Pirate Radio Stations Keep Popping Up In Oregon

Turns out that's against the law.

[johnwest]

Years ago, when I was in college I set up a pirate station in my dorm room since the school station couldn't be heard beyond the dorm it was located in. I ran the station for about a month, playing tapes between classes or when I was studying, and sometimes others would wander in and play DJ for a while. But then I got a call from the Dean's office asking me to stop by. I was worried. I figured I was just about to get kicked out for my pirate station. And when I walked into his office and sat down, and he said, "I hear you are operating a radio station on campus, " I knew it was all over. But he then slide a sheet of paper across to me and said, "I was wondering if you would broadcast this announcement for me. No one can hear our official college station and I hear that yours is listened to all over campus." I assured him that I would indeed broadcast his announcement, as often as he liked, and I walked out of his office as a student in good standing, enormously relieved, and with an 'in' at the Dean's office. :)

[dennisanderson]

In my hometown, a fellow born in 1945 began, as a teen, running his own radio station as a hobby. People who knew about him had to park within, like, 1.5 blocks to tune him in on the car radios. He'd made up call letters, he'd play records, the whole gig. Somehow, his call sign and info reached record companies and he started receiving promo records, shipped to him, to play! He never got in any trouble. (I guess in late 50s/early 60s it was reckoned, "It's a darn weak signal, and he's not out making trouble, leave him be."

[ellenparker]

Growing up, there was a teenage son of a neighborhood family that had a pirate station that broadcast afternoons and weekends. It had a range of the neighborhood, roughly 1/2 mile radius. We all loved the station, WSSH. The father made the son keep a bank account with money to cover a fine if the FCC ever came knocking. They never did. This was in the 1970's. Cool times. Great memories.

[danjams]

My roommate and I in college started a pirate radio station and transmitted from our dorm. He built the transmitter and we hung a very long antenna out the third-floor dorm window which let us transmit around 5 miles on some nights. We had four DJs and only transmitted at night. It was great fun and I have fond memories of our radio antics. The reason we got away with the station was the fact we were located in a very small JR college in the high plains of western Colo. Jack Rabbitt country We eventually received a very "official-looking" stern letter from the FCC which ended our radion careers after a year and half

[mpoulin]

Hi Steve. I used to be in the US Coast Guard (I see the USCG sign in your background, thanks for that!). You mentioned the weird properties of A.M. radio. I have a similar story from my days in the USCG. In the USCG (at least back in the day, can't speak for today), if you received a mayday call on HF radio you were not allowed to respond. You must report it, but not respond. Why??? Because HF can follow the curvature of the earth and, depending on atmospheric conditions, the signal can propagate for thousands of miles. Once you respond to a mayday you are the responsible party for rescue, and if you're thousands of miles away, how effective can you be at rescue? So, you report it, the location is determined, and local people are expected to respond.

[jerseybob]

When I was in high school, 50 plus years ago, I had a friend who was interested in broadcasting. He built a Knight Kit wireless broadcaster. A couple of hundred foot range. He started broadcasting music, sports, and news. In his quest for more coverage, he put up an antenna and built a 6L6 amplifier. He had started the Mother Fletcher Radio Network. We could listen all over town. This attracted the attention of the FCC. They told him to knock it off. He later became the chief engineer for a big station in Philadelphia.

[javabeanz]

I worked as a country radio DJ back in the 1980's for a short time, and I was the only one in the building at night. So I had to check the transmitter on schedule, and log the numbers. But on the topic of "pirate" radio, we had some local stations that did some shuffling of formats among them. Two of the very popular DJs were off the air for a while, and when they came back, they said they were "pirate radio" for a while, but they were really just testing the new equipment and studio, and I believe it was "provisional status" where they were allowed to be on so many hours per day at lower power than they would be using when changing to "operational status." It was a great gimmick to get listeners!

[ScottsSynthStuff]

Cheap, relatively high-powered FM stereo transmitters can be bought from Chinese manufacturers for under $200. That's one of the reasons for the proliferation in recent years of pirate radio stations in the US. I heard an excellent one in Omaha when I was there for a few days, it broadcast at nighttime only, and played some great music.

