9 ms·

Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

106 points by ilamont 3y ago

nullc 3y ago
Perhaps the FCC should stop refusing to issue LPFM licenses. Presumably some of these stations would go lawful if they could.
- spencerflem 3y ago
  They just announced a new batch, actually. Boston is probably fully subscribed though, so I doubt that area is getting any more https://www.prometheusradio.org/18-days-until-the-lpfm-window/ https://www.prometheusradio.org/18-days-until-the-lpfm-windo...
- pontifier 3y ago
  Interestingly, I just found out a week ago that applications for new low power FM stations will be open from the 6th to the 13th of december. I'm thinking about applying as it's something I've been interested in forever, but never seen the window open. https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/lpfm https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/lpfm
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
kyledrake 3y ago
I wrote a book on low power AM broadcasting. It's pretty rare that pirate stations cause meaningful interference, they operate at very low wattages (sometimes 100 watts or less) and usually have low pass filters installed in-line that prevent harmonics interference, whereas commercial stations operate at 100,000 watts and are far more likely to cause interference issues even when designed correctly. It's more likely competing FM stations calling in to complain than the airport calling in to say their planes can't land. Not making an ethics call on pirate radio, just commenting that the argument that they regularly cause dangerous interference is somewhere between nonsense and propaganda. I think the bigger critique I would have is why even bother to do pirate stations anymore now that the Internet is here and it's much easier to subvert corporate media that way anyways. Clear Channel's radio monopoly went from a dangerous culture lock that could ban Beatles songs "because of 9/11" to useless junk pretty quickly, there's a reason I got out of the space a long time ago. The commenter alludes to this when they describe how important the station is by referencing their Spotify playlist (BIG 103.3, which doesn't look dancehall, subversive or frankly very good).
- dtx1 3y ago
  While it's of course easier to do it on the web, the innate locality of pirate stations has a certain appeal. And of course the cat and mouse game and the "illegality" of it makes them feel more special then just a random webstream
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    There is also the question of discoverability, especially unsought discovery. Nobody casually scrolls through urls and and finds a radio station.
    - dtx1 3y ago
      I suspect people don't do that with radios anymore either but it spreads through word of mouth
      - s1artibartfast 3y ago
        Interesting, why do you think that? My assumption is that it would basically be the same as always.
- cf100clunk 3y ago
  > I wrote a book on low power AM broadcasting. Sound great. I hope you'll post a link. > they operate at very low wattages (sometimes 100 watts or less) Since the original article is about a station on the shoulder of the TV VHF-Low and FM bands here's my take on it. Even a very low power transmitter rated <5 watts in the FM band can have its ERP (Effective Radiated Power) multiplied greatly by the combination of a good antenna and altitude above average terrain. A pirate with a small transmitter cabled to an omnidirectional antenna mounted atop a high apartment block can easily output a >100 watt ERP. Frankly the pirate's rig might even achieve ERP levels in the 6-8kw range if they get lucky, enough to cover a medium sized city. Interference issues crop up because the pirate broadcaster likely did not have the engineering knowledge or resources to analyze and predict problems in that chain, even if the transmitter is itself quite clean. That's why we have strict broadcast licensing technical requirements almost everywhere in the world.
don-code 3y ago
The Boston radio dial feels like it's been bled dry of culture in the last decade. To name a few of the old stations, WFNX and WBCN had a marked impact on the city's music scene, beginning in the 60s and sadly coming to an end around 2010. They carried local artists, broke some big names (WFNX introduced Nirvana to mainstream media, for instance), and often sponsored local music events. The radio dial now is now mostly content that can be syndicated across the country - classic rock, Top N Hits, NPR, and so forth. The occasional local morning show dots the programming. There are some holdouts. I find that Emerson College's WERS carries much of the original WFNX spirit. I'll give an honorable mention to WXRV up in Andover as well. Some interesting documentaries about the Boston radio scene, for those interested: * https://theamericanrevolution.fm/ https://theamericanrevolution.fm/ * https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/295945558/we-want-the-airwaves-the-wfnx-story https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/295945558/we-want-the-a... (the original site seems gone)
- ben7799 3y ago
  Yep... it is so hard to believe WBCN, WFNX, and WAAF are all gone. Radio in Boston is atrocious these days. It is really hard to believe there is actual demand for what Clear Channel has jammed the dial with. I think the only reason some of the stations are there is because Clear Channel owns everything and it's cheap for them to air it.
  - RF_Savage 3y ago
    If they don't use the channel enough, somebody else might be able to get a license to transmit in the area. So having stations spread around the dial is a moat. It makes it harder for others to enter the market.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Yeah, music radio is very nearly completely dead and it was killed by the likes of Clear Channel, Cumulus, etc.
