Posted on 04/18/2014 9:36:32 AM PDT by raccoonradio
Governor Deval Patrick (D-MA) today sharply criticized federal agents for shutting down an unlicensed radio station in Grove Hall and said he tried to dissuade them from raiding the station that bills itself as the fabric of the black community.
Patrick, the state’s first African-American governor, said he had received advanced warning from the US attorney’s office that TOUCH 106.1 FM was going to be raided and urged the office not to proceed.
But federal agents disregarded him. They swept into the station Thursday and seized transmission equipment in what they called a strike against illegally operating radio stations.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...
Yea I drove eastern Texas a lot back in 1984-85. Back then finding a place to park a rig and eat was few and far between. Nacogdoches my usual pick up point when down that way I picked up for McGraw Edison had a small truck stop with hotdogs, nuked sandwiches etc. I had to spend several days sitting there. East Dallas had a TOA. LOL.
Greater Media has 105.7 and 106.7 in Boston (and 96.9 and 102.5). Clear Channel’s FMs are at 94.5, 101.7, and 107.9 and they have AMs at 1200 and 1430. So it’s not CC.
I don’t think a station could get on 106.1 in Boston due to adjacents and same freq., though some say if the FCC made some changes re: LPFM requirements vs. translators (the latter cannot originate programming, only simulcast it) maybe they could go on legally with _10 watts_...but who knows
Some pirates have interfered with aircraft radio. A pirate in Boston called Datz Hitz at 99.7 did (and also stepped on WCRB 99.5, a classical station broadcasting out of Andover MA)
and they got raided and shut down.
No, It is a prop, to shut down free speech on all radio stations. This action was a stage play.
Yea that's very possible. Either the internals in the transmitter could be off or it was what is called Imaging by the aircraft receiver. I used to have about four police scanner going about any time. I had them hooked up to two outdoor antennas and on a signal booster. I could hit a good ways out as far as reception went.
On my older scanners without triple conversion I would pick up frequencies about 21. something MHZ above their actual broadcast frequency. A Pirate operating on the upper end of the FM Commercial radio band 106-108 MHZ could in theory IIRC image into the aviation frequencies especially on older radios.
That's also how Newts cell call was likely intercepted. Many years ago right as cell phones started to get popular some older scanners could pick up the cell phone frequencies and because calls were analog everyone could hear them. To try and stop it the FCC forced the companies making the scanners to drop the cell spectrum. Only Licensed Techs could purchase one with those capacities. But triple imaging scanners had not came out yet so analog cell calls were still being intercepted through Imaging up in the 800MHZ. Finally the scanners went to triple conversion and the cell phones went digital. Newt was likely heard on a scanner using imaging.
I remember a couple of comical things that happened in a nearby town. The PD a cop and a desk cop were on radios in the 45 MHZ band thereabout. One nice hat late afternoon I heard "This is a national alert. Be on the look out for a white female long black hair 5'2" weighing" then it went dead. The voice was way too loud and way too clear. The accent wasn't local. The patrol cop and the desk cop started fussing with each other about one of them screwing around on the radio. I called their station and said I heard the alert on a police scanner. You were hearing Skip. The desk cop asked me who is Skip? LOL.
Second one was where a guy stole a handheld county SD radio from a local high school office. He waited a couple days then turned the radio on and proceeded to call officers he knew and the sheriff all the things that came to mind. The dispatcher kept saying this is not an authorized broadcast and baiting him to say more. In about an hour the radio went silent and a deputy said the radio has been recovered subject in custody. They triangulated on the radio. The dummy was in his living room. LOL.
6.925 USB, just sayin'....
You mean shortwave. It's not that you can't find pirate shortwave stations, it's that it can be hard to bust them when they operate out of random third-world rat holes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWcARf27AIo
How many residents of Grove Hall are equipped to receive 6.925 at all, much less in sideband? You might reach the same size audience, but it would be scattered all over the world, not concentrated in the Community.
Maybe gossip rags should be ended because they’re not real media.
And Free Republic shut down because it’s not a government-approved news source.
So the government should step in and tell us what speech is allowed?
An aircraft receiver picking up images from the FM broadcast band would experience far greater interference from the 50kw licensed stations on the band than from 100w pirate peanut whistles.
On the other hand, a sloppily constructed pirate transmitter could easily be radiating garbage on other than the intended frequency, and that could potentially bother pilots.
I used to keep a scanner going in the van. My wife would leave her wheelchair turned on sometimes. I picked up nothing but the internals from the control box. LOL.
See here for Boston. Three channels rated good, including TOUCH's, one second-best, and five third-best.
Now, out in the boondocks, the situation improves considerably.
Very true. It was easy back then to interfere with or simply overpower the front end of pretty much any tv, stereo, pa system, etc.. Not many people really understood what fundamental front-end overload was or common mode interference. Those that did were pretty damn' geeky.
No sir, I meant Skywave although shortwave works also.
It's not that you can't find pirate shortwave stations, it's that it can be hard to bust them when they operate out of random third-world rat holes.
There are plenty of pirate shortwave (using your term here..) operating right here in the good ol' USA. They're difficult to find because of the way propagation works and how different frequencies and wavelengths bounce off different levels of our atmosphere.
I can operate on 20 Meters for example on 14.250 during the evening hours and my friend 15 miles way cannot hear me. If I move to 7.180, he can hear me, albeit barely. When I then move to 146.445, he hears me loud and clear. Why? Different take-off angles for each signal for starters, followed by one band being basically "line of sight" while the other two bounce off different layers of our atmosphere.
How many residents of Grove Hall are equipped to receive 6.925 at all, much less in sideband? You might reach the same size audience, but it would be scattered all over the world, not concentrated in the Community.
