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Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

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Re: Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

#21

Post by CWuestefeld »

happytiger wrote: post #19

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 co…

For any one, or even several, pirate stations, I wish we had what you're saying. Unfortunately it doesn't scale generally.

Re: Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

#22

Post by s1artibartfast »

dtx1 wrote: post #6
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…

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

There is also the question of discoverability, especially unsought discovery.

Nobody casually scrolls through urls and and finds a radio station.

Re: Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

#23

Post by don-code »

sonicanatidae wrote: post #18
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. ;)

WITR Henrietta / Rochester here - we had a 705-watt transmitter on top of the dorms that was good for about 15 or 20 miles.

Re: Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

#24

Post by sonicanatidae »

don-code wrote: post #23
sonicanatidae wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. ;)

WITR Henrietta / Rochester here - we had a 705-watt transmitter on top of the dorms that was good for about 15 or 20 miles.

KNWD - Natchitoches, LA.

This was long, long ago, but I believe we had something like a 10 watt tower.

REACHING THE BEACHES...kinda, STORMING THE DORMS, sorta. ;)

Re: Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

#25

Post by happytiger »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #21
happytiger wrote: post #19

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 co…

For any one, or even several, pirate stations, I wish we had what you're saying. Unfortunately it doesn't scale generally.

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.

Re: Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

#26

Post by gosub100 »

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…

I heard something (I think it was on youtube comments) about text-over-broadcast, which would be useful for even AM stations. That's interesting, because with the Text-to-speech technology becoming almost indistinguishable from a real person, it would open new possibilities for digital broadcasting - albeit talk radio only. Plus you'd still likely need to download the voice software separately, but you could have "talk radio" at only a few hundred bps.

Re: Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

#27

Post by [deleted] »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #15

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…

[deleted]

Re: Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

#28

Post by stracer »

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?

Re: Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

#29

Post by kencausey »

stracer wrote: post #28

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?

I'm afraid that you are about 60 years late on that one.

Re: Another crackdown on Boston-area pirate radio stations

#30

Post by hutzlibu »

stracer wrote: post #28

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?

"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).

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