- drmpeg 3y ago
  Same here in the SF Bay Area. All the awesome FM stations like KFOG, KSJO (The all Led Zeppelin station) and KOME (The wet spot on your dial) are gone.
wolverine876 3y ago
The obvious issue is whether radio adds any value now that we can stream over the Internet, with unlimited channels. While I'm a geek and love the idea of broadcast over free airways, practically how is radio any more useful now than cable tv? Here are some answers: * We're talking about pirate radio, not commercial. Pirate radio is a person broadcasting to the world, or really to their neighbors. We can do that on the Internet, but, * There's no universal, dedicated listening device like a radio, with the full stack of technology built in (antenna, receiver, amp, speakers, tuner, etc.). The listening devices have so many functions and access so much media of every type that audio streams get buried. A solution might be a .radio TLD (or similar), only for audio streams (and maybe only live). Apps could solve the listening device and provide some discoverability; metadata might include locality. Another feature, maybe in the second or third release, might be open streams, like citizens band radio, which also could be based on locality, topic, etc. (yes, I know that's been done to an extent).
- toast0 3y ago
  > While I'm a geek and love the idea of broadcast over free airways, practically how is radio any more useful now than cable tv? Broadcast radio has fewer deadzones than cell service. Additionally, while audio streaming is relatively low bandwidth, my current cell plan charges all bits against my usage allowance and there's a hard cap; if I used streaming audio instead of terrestrial radio while driving, I'd hit my usage cap most months. While there's a lot of syndicated radio, local stations with real studios provide a real source of local information and character. My local dance station [1] doesn't provide a news show, but does give snippets about major local incidents. My streaming dance station [2] did do news content once, in 2001, but they're unlikely to tell me about things local to me. [1] https://www.c895.org/ https://www.c895.org/ [2] https://www.di.fm/ https://www.di.fm/
  - kgwxd 3y ago
    Even if you had an unlimited plan, the part that makes it feel yucky is the need to pay for a plan just to gain access in the first place. That feeling radio gives can never be recreated over toll-roaded channels.
bannedbybros 3y ago
[dead]
MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
You can thank Bill Clinton for the "Telecommunications Act of 1996" [0] and its ensuing homogenisation of radio due to consolidation: The 1996 Telecommunications Act removed all national and local restrictions on national ownership that specified the number of stations one company could own in a set market. These people are trying to fill the cultural void, but there is no free spectrum left. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
happytiger 3y ago
We need more punks running pirate radio and less Clearchannel corporate nonsense. Like anybody’s life is better because of corporate radio… I for one welcome the interference. What is Radio being used for that’s so critical these days anyways beyond emergency spectrum stuff (that doesn’t get messed with on these spectrums to begin with)? Just remember that the system generally wants to shut down any media it can’t control. And that’s bad in times of social crisis. Pirate radio is one of those uncontrolled media forms, and its ability to disseminate unapproved information to an entire city on receiving devices that can’t be tracked is critical and NOT reliably possible using the Internet especially during crisis periods when the big dogs get involved. Support your local pirate.
- CWuestefeld 3y ago
  For any one, or even several, pirate stations, I wish we had what you're saying. Unfortunately it doesn't scale generally.
  - happytiger 3y ago
    It's resilience to authority precisely because it doesn’t scale. But half a city in a crisis isn’t nothing. And goodness knows there have been some pretty big reach pirate stations. Its haphazard and low tech nature is the uncontrollable resilience most Internet systems lack.
    - Aurornis 3y ago
      If the goal was to disseminate information in the event of an authoritarian dystopian future, setting up a pirate radio station now and broadcasting music is a great way to ensure your plan fails completely when it's needed. Pinpointing the source of these radio transmissions isn't hard with modern equipment. Amateurs do it all the time. It's trivial to map these things out in the era of accessible flying machines and cheap technology.
- tapoxi 3y ago
  I'm a little biased here, since my family runs a small Boston-area AM radio station, but... no? It's not a huge business, but it is a full-time job for a few people and carries advertisements for local businesses. There are other local stations keeping the spirit alive as well (WJIB, rip Bob Bittner). Sure, you'll anger the bigger stations, but you'll also hurt all the smaller stations that play by the rules and do something interesting, and interfering with that will only hasten their inevitable death to newer (and cheaper) technologies. There are plenty of other, open broadcast mechanisms to use out there.
stracer 3y ago
Fascinating how terms such as "pirate station" get into common language and nobody is getting a pause. Pirates are people who ransack other ships on the sea. The term has originally nothing to do with not having a license. Is a ship crew who sails the seas without a license a group of pirates? No. Is this a language psyop to implant people with a negative view of people who do stuff without official license?
