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The strict definition of a pirate radio station is a station that operates from sovereign territory without a broadcasting license, or just beyond the territorial waters of a sovereign nation from on board a ship or other marine structure with the intention of broadcasting to that nation without obtaining a broadcasting license from that nation (such as Radio Caroline before its present incarnation).
Unlike the sanctioned and fully licensed transmissions by the United States government, a number of groups in exile, mainly based in Florida, have attempted various offshore radio broadcasts to Cuba, from time to time. These stations are mainly short lived and sporadic in transmission times, but because their broadcasts are not licensed by any nation, their signals are considered to be from pirate radio stations and the USA has taken various physical and legal steps to close them down at different times.
There are a number of pirate radio stations in Mexico. Radio Insurgente, the voice of the Zapatista movement, operated from 2003 to 2009. The station was unlicensed, but according to the San Andres Accords, the indigenous communities targeted by Radio Insurgente had the right to broadcast their own content. The most recent example of a true pirate radio station in Mexico is La Tremenda 106.5 in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. It broadcast international contemporary music and news in Spanish and English. It used the fictitious U.S. call sign "KLPR" on its logo. The station began operations in May 2006, was shut down in June 2008 by the federal police in a "violent" take over. It was suspected that the signal was also used for transmitting messages of members of organized crime. Today, there are several other pirate stations in Nuevo Laredo as well.
The border-blaster or other border stations in Mexico do not meet either above definitions of pirate radio station, however may be considered as such by some governments.
From the earliest days of the history of broadcasting, a number of radio stations licensed in Mexico, became known to the general public as border-blasters. This was due to their excessive use of power which was necessary to reach their intended audience in American cities far north of the border. The traditional border-blasters were AM radio stations; though there are numerous FM radio and even television stations along the border that broadcast to the U.S. from Mexico, the power of FM stations along the border is limited by a U.S.-Mexican agreement.
However, because these stations are licensed by the government of Mexico, they can only be classified as pirate radio stations in the same way that the British government classified Radio Luxembourg as a pirate radio station. Radio Luxembourg was a licensed station broadcasting with a power and on a frequency that the British authorities objected to, because the intended audience for its programs were located within the United Kingdom. The objection by the government of the United Kingdom to commercial broadcasts from Luxembourg, France and other countries, was primarily based upon its protection of the non-commercial BBC Radio monopoly. Also, the UK at the time required a license for radios, which was limited to UK stations; it still requires a license for television sets. However, the U.S. has never required a license to listen to broadcast radio or TV; today, it even issues routine licenses under the Brinkley Act, originally enacted to silence the border-blaster charlatan John R. Brinkley, for the operation of Mexican stations from studio facilities in the U.S.
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In the United States, the term pirate radio implies the unlicensed broadcasting use of any part of the radio spectrum that is reserved for use by governmental, public or commercial licensees by the Federal Communications Commission. This includes the FM, AM and shortwave radio bands.
Compared to authoritarian systems of government which restrict access to the means of communication, the airwaves of the USA are relatively free from direct government censorship.[ citation needed ] As a result of this difference, the term pirate radio has a different interpretation than in countries where access to communication is limited.
In the United States, pirate radio is frequently, but not always, associated with anarchism,[ citation needed ] which considers governmental spectrum regulatory schemes as favoring the interests of large corporations, due to reasons such as high licensing costs. Therefore, some anarchists[ who? ] consider pirate radio transmissions to be a challenge to that authority.
Pirate radio is also in large part the resulting backlash from Federal Communications Commission's Title 47 CFR Part 15, which prohibits certain power broadcasting. NPR and the NAB convinced the FCC to eliminate the class D license in 1979. This kept all new low-power stations from getting a license, and bumped all of the old ones down to secondary status, forcing many more off the air since then. Despite this, an explosion of broadcast translators on FM, technically identical but rebroadcasting other stations, most part of religious broadcasting networks, has occurred since then. This further fueled pirate operators in the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1982, an organization of pirate radio monitoring enthusiasts was formed by Darren Leno. Known as the Association of Clandestine Radio Enthusiasts (ACE) the organization was and remains a very popular conduit for sharing information about North American pirate radio and other unusual radio transmissions.
