened with the fine.
    - lax4ever 4y ago
      See, now that is valuable information to have, and I wish the article's author had included these details. I had not looked up the FCC registrations when I did my quick search, but this makes total sense. I'm all for making sure that you have a license when you do these things to avoid the problem that is happening here, which is the shoulder overlap. I don't care what your content is, if you need a license, get a license.

jamisteven 4y ago

[flagged]

jimktrains2 4y ago
What nonsense? There are so many worse things we spend money on, like weed busts and minor drug offenses, than tracking down unlicensed broadcasting, which can be disruptive to licensed users.
wpietri 4y ago
I'm happy to pay taxes for this. The airwaves are a shared resource. Shared things need regulations about how they're used. E.g, cops pull people over if they drive on the wrong side of the road. This is not 'Nam, Smokey. There are rules.
renewiltord 4y ago
Haha, I'm with you. Freedom to the people, man. But it's obvious that this is necessary to prevent a tragedy of the commons and having spectrum flooded with noise.

News-Dog 4y ago

'It's all Beer and Skittles' till 'spurious emissions' interferes with emergency services, aviation, etc.

jacquesm 4y ago
Yes, that's the real risk here. Especially if they are using crappy gear, it wouldn't be the first time that a badly designed end stage outputs more at a harmonic than at the principal frequency and your typical FM pirate isn't going to have a spectrum analyzer lying around.
- News-Dog 4y ago
  'FM pirate-radio-transmitter interferes with aviation communications'
- dreamcompiler 4y ago
  Which is ironic given that with modern cheap USB-powered SDRs one can build a scanning spectrum analyzer for the FM band for approximately $0. With an expensive SDR (e.g. $300) one can record and play back the entire FM band for a time duration limited only by one's available disk space.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    You'll want to go a lot higher than your fundamental.
    - sgtnoodle 4y ago
      RTL-SDR goes up to 1.8Ghz. Should be enough to get a pretty good sense of the harmonics?

nimbius 4y ago

As an amateur extra I'm glad to see the enforcement. Most of these pirate stations are cobbled together from leaky baofeng trash, sizzly amps and random pot steel masquerading as antenna. They're dangerous radiation hazards at worst, and almost always a nuisance to the airwaves operating as overpowered noise across the spectrum. This is a great way to wind up sending randos to the urgent care with rf burns. To be clear I really hope for compliance here as many amateur hams are more than willing to help a nonprofit set up a commercial radio station to further their mission. Proper grounding, signage anchoring safe operation and maintenance are all things were well versed on and can lend a hand with, oftentimes free of charge

jacquesm 4y ago
> This is a great way to wind up sending randos to the urgent care with rf burns. In my - ahem - personal experience with RF burns that would require rather close contact at those frequencies. Though I have it from a reliable source that you should always first check if there are any pigeons sitting on your antenna before powering up anything over a few hundred Watts.
- codetrotter 4y ago
  > you should always first check if there are any pigeons sitting on your antenna before powering up anything over a few hundred Watts Portland Fried Pigeons o_O
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    You can make fluorescent tubes light up at considerable distance with a beefy enough transmitter.
    - wil421 4y ago
      I went to a Tesla museum in Belgrade, Serbia. Towards the end they handed out fluorescent tubes and powered on a device that lit them up. I’m assuming it was a small Tesla coil but I’m no EE.

s1artibartfast 4y ago

I think the interesting question regarding these events is if these are victimless crimes or not. That is to say, is there a license holder for that frequency that is being disrupted or not? For commons that are not being used, and are not damaged, I think the think reasonable use should be allowed.

jacquesm 4y ago
The FM band is pretty crowded in most places, and there are a bunch of very important frequency bands right next to it and on multiples of those frequencies so if it wasn't designed very carefully there is a good chance of interference with something that matters. And people operating something that matters tend to have a hotline to the FCC for such cases. I'm surprised they issued a 'warning' rather than that they just took it down and confiscated the gear.
lax4ever 4y ago
It certainly poses an interesting question. In the context of this article I ran a quick search for any registered stations in the Portland area using 90.5 FM and I didn't find anything. Not saying that there isn't, but nothing I could find quickly. Also, I don't know many pirate stations that would broadcast solely for the purpose of disrupting another station. My understanding was that most pirate broadcasters do so in order to send their own message, and so finding open signal space would seem to be key.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  Check the harmonics too.
- RF_Enthusiast 4y ago
  This station was interfering with KBOO on 90.7 and a licensed low power FM on 90.3. The shoulders of the analog signal on 90.5 overlap the signals on 90.3 and 90.7.
  - pstuart 4y ago