- kencausey 3y ago
  I'm afraid that you are about 60 years late on that one.
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  "No. Is this a language psyop to implant people with a negative view of people who do stuff without official license?" If it is, it was quite succesfull, as at least some of them are using the term themself, also in the warez scene (pirate bay). Romanticizing pirates is not a new thing (while ignoring the bloody murder part).
  - sleepybrett 3y ago
    see also 'jay walking'
    - jandrese 3y ago
      I don't think this is quite the same. "Free as a jaybird" isn't something most people have a negative feelings about.
      - sleepybrett 3y ago
        'jay' was a slur 'cityfolk' used to describe a rube from a rural area. Someone who didn't understand the culture of the city and was too trusting, etc. The auto industry co-oped it and used it as a wedge to get city streets turned over to cars so they could sell more cars. Calling people broadcasting on 'protected frequencies' pirates is a similar slur.
soupfordummies 3y ago
Seems like a good topic to ask about this: As you may remember, around 2009 or so, the US mandated that all TV signals had to be sent digital. And of course if you set up an antenna, you can receive crystal-clear HD broadcasts of local TV stations over the air. However, I used to live near a lot of towers and I was actually able to pick up a stray ANALOG station. It was a Spanish-language station but it came through. I didn't even know my HDTV was capable of picking up an old analog station but there it was. Am I confused about the law about digital transmission or was maybe this just some old station that they never bothered to update to digital?
- don-code 3y ago
  The law around digital transmission only applied to full-power broadcasters. Some low-power analog stations were allowed to keep operating until 2021.
- PM_me_your_math 3y ago
  [dead]
- sgath92 3y ago
  > all TV signals had to be sent digital. And of course if you set up an antenna, you can receive crystal-clear HD broadcasts of local TV stations over the air. One of the problems with the switch to digital is the usable signal doesn't go as far as analog, so if you're in a rural area even with an antenna you lost access to some of the stations you were used to being able to receive. A lot of people in rural areas switched to cable or dish tv as a result. And one of the perks of analog is that you can use a crappy signal, as a kid we didn't have cable and you could usually get the higher stations like UPN or Fox by messing around with the antenna.... usually the audio would be okay but the picture would be fuzzy or have interference/noise. Was it a perfect picture? Hell no. But you'd be able to sit and watch a show successfully. With digital if the signal is not good you just got pixelation as the tuner tries to buffer & compile the signal unsuccessfully. I have to wonder if the switchover was encouraged by TV manufacturers because, while they made converter boxes, the public mostly reacted by turning all their existing tvs into e-waste and buying new ones instead. And in states where throwing out tvs is illegal and it costs money to dispose of them (if you can find a place that will take it if you pay them), so the public reacted by dumping them in the woods, creeks/rivers, swamps etc when no one was looking.
PM_me_your_math 3y ago
All the best pirate stations are on HF. Ballsmackers on 6960khz / Fridays & 0200UTC is my fav.
ilikeitdark 3y ago
Does can anyone recommend an app or website specifically for listening to pirate radio stations from around the world?
RF_Enthusiast 3y ago
We don't know what effective radiated power and antenna heights these stations [1] were using, so we can't pinpoint the areas of interference, but here are the conflicts [2] : 87.7 in Dorchester MA: Operates on same frequency as low power TV station WVCC-LD/Westmoreland, NH (Bridge News LLC) blocking reception of much of WVCC's coverage area (out of band on TV Channel 6 spectrum [3]) 88.5 Dorchester MA: No major interference (other than to fringe WWRN areas) 89.3 Boston MA: No major interference (other than to fringe WCDV-LP and WNPN areas) 96.5 Brockton MA: Uses same frequency as W243DC/Boston (Gois Broadcasting) 100.1 Brockton MA: Uses same frequency as WBRS-FM/Waltham (Brandeis University) 100.1 Mattapan MA: Uses same frequency as WBRS-FM/Waltham (Brandeis University) 105.3 Brockton MA: Uses same frequency as W287CW/Methuen, MA; operates over digital sideband of WWLI 105.1 FM/Providence, RI (Cumulus Media) within it's service area 105.3 Randolph MA: Uses same frequency as W287CW/Methuen, MA; operates over digital sideband of WWLI 105.1 FM/Providence, RI (Cumulus Media) within it's service area 107.5 Mattapan MA: Operates over digital sideband of WKVB 107.3 FM/Westborough, MA (K-Love) within it's coverage area Just over half of the interference is to independent broadcasters. 4 of 9 are unauthorized analog stations operating over a licensed digital broadcast (meaning, they probably found what they incorrectly thought was a blank spot on the dial). [1] https://radioinsight.com/headlines/261774/fcc-report-12-3-houston-translator-nabbed-for-multiple-violations-nine-boston-pirates-issued-warnings/ https://radioinsight.com/headlines/261774/fcc-report-12-3-ho... [2] https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/locate?select=city&city=boston%2C+ma&x=0&y=0 https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/locate?select=city&city=bo... [3] https://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=186686 https://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station...