[FlyMIfYouGotM]

Apparently Pirate Radio was a thing at the university I attended in the late 60's and early 70's. A story I heard from a high-school teacher involved a pirate station he ran in an off campus co-ed, high rise dorm in the late 60's. One night the Feds showed up in the parking lot beside the dorm looking for the illegal transmitter. Mr. DJ, (now my High-school teacher) cuts in and offers a free case of beer to the first person who could hit the white van with all the antennas. Suddenly they apparently had a really nasty, highly localized weather front move in because it started raining bottles, shoes and lots of other solid objects. I guess they didn't like their van getting peppered with everything that wasn't tied down because they left! About 3 years later I was in that same university and saw another pirate station operating from an apartment/house dorm just a couple of houses away from the high-rise dorm. That guy used a couple of reel to reel tape decks to continuously play several hours unattended. I never heard anything about that station being raided or shutdown.

[johnme]

Apparently the Methodists have been freed and the building was no longer needed.

[Teacherofall]

and if this was done on city or county property, would the city or county get fined? I some how doubt that paperwork would ever get filed.

[henrybrandt]

The famous offshore station in England was Radio Caroline, and its story is told in the movie, Pirate Radio.

[mikeoswald]

As a pre teen, I saw an ad in the Popular Mechanics about a "super secret" device that one could hook to a radio and use it to broadcast music or your voice on a low AM band. After saving up the required $ I sent for it and after two tries it was hooked up to my Hallicrafter radio. Darned if it didn't work; weakly, broadcasting maybe a hundred feet . One evening my buddy Gary and I were goofing around trying to be DJ's and Gary came out with a string of profanity that he must of heard from his dad, who was a rough dude. Then something else caught our 11 yo attention and we shut down the radio. The next morning Mr. Gusky, our closest neighbor, came to our back door to speak to my mother. He explained that last night as he and his wife were getting ready for bed, their radio erupted into some terrible filthy language from some kid or kids. Maybe my mother should have a talk with me, he advised. She didn't talk to me; Dad did. The "super secret radio device" went to the junk pile. I kept a low profile for weeks thereafter.

[MBrown]

I've had friends try to start legit radio stations in and around Portland. The FCC rules and hoops they had to jump through was completely ridiculous. Down with federal government control!

[Damoinion]

We had Radio Hauraki here in NZ which started as a pirate FM station situated on a ship in (at the time) international waters off the coast of Auckland. At the time, we only had AM stations, primarily government run and with heavily restricted content, similar to the British situation.

[ARoyalLyon]

One of the stranger events in Pirate Radio history was the 1987 Max Headroom Signal Intrusion. Someone overpowered the signal to a TV station's transmitter which was quickly corrected. A second attempt 2 hours later was able to go on for several minutes as technical staff had gone home for the day. The station's program was replaced by a man wearing a Max Headroom mask with a piece of corrugated metal pivoting behind him, talking unscripted nonsense and ending with a woman hitting his bare buttocks with a fly swatter.

The act required substantial technical expertise and transmission power, and an antenna positioned along the line of sight between the TV studio and their transmitter. Despite significant investigational resources invested by the station and the FCC, the culprits and their exact method have never been identified.

[slightlycrookedworkshop]

I grew up in Massachusetts, but we'd often go to Florida. My dad would listen to AM sports radio from Boston, usually WEEI, at night. Then in college I took an antennas class and learned why. I also learned that not only is the power of a station's signal regulated, but the *shape* of the signal is also regulated.

[kevinmollet]

Story gives me a flash back to a 1990 movie called "Pump up the volume"! Thanks for refreshing those memories Steve.

[ApexLaneProductions]

I remember back in the late 90's in south-central Alaska, i stumbled upon a supposed pirate radio station that was playing a lot if great music. Deep cuts. Entire albums. A lot of prog rock. They amassed a pretty decent listenership in a real short amout of time. It was the talk of the town. It eventually came out that the whole thing was just a promotional stunt from the last thing that Mat-Su valley needed: ANOTHER new country music station!

[PS-hvon]

The age of the off-shore pirate stations in the UK was truly the golden age of radio.