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Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations

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Re: Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations

#31

Post by squarefoot »

mc32 wrote: post #7
ChuckMcM wrote: post #3

Back in the day I listened to a pirate station that broadcast out of Arizona. Similar to what the article mentioned, that station was run by people who were passionate about music, camping, and what was going on with respect to the National Forest service and the BLM with respect to public lands. Objectively, they met all the mission requirements that the FCC at the time said they stood for, use of the common air wav…

Was getting in compliance too burdensome for them? For every well-behaved pirate, there’d be many ill-mannered pirates if you didn’t seize their operations.

1: being in compliance requires lots of money -> lots of money requires advertising -> advertising to be effective requires finding as many listeners as possible -> finding most listeners requires broadcasting trash -> bye bye small local station broadcasting interesting stuff. If there was a way to be in compliance without shelling out loads of money that would be awesome and we'd see pretty much every station becoming legit without being forced to ditch Zappa in favor of Bieber and the like. The way it works is the reason why, save for a few rare gems, you turn the knob only to hear the same rubbish pretty much everywhere.

And by the way, if anyone likes the genre, my favorite radio station is TMB (The Musical Box) which streams progressive rock from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Thanks to the Internet for making it possible. Easy to search for. Direct link to the stream for the impatient: vlc http://142.4.217.133:9740

2: That is actually the other way around. Yes, there are bad apples, and they should be prevented from operating, but there also are loads of people behind pirate radio stations who are sensitive about interference problems and other issues; lots of them are well trained and equipped engineers who fulfill their dream of getting on air with the best intentions. Many also are licensed HAM operators, though for obvious reasons they can't reveal their callsign. Radio Frequency is what hackers did when there weren't computers available; the practice is old.

Interesting forum on the subject: http://darkliferadio.proboards.com/

Re: Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations

#32

Post by squarefoot »

tjohns wrote: post #28
mindslight wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ill-mannered" ? I can't think of anything more ill-mannered than a handful of companies abusing the letter of the law by "owning" all of the licensed spectrum in a given area, and then filling it with lowest common denominator chum in a race to the bottom. In this day and age where main societal attention has moved past radio, most of the FM band should be put under a regime similar to 2.4GHz. Preserve the few remai…

The problem with that plan is that broadcast radio does not let two stations (in the same general area) share the same frequency, period. So you need to have frequency coordination. Compare with the ISM bands, like 2.4 GHz, where you can use complex digital signaling (e.g. CDMA/TDMA combined with robust error correction and detection) to effectively timeshare the frequency. The only reason this works well is because…

"The problem with that plan is that broadcast radio does not let two stations (in the same general area) share the same frequency, period. So you need to have frequency coordination".

Very true. The problem here isn't regulation per se, which I concur is necessary, but the absurd amount of money it costs.

Re: Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations

#33

Post by gleapsite »

kragen wrote: post #27

It would be interesting to see an ISM neighborhood mesh network for broadcasting this kind of thing. With modern openly-licensed codecs you should be able to get decent music quality in 16kbps or less, so a half-duplex channel at 512kbps could carry 32 concurrent transmissions. With mesh nodes every 500 meters, you can use four nodes per square kilometer and spare the mobile nodes from spending battery on forwarding…

A long time ago I used an rtlsdr hooked up via usb-otg in order to track aircraft [1].

I'd be really interested in a minified version that didnt need the otg dongle. Or even a stand alone battery operated sdr that could be controlled with bluetooth? I dunno how big that market is, especially absent a network like you propose.

[1] https://www.rtl-sdr.com/ads-b-decoder-rtl-sdr-now-available-...

Re: Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations

#34

Post by glitcher »

whyrlpool wrote: post #14

A surprising number of radio stations in major cities in the UK started out as pirates. Why aren’t lawmakers in the US instead trying to make it easier for pirate radio stations to operate legally?

And without pirate radio we wouldn't have the "People Just Do Nothing" mockumentary series!