106 points by ilamont 3y ago

Perhaps the FCC should stop refusing to issue LPFM licenses. Presumably some of these stations would go lawful if they could.

spencerflem 3y ago
They just announced a new batch, actually. Boston is probably fully subscribed though, so I doubt that area is getting any more https://www.prometheusradio.org/18-days-until-the-lpfm-window/ https://www.prometheusradio.org/18-days-until-the-lpfm-windo...
pontifier 3y ago
Interestingly, I just found out a week ago that applications for new low power FM stations will be open from the 6th to the 13th of december. I'm thinking about applying as it's something I've been interested in forever, but never seen the window open. https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/lpfm https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/lpfm
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

kyledrake 3y ago

I wrote a book on low power AM broadcasting. It's pretty rare that pirate stations cause meaningful interference, they operate at very low wattages (sometimes 100 watts or less) and usually have low pass filters installed in-line that prevent harmonics interference, whereas commercial stations operate at 100,000 watts and are far more likely to cause interference issues even when designed correctly. It's more likely competing FM stations calling in to complain than the airport calling in to say their planes can't land. Not making an ethics call on pirate radio, just commenting that the argument that they regularly cause dangerous interference is somewhere between nonsense and propaganda. I think the bigger critique I would have is why even bother to do pirate stations anymore now that the Internet is here and it's much easier to subvert corporate media that way anyways. Clear Channel's radio monopoly went from a dangerous culture lock that could ban Beatles songs "because of 9/11" to useless junk pretty quickly, there's a reason I got out of the space a long time ago. The commenter alludes to this when they describe how important the station is by referencing their Spotify playlist (BIG 103.3, which doesn't look dancehall, subversive or frankly very good).