asn0 4y ago

The "in related news" story in this article is way more interesting, someone who apparently feels pretty strongly about running a pirate radio station. - FCC is proposing $80,000 fine against a man in Oregon for operating an FM pirate radio station since 2018 - first complaint was in 2018, agents tracked it down, warned the man, and he gave them his transmitter - second complaint in 2019, agents tracked it to the man's new home, they warned him again, he gave them his transmitter - 2 stern warnings wasn't enough, because third complaint came in 2022, agents tracked it to the man's home again, the man's wife gave them 2 tranmitters - the man then posted many videos on Facebook about his pirate radio station, and dared the FCC to lock him up. He then started another pirate radio station

jacquesm 4y ago
Amsterdam pirate stations in the heyday of pirate radio (and TV!) had spares on the shelf. It usually wouldn't be more than an hour or two after a raid and they'd be back on the air as if nothing changed. In rare cases stations were off the air for more than that, and usually only because the studio itself had been raided and that took a lot more to put back together again than the transmitter location (usually far removed from the studio).
- dmix 4y ago
  How much does a transmitter (station) cost?
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    Depending on the output power anything from a few hundred to many thousands, especially if you want it to be clean.
LinuxBender 4y ago
I've sat next to an FCC officer whilst operating just above and just below citizens band. He was more curious than anything about our local CB group. This may no longer be the case but at the time they didn't really care about people doing their own thing unless they were interfering with a business or any other revenue impacting shenanigans. We were careful to not interfere. Well, most of us. One of us could be heard through ceiling fans, toasters, light bulbs, TV's but he rarely spoke. We noticed that the FCC would make an example of an extreme clown about once a month and it would get published in a magazine but they always left us alone I think in part because we all used nice gear and only operated with the power required to get the job done. We would only step it up when someone was trying to clobber the truck drivers.

howard941 4y ago

The Low Power FM (LPFM) [0] service provides for 100 watt stations covering small areas and should have relieved the pressure to pirate but for some reason there hasn't been an LPFM application filing window since 2013. The question I have is why has it been so long since new applications were accepted? [0] https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/lpfm https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/lpfm

RF_Enthusiast 4y ago
The application filing windows need to be timed out to give other services their opportunity. An LPFM station can be impacted (or impact) the following signals which get their own filing windows: Non-Commercial FM (uses same spectrum); Commercial FM (uses same spectrum); FM Translators (uses same spectrum); Full Power TV (uses adjacent spectrum that LPFMs must consider); Low Power TV (uses adjacent spectrum that LPFMs must consider). The above filing windows can not overlap, and there needs to be a time buffer between each window in the event there are competing applications, or if there are objections filed by the public and other spectrum users that need to be considered. LPFM will likely be the next window to open. The FCC is wrapping up decisions related to the recent Non-Commercial filing window. When that is done, they can move on to the next window.
- askiiart 4y ago
  Yeah I'd say that's one hellullva(n) accurate username.
jrochkind1 4y ago
I don't know the answer to timing of application windows, but I believe last time almost all of the permits went to religious stations, which may not be what someone sick of what's currently available on the proverbial "dial" is looking for. (there are no "dials" anymore ha)
- AviationAtom 4y ago
  WVMO

ThinkBeat 4y ago

In Norway the government decided to shut down the entire FM network to force people to move over to DAB+. This "official" end of the FM band happened years ago but some radio stations under certain conditions have been allowed to operate on the FM band still. I have never heard about pirate stations here in Norway. I lived most of my life in Colorado and there used to be a few :) It would seem fun to operate a few FM pirate radio stations in Norway since nobody is supposed to use the frequencies anyhow.