Because of this severe lack of access, numerous pirate radio operators (such as Stephen Dunifer), as well as other groups petitioned the FCC for a new LPFM service. After many years of trying, this finally was passed around 2000, although it blocked former pirate operators from holding licenses. Lobbied by the commercial radio industry, the U.S. Congress intervened and limited the new service even further, though technical tests later proved this to be baseless, and the added restrictions were lifted.
Although this should mean that pirate radio has seen a decrease, most of the licensees are churches, colleges, and state or local government transportation departments, as the FCC requires the licensee to be a non-profit organization. Pirate radio also continues because legal open spots on the FM dial have been filled in since and because of the 1979 ruling, by both full-power and translator stations.
Part 15 of the FCC rules allows the use of spectrum without a license but emissions pursuant to this rule are not practical for broadcasting due to extremely restrictive power levels which limit range (range varies depending on frequency spectrum). Part 15 is intended to allow for operation of a broad range of electrical devices that emit radio energy either as an intended element of their operation (e.g. garage door openers, FM modulators for iPod auto use) or as a by-product of their operation. Despite the limited range possible under Part 15, some small broadcast stations are operated within its parameters, while others operate claiming to be Part 15 compliant but with signals exceeding what is permitted under the rule.
Because basic radio transmission equipment is relatively easy to obtain in the US and because it is relatively easy to hide, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which has the authority to regulate radio communications, sometimes has difficulty in finding and prosecuting offenders who transmit without a license. Triangulation may be used, but most frequently a spectrum analyzer is driven around the affected area, with a person monitoring where the suspect signal is highest, and another one looking for any obvious signs such as an antenna or small tower (like that used for amateur radio).
The FCC maintains a database of alleged pirate radio broadcasters in the United States on a state-by-state basis which is made available to Congress as a report. [1]
AM broadcasting is radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation (AM) transmissions. It was the first method developed for making audio radio transmissions, and is still used worldwide, primarily for medium wave transmissions, but also on the longwave and shortwave radio bands.
Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio station, while in satellite radio the radio waves are broadcast by a satellite in Earth orbit. To receive the content the listener must have a broadcast radio receiver (radio). Stations are often affiliated with a radio network that provides content in a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast, or both. The encoding of a radio broadcast depends on whether it uses an analog or digital signal. Analog radio broadcasts use one of two types of radio wave modulation: amplitude modulation for AM radio, or frequency modulation for FM radio. Newer, digital radio stations transmit in several different digital audio standards, such as DAB, HD radio, or DRM.
A pirate radio station is a radio station that broadcasts without a valid license.
In-band on-channel (IBOC) is a hybrid method of transmitting digital radio and analog radio broadcast signals simultaneously on the same frequency. The name refers to the new digital signals being broadcast in the same AM or FM band (in-band), and associated with an existing radio channel (on-channel). By utilizing additional digital subcarriers or sidebands, digital information is multiplexed on existing signals, thus avoiding re-allocation of the broadcast bands.
Low-power broadcasting is broadcasting by a broadcast station at a low transmitter power output to a smaller service area than "full power" stations within the same region. It is often distinguished from "micropower broadcasting" and broadcast translators. LPAM, LPFM and LPTV are in various levels of use across the world, varying widely based on the laws and their enforcement.
A non-commercial educational station is a radio station or television station that does not accept on-air advertisements, as defined in the United States by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and was originally intended to offer educational programming as part, or whole, of its programming. NCE stations do not pay broadcast license fees for their non-profit uses of the radio spectrum. Stations which are almost always operated as NCE include public broadcasting, community radio, and college radio, as well as many religious broadcasting stations. Nearly all Non-Commercial radio stations derive their support from listener support, grants and endowments, such as the governmental entity Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) that distributes supporting funds provided by Congress to support Public Radio.
In U.S., Canadian, and Mexican broadcasting, a city of license or community of license is the community that a radio station or television station is officially licensed to serve by that country's broadcast regulator.
Radio Newyork International was the name of a pirate radio station which broadcast from a ship anchored in international waters off Long Beach, New York, United States in 1987 and 1988. The history of Radio Newyork International (RNI) is linked with the Falling Star Network and other New York City area pirate radio stations. The owner of RNI, Allan Weiner, is currently the licensee of WBCQ shortwave in Monticello, Maine.