dtx1 3y ago
While it's of course easier to do it on the web, the innate locality of pirate stations has a certain appeal. And of course the cat and mouse game and the "illegality" of it makes them feel more special then just a random webstream
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  There is also the question of discoverability, especially unsought discovery. Nobody casually scrolls through urls and and finds a radio station.
  - dtx1 3y ago
    I suspect people don't do that with radios anymore either but it spreads through word of mouth
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      Interesting, why do you think that? My assumption is that it would basically be the same as always.
cf100clunk 3y ago
> I wrote a book on low power AM broadcasting. Sound great. I hope you'll post a link. > they operate at very low wattages (sometimes 100 watts or less) Since the original article is about a station on the shoulder of the TV VHF-Low and FM bands here's my take on it. Even a very low power transmitter rated <5 watts in the FM band can have its ERP (Effective Radiated Power) multiplied greatly by the combination of a good antenna and altitude above average terrain. A pirate with a small transmitter cabled to an omnidirectional antenna mounted atop a high apartment block can easily output a >100 watt ERP. Frankly the pirate's rig might even achieve ERP levels in the 6-8kw range if they get lucky, enough to cover a medium sized city. Interference issues crop up because the pirate broadcaster likely did not have the engineering knowledge or resources to analyze and predict problems in that chain, even if the transmitter is itself quite clean. That's why we have strict broadcast licensing technical requirements almost everywhere in the world.

don-code 3y ago

The Boston radio dial feels like it's been bled dry of culture in the last decade. To name a few of the old stations, WFNX and WBCN had a marked impact on the city's music scene, beginning in the 60s and sadly coming to an end around 2010. They carried local artists, broke some big names (WFNX introduced Nirvana to mainstream media, for instance), and often sponsored local music events. The radio dial now is now mostly content that can be syndicated across the country - classic rock, Top N Hits, NPR, and so forth. The occasional local morning show dots the programming. There are some holdouts. I find that Emerson College's WERS carries much of the original WFNX spirit. I'll give an honorable mention to WXRV up in Andover as well. Some interesting documentaries about the Boston radio scene, for those interested: * https://theamericanrevolution.fm/ https://theamericanrevolution.fm/ * https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/295945558/we-want-the-airwaves-the-wfnx-story https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/295945558/we-want-the-a... (the original site seems gone)

ben7799 3y ago
Yep... it is so hard to believe WBCN, WFNX, and WAAF are all gone. Radio in Boston is atrocious these days. It is really hard to believe there is actual demand for what Clear Channel has jammed the dial with. I think the only reason some of the stations are there is because Clear Channel owns everything and it's cheap for them to air it.
- RF_Savage 3y ago
  If they don't use the channel enough, somebody else might be able to get a license to transmit in the area. So having stations spread around the dial is a moat. It makes it harder for others to enter the market.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  Yeah, music radio is very nearly completely dead and it was killed by the likes of Clear Channel, Cumulus, etc.
drmpeg 3y ago
Same here in the SF Bay Area. All the awesome FM stations like KFOG, KSJO (The all Led Zeppelin station) and KOME (The wet spot on your dial) are gone.

wolverine876 3y ago

The obvious issue is whether radio adds any value now that we can stream over the Internet, with unlimited channels. While I'm a geek and love the idea of broadcast over free airways, practically how is radio any more useful now than cable tv? Here are some answers: * We're talking about pirate radio, not commercial. Pirate radio is a person broadcasting to the world, or really to their neighbors. We can do that on the Internet, but, * There's no universal, dedicated listening device like a radio, with the full stack of technology built in (antenna, receiver, amp, speakers, tuner, etc.). The listening devices have so many functions and access so much media of every type that audio streams get buried. A solution might be a .radio TLD (or similar), only for audio streams (and maybe only live). Apps could solve the listening device and provide some discoverability; metadata might include locality. Another feature, maybe in the second or third release, might be open streams, like citizens band radio, which also could be based on locality, topic, etc. (yes, I know that's been done to an extent).