Re: Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations

#35

Post by kragen »

gleapsite wrote: post #33
kragen wrote: post #27

It would be interesting to see an ISM neighborhood mesh network for broadcasting this kind of thing. With modern openly-licensed codecs you should be able to get decent music quality in 16kbps or less, so a half-duplex channel at 512kbps could carry 32 concurrent transmissions. With mesh nodes every 500 meters, you can use four nodes per square kilometer and spare the mobile nodes from spending battery on forwarding…

A long time ago I used an rtlsdr hooked up via usb-otg in order to track aircraft [1]. I'd be really interested in a minified version that didnt need the otg dongle. Or even a stand alone battery operated sdr that could be controlled with bluetooth? I dunno how big that market is, especially absent a network like you propose. [1] https://www.rtl-sdr.com/ads-b-decoder-rtl-sdr-now-available-...

If a broadcasting area can be 10 square kilometers with 100,000 people in them, and you need 40 base stations for $5000 to cover that, I feel like the infrastructure investment is insignificant compared to the engineering effort. Apparently the market exists.

In the US you could even transmit FM radio at the legal power levels from the base stations too, reaching like one apartment building from each base station.

A bigger legal problem is the copyright question. You could start with music from Jamendo and the Internet Archive but sooner or later your broadcaster DJs are going to want to broadcast Lindsey Stirling or One Direction, and then you'll have to prove in court that it's legal!

Re: Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations

#36

Post by aaron695 »

I really don't think pirate radio would be interesting if it was legal in itself.

Add to that they then might get mainstream advertisers and follow the FCC and syndicate to wide non-localised areas if legal, destroying everything unique about them.

Re: Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations

#37

Post by seph-reed »

whyrlpool wrote: post #14

A surprising number of radio stations in major cities in the UK started out as pirates. Why aren’t lawmakers in the US instead trying to make it easier for pirate radio stations to operate legally?

The U.S. is in the waiting room for a serious house cleaning. As it is, literally everything revolves around some big companies profit margins. If it doesn't benefit that, it's not important.

God I hope we fuck em up soon. They subverted the justice system, and now there's no pressure release for when bad things happen.

Re: Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations

#38

Post by blotter_paper »

jeffdavis wrote: post #23

Maybe the FCC should set aside a few portions of spectrum that are completely unregulated. Probably a lot of bad actors would show up. But who knows? Maybe most of them would get bored and leave.

This is basically what wifi, bluetooth, and garage door openers use. The sad thing is that they carved out chunks of the spectrum that don't reach as far as the already-in-use TV and radio spectrums. We get the leftover bits for arbitrary consumer transmission, the good parts are spoken for by corporations with deep pockets. I'd like to see the whole thing opened up, it would make meshnets easier to get going.

Re: Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations

#40

Post by mindslight »

tjohns wrote: post #28
mindslight wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ill-mannered" ? I can't think of anything more ill-mannered than a handful of companies abusing the letter of the law by "owning" all of the licensed spectrum in a given area, and then filling it with lowest common denominator chum in a race to the bottom. In this day and age where main societal attention has moved past radio, most of the FM band should be put under a regime similar to 2.4GHz. Preserve the few remai…

The problem with that plan is that broadcast radio does not let two stations (in the same general area) share the same frequency, period. So you need to have frequency coordination. Compare with the ISM bands, like 2.4 GHz, where you can use complex digital signaling (e.g. CDMA/TDMA combined with robust error correction and detection) to effectively timeshare the frequency. The only reason this works well is because…

I was aware of that when I wrote my comment. Also the 2.4GHz has a lower inherent range due to higher frequency and water absorption.

I just don't foresee a huge interest in amateur stations being a problem that couldn't be sorted out informally. So Timmy decides to stomp on the broadcast of Tommy a few doors down - they'll figure it out. It certainly can't be worse than the current situation where Tommy isn't broadcasting at all.

Perhaps I'm discounting the effects of "100W SWR-tolerant FM Transmitter" on eBay for $60 direct from China. But shrug with the current state of radio consolidation, why not cross that bridge when we come to it?

FWIW I would say there is clearly more than enough broadcast spectrum to go around at the current prices, given how much dead space there is.

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