Gwiz462 4y ago

This is near my house!

user3939382 4y ago

They should allocate a portion of FM for the public to use as a wild west. May the strongest transmitter win.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
RF_Enthusiast 4y ago
They (governments) can't do this without some kind of control over the transmitter used. "Wild" transmitters would have spurious emissions that could land in critical frequency bands-- for example, they could interfere with air traffic frequencies, or frequencies for first responders.
- user3939382 4y ago
  I met wild in terms of interference within the theoretical band range, not bleeding outside it. Poor transmitter quality can always be an issue.
  - RF_Enthusiast 4y ago
    I think technology exists that could make that part of the concept work, but it would require certified transmitters that automatically check in with a database daily or hourly. There's also the issue of radiation danger. A human can not be close to a high (or medium) power FM antenna for any length of time without adverse health effects. And a human can't really be around a low power FM antenna (i.e., 10-100 watts) for extended periods. The health issue would be a problem with the "wild" idea. New Zealand has a popular service like you mentioned, but the limit is 1 watt. But in many cases, that can cover a town.
unethical_ban 4y ago
Isn't that what shortwave is for? Somewhere in the 5 MHz if I recall. It isn't installed in cars but you can buy receivers on Amazon. I think the licensing is minimal.

haupt 4y ago

This feels like something straight out of Disco Elysium.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jjcon 4y ago

How powerful of a transmitter can you operate legally in the USA? How much space does that cover? I know there is some limit cause drive in theaters used to transmit on FM and I believe there even used to be adapters for cars that would transmit a very very short distance.

cvoss 4y ago
According to [0], a 200 ft radius is permitted for unlicensed AM/FM stations. [0] https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/low-power-radio-general-information https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/low-power-radio-general-info...
RF_Enthusiast 4y ago
In the United States, without a license, on FM you can operate with 250 microvolts per meter, measured at a distance of 3 meters. That comes out to about 11 nanowatts. Depending on your receiver, that's probably about 200 feet. On AM, with some exceptions, you can operate with 1/10th of a watt with a 3 meter antenna (a/k/a an inefficient antenna). Depending on ground conductivity, frequency used, local electricity interference floor and the receiver, that can get you out a few hundred feet up to about 1.5 miles (in the most ideal conditions). Bluetooth Auracast is the way to go with terrestrial microbroadcasting in my opinion.

yieldcrv 4y ago

Radio squatting Interesting This broken Federal law of fining the property owner might be a clever way to get some empty real estate back the market at firesale prices

sombragris 4y ago

More info: https://wirelessestimator.com/articles/2023/reading-isnt-required-for-fcc-enforcement-agents-tracking-down-pirate-radio-broadcasting/ https://wirelessestimator.com/articles/2023/reading-isnt-req... As far as I can gather, the building now hosts a Hispanic pentecostal church and the FM radio is operated by that church. > A big sign in the front says the worship facility that appears to have an FM antenna in the back states it is now the Iclesia Petecostes Alfa & Omega ministry. And if the agent wanted to contact them, the sign had a one-foot-tall telephone number visible a block away that the church’s pastor would answer. The radio even has an online presence: https://radiofarodeluzoregon.com/ https://radiofarodeluzoregon.com/

NoZebra120vClip 4y ago

Article is weird. It does not seem to draw any correlation between the church-based transmitter and the dude who's surrendered multiple transmitters and acted defiant. Other than placing both stories in one article, that is. Also, they don't give any hints as to the content of any of these pirate stations. Is it illegal to listen or report on that?

RF_Enthusiast 4y ago
Inside Radio has a reputation of simply rewording FCC press releases. The two incidents are not related, the second one is just a regurgitated story as "filler". The FCC generally does not mention the content of the broadcast since it's not relevant to their interference investigation. And it's bad optics for the FCC to mention content as it may be misinterpreted as a first amendment issue. The station in Portland ran a Spanish-language Christian religion format. The station in Eastern Oregon ran a music mix interweaved with far-right talk (not to be confused with conservative talk).

blast 4y ago

This reminds me of the church scene in "They Live".

skywal_l 4y ago
Came here to say this! Excellent movie. I love the "weirdness" of John Carpenter. He had his unique style. Too bad he's not making movies anymore...

saul_goodman 4y ago

Sadly the system is incentivized to kill off "harmless pirates", especially if they are doing something interesting. It's always going to be in the best interest of commercial broadcast operators to lodge complaints against pirates competing in their band. If you are in the business of selling advertisements on any band of radio (AM/FM/TV/etc), you don't want listeners possibly soaking up air time from anyone else when it costs you money to run your station. So the deck is always stacked against pirates in common broadcast bands. On the other hand, the shortwave broadcast band has much less locality so it's easier to do interesting things on those bands. But of course there's only a fraction of people who actually listen to shortwave broadcast bands, at least in the US.