toast0 3y ago
> While I'm a geek and love the idea of broadcast over free airways, practically how is radio any more useful now than cable tv? Broadcast radio has fewer deadzones than cell service. Additionally, while audio streaming is relatively low bandwidth, my current cell plan charges all bits against my usage allowance and there's a hard cap; if I used streaming audio instead of terrestrial radio while driving, I'd hit my usage cap most months. While there's a lot of syndicated radio, local stations with real studios provide a real source of local information and character. My local dance station [1] doesn't provide a news show, but does give snippets about major local incidents. My streaming dance station [2] did do news content once, in 2001, but they're unlikely to tell me about things local to me. [1] https://www.c895.org/ https://www.c895.org/ [2] https://www.di.fm/ https://www.di.fm/
- kgwxd 3y ago
  Even if you had an unlimited plan, the part that makes it feel yucky is the need to pay for a plan just to gain access in the first place. That feeling radio gives can never be recreated over toll-roaded channels.

bannedbybros 3y ago

[dead]

MrBuddyCasino 3y ago

You can thank Bill Clinton for the "Telecommunications Act of 1996" [0] and its ensuing homogenisation of radio due to consolidation: The 1996 Telecommunications Act removed all national and local restrictions on national ownership that specified the number of stations one company could own in a set market. These people are trying to fill the cultural void, but there is no free spectrum left. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

happytiger 3y ago

We need more punks running pirate radio and less Clearchannel corporate nonsense. Like anybody’s life is better because of corporate radio… I for one welcome the interference. What is Radio being used for that’s so critical these days anyways beyond emergency spectrum stuff (that doesn’t get messed with on these spectrums to begin with)? Just remember that the system generally wants to shut down any media it can’t control. And that’s bad in times of social crisis. Pirate radio is one of those uncontrolled media forms, and its ability to disseminate unapproved information to an entire city on receiving devices that can’t be tracked is critical and NOT reliably possible using the Internet especially during crisis periods when the big dogs get involved. Support your local pirate.

CWuestefeld 3y ago
For any one, or even several, pirate stations, I wish we had what you're saying. Unfortunately it doesn't scale generally.
- happytiger 3y ago
  It's resilience to authority precisely because it doesn’t scale. But half a city in a crisis isn’t nothing. And goodness knows there have been some pretty big reach pirate stations. Its haphazard and low tech nature is the uncontrollable resilience most Internet systems lack.
  - Aurornis 3y ago
    If the goal was to disseminate information in the event of an authoritarian dystopian future, setting up a pirate radio station now and broadcasting music is a great way to ensure your plan fails completely when it's needed. Pinpointing the source of these radio transmissions isn't hard with modern equipment. Amateurs do it all the time. It's trivial to map these things out in the era of accessible flying machines and cheap technology.
tapoxi 3y ago
I'm a little biased here, since my family runs a small Boston-area AM radio station, but... no? It's not a huge business, but it is a full-time job for a few people and carries advertisements for local businesses. There are other local stations keeping the spirit alive as well (WJIB, rip Bob Bittner). Sure, you'll anger the bigger stations, but you'll also hurt all the smaller stations that play by the rules and do something interesting, and interfering with that will only hasten their inevitable death to newer (and cheaper) technologies. There are plenty of other, open broadcast mechanisms to use out there.

stracer 3y ago

Fascinating how terms such as "pirate station" get into common language and nobody is getting a pause. Pirates are people who ransack other ships on the sea. The term has originally nothing to do with not having a license. Is a ship crew who sails the seas without a license a group of pirates? No. Is this a language psyop to implant people with a negative view of people who do stuff without official license?

kencausey 3y ago
I'm afraid that you are about 60 years late on that one.
hutzlibu 3y ago
"No. Is this a language psyop to implant people with a negative view of people who do stuff without official license?" If it is, it was quite succesfull, as at least some of them are using the term themself, also in the warez scene (pirate bay). Romanticizing pirates is not a new thing (while ignoring the bloody murder part).
- sleepybrett 3y ago
  see also 'jay walking'
  - jandrese 3y ago
    I don't think this is quite the same. "Free as a jaybird" isn't something most people have a negative feelings about.
    - sleepybrett 3y ago
      'jay' was a slur 'cityfolk' used to describe a rube from a rural area. Someone who didn't understand the culture of the city and was too trusting, etc. The auto industry co-oped it and used it as a wedge to get city streets turned over to cars so they could sell more cars. Calling people broadcasting on 'protected frequencies' pirates is a similar slur.

