My brother and I ran a pirate station from our dad’s garage in the 80’s. Mostly obscure metal. What a blast that was. Our dad was amazing and helped us get all the gear. Never got caught.
Whoever these pirates are, they have some great taste in music...unlike actual, licensed radio stations. Power to the pirates!! Edit: I just realized that the uploader is the guy who *ran* the pirate radio station. (It's on 89.1FM now, officially licensed since 2014)
@@JFK_Speedwagon Couldn't agree more, but they don't care (FCC). If you don't have their little "note from Daddy," they'll bust ya no matter if the frequency is empty or not.
Some explaining is in order. I am a friend of Ken. He runs the station, 94.5 on the FM dial, shown in this video. This station is now defunct and has been replaced with 89.1 KNNZ FM. He runs the show, Modern Rock Worldwide, between 12AM and 4AM CST on a Sunday morning. He isn’t just some nerd with a Ham license and a boatload of ADHD medication. He’s a friendly, and he’s legit.
I just looked up the call sign of his full-power 100 kW station, and while he didn't go into any immediate specifics on what town he was located in, I was able to find that KNNZ is licensed to Hawley, Minnesota. There is also now a licensed station at 94.5 on Hawley, Minnesota's FM dial: KDLB, an 11 kW country station under the Bob FM brand.
Yeah us ham radio nerds are able to track your signal down in no time flat. so yeah it's not like we know what we're doing or anything. Compared to someone with an illegal FM transmitter just transmitting cuz he wants to be a radio DJ. I have helped along with other Hams in my community shut down people causing interference in local police,fire, ambulance and amateur radio repeaters. We tracked the dude down in his car driving down the road with a handheld. Needless to say it does not have that radio anymore.😂
@RFI420 I'm all for people who are interfering to be turned off, but unfortunately there's a phenomenon of people who come around and stuff with people who aren't doing the wrong thing.
That’s a professional sounding pirate station. I even like the music they are playing. It would be my new favorite station if I was located where you are
When I watched this video when it was new over 11 years ago, it introduced me to the US extended edit of Talk Talk's "It's My Life". It's the only version I've wanted to listen to since and has become one of my most listened to songs. They say if what you do makes a positive difference to one person, then it's worth it. So Modern Rock 94.5 certainly did good. Thanks!
You're not turning these people in, are you? No commercials every 5 minutes, no "puking" announcer, no cutting into the song to inject artificial wit, no repetitious, short, high-rotation playlists and no payola-induced music. Hell, I enjoyed listening to it!
The FCC hates pirate radio. That's because they're afraid people just might listen to it, and that would take away from the ratings of commercial stations. And, their job is to protect the profits of corporate-owned stations. Not like in the old days, they don't give a damn about community/public service anymore.
@@captaincarl1 Trying to find the one that says "I can see that you're jealous of me" but he literally talks whenever the singer starts singing. Googling lyrics is one of the only ways i know how to find music lol
Yes, you are correct. Typically triangulation is used by the FCC. Basically they take a bearing and draw a line on a map. Move in one direction, take another bearing, etc. Then when you have at least 3 bearings from three different locations, the signal is where all the lines intersect!
That would be the best method if the signal was in the medium wave band where a magnetic Loop Antenna could null the signal voltage, with FM the directivity from the VHF FM type aerial wouldn't be quite selective enough though a digital signal strength meter could do they job similar to the analyser he's got there. I like his curiosity and I think he just used what he had and thought was best lol
I had a pirate fm station. 90.3 I was running 100 watts. It was a college campus transmitter. The stero composite generator sucked. At the time I was doing commercial radio tower work. One piticular station i saw that they had 3 Orban Optamod stereo composite generators. New when they bought them they were probably 20,000.00 I asked the engineer what they wanted for it. He said 100.00 $ I bought it and he helped me get the station sounding good as a pro station. I had a limiter / compresser. It sounded great. Furthest I was able to hear it was about 10 miles away. 100 watts.
You can do this type of direction finding with a small laptop and a USB SDR with SDR# which is a lot lighter and less power demanding that a bench spectrum analyzer. Also you can put a VHF Mid band Yagi on it and move that around and get a direction instead of driving all over town wasting gas.