Shortwave broadcasting in the United States allows private ownership of commercial and non-commercial shortwave stations that are not relays of existing AM/MW or FM radio stations, as are common in Africa, Europe, Asia, Oceania except Australia and Latin America. In addition to private broadcasters, the United States also has government broadcasters and relay stations for international public broadcasters. Most privately owned shortwave stations have been religious broadcasters, either wholly owned and programmed by Roman Catholic and evangelical Protestant charities or offering brokered programming consisting primarily of religious broadcasters. To better reach other continents of the world, several stations are located in far-flung US territories. Shortwave stations in the US are not permitted to operate exclusively for a domestic audience; they are subject to antenna and power requirements to reach an international audience.
XERA is a radio station in Mexico, broadcasting on 760 AM in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico. The station's callsign was most famous for its use on a border blaster at Villa Acuña, Coahuila.
A broadcast license is a type of spectrum license granting the licensee permission to use a portion of the radio frequency spectrum in a given geographical area for broadcasting purposes. The licenses generally include restrictions, which vary from band to band.
Apex radio stations was the name commonly given to a short-lived group of United States broadcasting stations, which were used to evaluate transmitting on frequencies that were much higher than the ones used by standard amplitude modulation (AM) and shortwave stations. Their name came from the tall height of their transmitter antennas, which were needed because coverage was primarily limited to local line-of-sight distances. These stations were assigned to what at the time were described as "ultra-high shortwave" frequencies, between roughly 25 and 44 MHz. They employed amplitude modulation (AM) transmissions, although in most cases using a wider bandwidth than standard broadcast band AM stations, in order to provide high fidelity sound with less static and distortion.
WKSB is a commercial radio station licensed to serve Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The station is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc., through licensee iHM Licenses, LLC, and broadcasts an adult contemporary format, switching to Christmas music for much of November and December. Its broadcast tower is located on Bald Eagle Mountain south of Williamsport at.
KKLF is a commercial radio station licensed to Richardson, Texas. Although the station's signal covers portions of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, it mainly serves areas of North Texas that are north and east of the Metroplex. This station broadcasts on the AM expanded band. It is owned by Claro Communications, Ltd., with Gerald Benavides as the licensee. It broadcasts a Tejano radio format, using the monikers "Jalapeño Radio". The DJs speak both Spanish and English.
A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats the signal of a radio or television station to an area not covered by the originating station.
A border blaster is a broadcast station that, though not licensed as an external service, is, in practice, used to target another country. The term "border blaster" is of North American origin, and usually associated with Mexican AM stations whose broadcast areas cover large parts of the United States, and United States border AM stations covering large parts of Canada. Conceptually similar European broadcasting included some pre-World War II broadcasting towards the United Kingdom, "radio périphérique" around France and the U.S. government-funded station Radio Free Europe, targeting European countries behind the Iron Curtain.
This is a review of low-power television stations (LPTV) in the United States, transmitting on VHF channel 6, which also operate as radio stations capable of being picked up by many standard FM receivers. These stations are colloquially known as "Franken FMs", a reference to Frankenstein's monster, because TV stations functioning as radio stations had not been envisioned by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FCC commonly refers to these stations as "FM6" operations. All of these FM transmissions are authorized for operation on a center frequency of 87.75 MHz.
Call signs in Mexico are unique identifiers for telecommunications, radio communication, radio broadcasting and transmission. They are regulated internationally by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) as well as nationally by the Federal Telecommunications Institute, which regulates broadcast stations, wireless telecommunications and spectrum use.
KMAE was an American commercial radio station licensed in 2010 to serve the community of Bruni, Texas. The station's broadcast license was held by accordion player and Christian evangelist Paulino D. Bernal Sr. of McAllen, Texas.
Radio in Mexico is a mass medium with 98 percent national penetration and a wider diversity of owners and programming than on television. In a model similar to that of radio in the United States, Mexican radio in its history has been largely commercial, but with a strong state presence and a rising number of noncommercial stations in the 2000s and early 2010s. In August 2015, there were 1,999 legal radio stations, almost 75 percent of them on the FM band.