soupfordummies 3y ago

Seems like a good topic to ask about this: As you may remember, around 2009 or so, the US mandated that all TV signals had to be sent digital. And of course if you set up an antenna, you can receive crystal-clear HD broadcasts of local TV stations over the air. However, I used to live near a lot of towers and I was actually able to pick up a stray ANALOG station. It was a Spanish-language station but it came through. I didn't even know my HDTV was capable of picking up an old analog station but there it was. Am I confused about the law about digital transmission or was maybe this just some old station that they never bothered to update to digital?

don-code 3y ago
The law around digital transmission only applied to full-power broadcasters. Some low-power analog stations were allowed to keep operating until 2021.
PM_me_your_math 3y ago
[dead]
sgath92 3y ago
> all TV signals had to be sent digital. And of course if you set up an antenna, you can receive crystal-clear HD broadcasts of local TV stations over the air. One of the problems with the switch to digital is the usable signal doesn't go as far as analog, so if you're in a rural area even with an antenna you lost access to some of the stations you were used to being able to receive. A lot of people in rural areas switched to cable or dish tv as a result. And one of the perks of analog is that you can use a crappy signal, as a kid we didn't have cable and you could usually get the higher stations like UPN or Fox by messing around with the antenna.... usually the audio would be okay but the picture would be fuzzy or have interference/noise. Was it a perfect picture? Hell no. But you'd be able to sit and watch a show successfully. With digital if the signal is not good you just got pixelation as the tuner tries to buffer & compile the signal unsuccessfully. I have to wonder if the switchover was encouraged by TV manufacturers because, while they made converter boxes, the public mostly reacted by turning all their existing tvs into e-waste and buying new ones instead. And in states where throwing out tvs is illegal and it costs money to dispose of them (if you can find a place that will take it if you pay them), so the public reacted by dumping them in the woods, creeks/rivers, swamps etc when no one was looking.

PM_me_your_math 3y ago

All the best pirate stations are on HF. Ballsmackers on 6960khz / Fridays & 0200UTC is my fav.

ilikeitdark 3y ago

Does can anyone recommend an app or website specifically for listening to pirate radio stations from around the world?

RF_Enthusiast 3y ago

We don't know what effective radiated power and antenna heights these stations [1] were using, so we can't pinpoint the areas of interference, but here are the conflicts [2] : 87.7 in Dorchester MA: Operates on same frequency as low power TV station WVCC-LD/Westmoreland, NH (Bridge News LLC) blocking reception of much of WVCC's coverage area (out of band on TV Channel 6 spectrum [3]) 88.5 Dorchester MA: No major interference (other than to fringe WWRN areas) 89.3 Boston MA: No major interference (other than to fringe WCDV-LP and WNPN areas) 96.5 Brockton MA: Uses same frequency as W243DC/Boston (Gois Broadcasting) 100.1 Brockton MA: Uses same frequency as WBRS-FM/Waltham (Brandeis University) 100.1 Mattapan MA: Uses same frequency as WBRS-FM/Waltham (Brandeis University) 105.3 Brockton MA: Uses same frequency as W287CW/Methuen, MA; operates over digital sideband of WWLI 105.1 FM/Providence, RI (Cumulus Media) within it's service area 105.3 Randolph MA: Uses same frequency as W287CW/Methuen, MA; operates over digital sideband of WWLI 105.1 FM/Providence, RI (Cumulus Media) within it's service area 107.5 Mattapan MA: Operates over digital sideband of WKVB 107.3 FM/Westborough, MA (K-Love) within it's coverage area Just over half of the interference is to independent broadcasters. 4 of 9 are unauthorized analog stations operating over a licensed digital broadcast (meaning, they probably found what they incorrectly thought was a blank spot on the dial). [1] https://radioinsight.com/headlines/261774/fcc-report-12-3-houston-translator-nabbed-for-multiple-violations-nine-boston-pirates-issued-warnings/ https://radioinsight.com/headlines/261774/fcc-report-12-3-ho... [2] https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/locate?select=city&city=boston%2C+ma&x=0&y=0 https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/locate?select=city&city=bo... [3] https://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=186686 https://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station...