Typically triangulation is used by the FCC. Basically they take a bearing and draw a line on a map. Move in one direction, take another bearing, etc. Then when you have at least 3 bearings from three different locations, the signal is where all the lines intersect!
Direction finding with an omnidirectional car antenna is not very easy. You should use a Yagi or similar directional, like the FCC use when tracking pirates. Would make your search much faster and simpler!!
There was a pirate radio station in Munich, when I was little. It only played Michael Jackson and Phil Collins Songs. The radio station was perfect to me.
thanks this video is cool... love what you're doing & because of this video, I discovered that Dandy Warhols "you were the last high" song... i was immediately addicted to it...so good!!! AND... I've always loved the idea of pirate radio & Pump Up The Volume has always been one of my absolute favorite movies since I was kid!... thanks again!!
Could be LPFM (Low Power FM) Class L2 (1 to 10 Watts), also LPFM is considered non-commercial educational. LPFM is licensed by the FCC. There is also QRP or Part 95 rules (no license) for low power stations, typically these have antenna restictions. Then there are the 'pirate' stations!
Awesome story bro. It's now October 22nd 2017 and I am listening to your 100,000 watt station through the internet on my smartphone in California. I am a ham operator licensed up to 1500 watts. You should do a video of how you get audio from the studio to the transmitter site. Also show us the equipment in the transmitter building and the type of feed line needed to handle all those watts.
Does anyone know the song that goes "I can see that you're jealous of me" at 2:20? I've been trying to find the song for the last 5 or 6 years now lolol
given three points with known locations and a directional antenna, you can triangulate it with just the deviation from north that the antenna gets the strongest signal, and then use a very fine graph paper to get their approximate location
Interesting video. Years ago, I did a video looking for a pirate transmission on 37.1MHz. It was centred at the other end of our street. I suspect it was an accidental leak from a satellite TV station, as the suspected house had a satellite antenna. The programming was Chinese. Since that time, the signal has ceased and the house has been demolished.
My uncle told me he had a pirate station broadcasting out of his house in Greece in the 60's. When the electric bill came, his dad kicked the living shit out of him. lol!!
I built a rig once where the local oscillator did not operate until the mike was keyed. It was a portable rig I used in my car. Our broadcasts were under one minute , then off again. The period of operation was totally random. This idea was used again in the jungles of Nam. You could only trace me while I keynote mike,,otherwise there was radio silence. Cool,analyzer ! How do you know the station wasn't moving? We kept on the move.
That station is playing some pretty good music. That song that starts at 4:23 is also in the GTA Vice City Stories video game. He mat be operating illegally but going by your scope he isnt interfering with any of the other stations. What is the broadcast range of this station?
This reminds me of ghost-hunting videos where the guy is telling you what he's seeing, but doesn't have a flashlight, so you can't actually see it. (I can agree that flashlights probably scare ghosts away...but likely not antennas)
Been trying to figure out who sings the damn thing since you posted this comment. Let me know if you have any luck, I'm 2 hours into the research hole lol
@@sebbykaiser6466There’s an old comment above mentioning “Almost Something” by “Darkness”, he said they’re a local band and were on MySpace 14 years ago lol. I hope you find it.
Funny thing... Airwaves or legally public property, but only corporations can broadcast on them. What's wrong with this picture? I never understood why a permitting process was never put in place for people who are knowledgeable and could pass a radio theory test, at least showing that they know enough to broadcast properly. That being said, I think the first thing a low power broadcaster should have is compliant equipment. Some of the stipulations for LPFM licenses could be adapted to an individual license, at least on the technical side of things. It doesn't really matter anyway, with the cheap transmitters coming out of China, everyone is going to get into it. There's going to be a lot of splatter from over-modulation :) They don't even put a hard limiter in those things. You can get seven watts for less than a hundred bucks. A responsibly run micro station covering the things a local community cares about is far better for said community in my opinion. I started researching setting up a low power station only to find that there really is no good way an individual can lawfully broadcast. I have to have "inc." after my name and lots of capitol; LOTS of capitol. so really the airwaves are rich people property. It stinks of injustice.