RF_Enthusiast 4y ago
It should be noted that the Portland pirate was interfering with a non-commercial licensed LPFM station on 90.3, and was operating on the same frequency as the digital signal of a non-commercial community broadcaster centered on 90.7. No commercial broadcast operators had a standing for a complaint in this case. 90.5 MHz to 90.6 MHz contained upper half of the pirate's analog signal, and the lower half of KBOO's digital signal, rendering KBOO's digital signal useless, and blocking all reception on some recievers. To summarize, the pirate was operating on KBOO's licensed spectrum in the same area KBOO serves and blocking reception of KBOO. It would be a different argument if the pirate was not blocking out another broadcaster.

Dwedit 4y ago

Imagine how many Codec2 streams you could multiplex together on one FM station.

Gordonjcp 4y ago
Depends how you modulate it, but if you went for the widest possible 3.2kbps Codec2 stream and assumed 1kbps is roughly 1kHz of bandwidth (something like a G3RUH modem does about this) you'd be looking at about 60 streams.

at_a_remove 4y ago

I have a pretty dim view of how this whole situation has worked out. Originally, little Class D radio stations were supposed to be for the nearby community, since the reach is quite small. Local radio, for local people. We'll have no trouble here! But during the wild media deregulation of the 1990s, the barriers to entry were lowered, standards relaxed, and to the FCC's surprise, they provoked what could only be called The Night the Translators Came. Thousands of applications came in for "translators," which meant translate in the geometric sense -- to move. In other words, they merely rebroadcast other content, non-local content. This almost always means religious (re)broadcasting networks, like Moody, taking over. Local content suffered massively. Even today, most of your Low-Power FM (LPFM) stations are religious in nature, piped in content that might have been recorded decades ago. To make matters worse, now-tight FM space where LPFMs might live got tighter as NPR whined to Congress about how much space they needed around their signal. How they love to play the underdog. Real radio engineers disagreed but hey. I've held a small grudge ever since, only compounded when they muscle in on stations elsewhere. My old college station, well, they let us know the temperature in that town occasionally! So now there's just not much room for community radio.

RF_Enthusiast 4y ago
Yeah, many of those translator licensees and LPFM organizers followed the rules, but not the intent of the rules. And they really pushed the limits of those rules.

mintplant 4y ago

Anyone know what they're broadcasting?

RF_Enthusiast 4y ago
The Portland station was broadcasting a Spanish language Christian religion format. The Eastern Oregon station was broadcasting a music format mixed with far-right talk (not to be confused with conservative talk).

pyuser583 4y ago

There was a problem a while back with churches using private band wavelengths for their microphones/speakers. Lots of church suppliers weren’t being diligent about using proper wavelengths. Church pastors were understandably ignorant of the matter. It wasn’t an issue until some telecom purchased the block. Lots of warning letters sent out. Lots of WTFs. Eventually a policy was “you can use the bandwidth until X date, then we’ll start enforcing it.” Not sure what happened on X date.

skipkey 4y ago

My uncle ran a pirate radio station in rural east Texas in the late 60s with a transmitter he built himself. He broadcast music, and I think some sermons on Sunday from the local Baptist church. It was very low power, probably no more than 15 miles range. Until my aunt ran a clothes line to the antenna and suddenly it could be picked up in Dallas. Within a few weeks the FCC had tracked him down and made him stop. Luckily they just confiscated the equipment rather than putting a teenager in jail.

Gordonjcp 4y ago

It's interesting that the pirate radio stations appear to have been broadcasting religious programmes. Here in the UK (and presumably other places too) there's an interesting thing that mosques do, that I looked into for a bit about 15 years ago for someone. Five times a day, mosques must gather the faithful to prayer, so someone climbs up the tower of the minaret and recites the Adhan. There is a different one for each prayer. In the olden days, this would be someone fit enough to climb a long steep set of stairs and then sing at the top of his lungs for ten minutes, then get back down, but these days in predominantly Islamic countries they often just use a bunch of PA speakers and a microphone - or just a prerecorded prayer. Fair enough, but this won't fly in the south side of Glasgow, where roughly 15% of the population are Pakistani. You'd get shot for making all that noise. But they still need to broadcast the call to prayer from the minuet. The minuet, being a big high tower on the top of the mosque, is a great place to put a "four stack" high-gain omnidirectional antenna. Little cheap UHF walkie-talkies are, well, little and cheap. There are a bunch of UHF voice paging frequencies around 464MHz. Sit there and tell me that the Adhan is not "voice paging", I dare you.