Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

universalhub.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 93 posts

Re: Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

#11

Post by toast0 »

wolverine876 wrote: post #8

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 t…

> 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/

[2] https://www.di.fm/

Re: Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

#13

Post by drmpeg »

don-code wrote: post #10
drmpeg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The wet spot on your dial See, that's the kind of culture I miss. One of WFNX's greatest-of-all-time bumpers was, "WFNX... It's 'WBCN sucks!', spelled backwards."

KOME had the "shock jock" Dennis Erectus. I miss him in particular.

Re: Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

#14

Post by cf100clunk »

kyledrake wrote: post #3

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…

> 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 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.

Re: Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

#15

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

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

Re: Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

#16

Post by empressplay »

drmpeg wrote: post #13
don-code wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The wet spot on your dial See, that's the kind of culture I miss. One of WFNX's greatest-of-all-time bumpers was, "WFNX... It's 'WBCN sucks!', spelled backwards."

KOME had the "shock jock" Dennis Erectus. I miss him in particular.

Probably inspired by Happy Harry Hardon https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100436/

Re: Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

#17

Post by pontifier »

nullc wrote: post #2

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

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

Re: Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

#18

Post by sonicanatidae »

don-code wrote: post #5

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 most…

College stations are usually the hold outs for non-mainstreamed music, in my experience. I was also a college DJ, so +1 for college radio, even if your tower can't reach past the parking lot. ;)

Re: Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

#19

Post by happytiger »

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.

Re: Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

#20

Post by drmpeg »

empressplay wrote: post #16
drmpeg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

KOME had the "shock jock" Dennis Erectus. I miss him in particular.

Probably inspired by Happy Harry Hardon https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100436/

Probably the other way around. Erectus was on KOME in the early 80's.
Post reply on HN