You've accurately summarized the difference between a local FM radio pirate and a shortwave pirate. The shortwave pirate wants to be heard around the world and knows his audience is equipped to receive his signal on whatever frequency and mode he/she uses. That's the challenge of it -- how far can he/she get on a relatively low powered rig? (Without being caught of course...)
I chose 6.925 USB as my example because it's the #1 shortwave (I say skywave, that's how the propagation works) pirate radio frequency. If you're interested in shortwave pirate radio, there are plenty of good resources on the web for where to listen. One of the better "spotter" forums is HF Underground
I remember being out near Worcester, maybe near the airport, and some kind of spur of an aircraft signal could be briefly heard around 98MHz. And near Boston I was listening to 96.9 when they were talk (WTKK) and heard a brief snippet of aircraft radio chatter suddenly come over it (plane flying over...?)
>>Many years ago right as cell phones started to get popular some older scanners could pick up the cell phone frequencies and because calls were analog everyone could hear them.
The film Sonic Outlaws showed a media satirist group from the Bay Area, Negativland. One member (now “retired”), David “The Weatherman” Wills, was shown using some kind of scanner and he was listening in on a phone conversation. It was a bit of an argument between two men (who, uh, were a bit of a “couple”...again, Bay Area!). Wills looks up at the camera and says “There we go. I think we broke the law, just then...”
Update, Boston Herald
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2014/04/pols_back_dot_radio_station
Bay State politicians are defending an unlicensed radio station that was shut down this week by the Federal Communications Commission, but prosecutors say the crackdown was necessary to prevent a “public safety hazard.”
U.S. Marshals and the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau shut down Touch 106.1 FM, an unlicensed Dorchester station, Thursday and seized radio equipment, according to U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz.
Gov. Deval Patrick yesterday said he was “incredibly disappointed” by the raid and plans to ask the U.S. Attorney’s office to back down.
“You’d like to think of them bringing more of a problem-solving approach,” he said. “Touch is a pretty important voice in the community.”
Other politicians were equally vexed with the decision to shut down the unlicensed station founded by former mayoral candidate Charles Clemons.
“That station is an institution,” said Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley. “Myself and other elected officials of color are working collaboratively to apply pressure to lobby the FCC and find out what recourse exists.”
Ortiz defended the crackdown in a statement.
“It is a public safety hazard for illegal radio stations to broadcast, potentially interfering with critical radio communications,” Ortiz said.
Clemons, who founded the station in 2007, said he has not yet retained counsel, but has “received an outpouring of support” from local attorneys “and elected officials.”
He said he was able to get an Internet feed of the station running Thursday night.
“We’re the Rosa Parks of radio right now,” he said. “It’s not right what happened, and we’re going to fight.”
When asked why Touch 106.1 FM did not get a license, Clemons said, “We couldn’t. The FCC has shut it down so no one could apply for a license for 15 years. It’s not fair.”
Ortiz said stations like Clemons’ “could have applied for low power radio licenses and operated their stations in compliance with the law.”
An LPFM station is required to be a "non-commercial educational" broadcaster, with no more than 100 watts ERP.
It would appear that TOUCH was operating as a commercial venture. An article I found from 2007 stated they were at the 100 watt level, but I have found nothing since then to indicate what their current power level is.
I searched the FCC website to see if I could find anything related to the recent shutdown of TOUCH. I found nothing but I did find dozens of items concerning the shutdown of other unlicensed FM broadcasters around the country. Many of those were in response to complaints of interference from legitimate stations. Pirate FM stations do seem to be quite common. I was hoping to find some information as to the origin of this complaint.
The real question is why didn't the FCC shut this station down in 2007 rather than letting it run another 7 years? They seem to move quickly once a pirate station is identified, but they left this one alone for years. I would bet, as other have suggested, that race preference kept them alive, but something happened recently that trumped that race card. A personal vendetta by a disgruntled staffer? Some change in the political structures in the FCC?
If the culprit was a moneyed media giant like Clear Channel, they would have gotten this done years ago. That tells me they weren't involved.
Maybe people on FR should only be allowed to discussing things they don’t know beans about. Oh wait...that’s already a rule, isn’t it.
Operating for seven years w/o a license will get you that kind of sanction. Tough noogies.
One longtime Boston pirate, Choice FM, claimed it had the call letters WCFM, which I’m sure came as news to the folks at Williams College in Williamstown, MA who have had a station with those calls for years. The website claimed they had 2,000 watts and were licensed by the FCC as a low power station (again: they claimed 2,000 watts). I believe at one time the Touch FM site said they had the call letters “WTCH-LP”.
Bovine excrement.
The Touch site now mentions the FCC raid and there’s a loop announcement saying their programming continues as a streamcast, etc. There is a change.org petition out there to get the station back on. Hey, raise a bunch of money in the community and buy a station and go on legally, that would be fine by me. They chose to go on without permission.
>>Many of those were in response to complaints of interference from legitimate stations.
Some go right next to legit stations. One in Boston picked 93.5 FM—right next to sports/Red Sox flagship WEEI-FM 93.7.
>> I would bet, as other have suggested, that race preference kept them alive, but something happened recently that trumped that race card. A personal vendetta by a disgruntled staffer?
It has been said that the FCC waits for complaints from legit broadcasters. Greater Media has WROR 105.7. They also have WBQT 96.9, a hip hop station who probably lost some listeners to “Touch”. It was said Boston mayor Tom Menino had asked Greater not to complain. Well, the new mayor of Boston is Marty Walsh. Maybe now that someone else is in power...
Charles Clemons ran for mayor of Boston last year. He didn’t make the cut in the primary and had two finalist candidates, one of whom he could endorse. There was Walsh and there was John Connolly.
He backed the wrong horse. Connolly.
I think it happened because the operator of the station decided to use it as a launch pad for a run for Mayor.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.