+docchocobo Or, you could just get on the amateur frequencies. All it takes is passing a simple test for licensing (much simpler than that required for the commercial licenses). The FCC has set aside a very large area of the radio spectrum for *amateur* use, just as they have for *commercial* use, and they require licensing for both to transmit. Anyone can purchase a receiver and listen without a license, however, just as on commercial FM radio.
You're right; I got a 7 watt transmitter for $60. I was skeptical of how a cheap Chinese transmitter would sound, but it actually puts out an extremely clean, punchy sound, with no drift (PLL), and virtually no spurs. I hear a lot of the transmitters coming out of China use basically the same FM chip that a simple car radio transmitter uses, slaved through an amplifier. Regardless, it works, and I couldn't be happier. Planning on upgrading to the 15 watt unit by the fall.
There's a cheaper way to track down pirates. Just unscrew the car antenna and you'll hopefully still have a signal, only weaker. Then just drive around until it's nice and powerful, then with a little luck and practice you'll be looking at the broadcast antenna! I've tracked down lots of pirates this way, but I'd never go as far as to report them to the FCC or our UK equivalent of they're not doing any harm.
Hey p1r4t3z do you think you can upload that song Darkness by Almost Something? I remember I found this video 6 years ago and liked that song but their myspace is gone. I would like to here it again.
That track is now available on our "HomeGrown Rock and Roll CD, Vol, I. You can get the CD by donating $5.99 to Ken's FM. We use PayPal for donations and you just go to www.kensfm.com and click on the "Donate" button. Make sure you have a correct address for us to send it to and also put "HomeGrown CD in the comment window. Thanks for watching the videos :)
mmm.... if you're just trying to show people how to find these pirate radio broadcasts, actually you could have started in the parking lot. When you were first turning in the car, you could see the fluctuation in intensity. You can use that to find the lowest reception in the school parking lot. That tells you when your antenna is 90 degrees out of phase. From that you can get a direct line to the broadcast tower. Then if you go down the block, turn in a circle, watching the spectrum analyzer, you'll get a second direct line to the broadcast. If you use simple geometry, you can extend the lines out until they intersect. If you know exactly how far you drove from where one measurement was taken, you can exactly pinpoint the broadcast. Depending on how good you are at math, it takes as little as 4 minutes to figure out exactly where that stuff is.
@OSOEAST One of the things I learned from my time in the army (rto) is that broadcast range is dependent on elevation, not power. That's why I ran a 8' whip on my freightliner. The higher you are, the farther you braodcast. You need to get above groundclutter (trees) or be on open ground.
It might me illegal to have a non licensed radio station. But what about uploading videos with music in. im sure you got permission from all the artists that feature in your little video
There's something called fair use of the copyright. He's not using in a commercial content and not showing the whole song (It's overlaped by his voice)
José Qués I'm surprised no one flagged this video for that. I have a friend who received a warning and had a video deleted because you could hear a radio station in the background.
Do the authorities pursue you ONLY if they find a station suspicious? or do they have machines to detect any? I'm curious how tight the security is to be on the air, even if its like 20 meters, something small.
+Mitchell Martinez The FCC enforcement division usually only goes after very very blatant offenses that are causing harm to other stations and even then they a little weak about it, the content of the station usually isn't that big of a deal unless its anti whatever the current political environment is. The thing is radiowaves do not cooperate the way people might hope, they go across borders and cause problems to other states, countries, services, whatever so that's why you need a permit. You can use very very very very low power to hook an ipod up to a car with no aux audio in but other than that get a license.
It's actually complaint-driven. I had a pirate for YEARS...no problems. It had a loyal listenership and everything. It was plugging a hole in the market and serving listeners. No other station (licensed) was playing the music I was. It was on an empty frequency and everything. What happened was there was an LLC around here somewhere that wanted to put an LPFM on the very frequency I was using. So the c*** suckers reported me. Then their stupid LLC fell flat and went belly up. I'm seriously considering putting the rig back on the air.
I do like this kind of research . I myself have done this at one time. I have heard some pirate radio station. Haven't really heard much now adays. Keep listening...
Who doesn't like the iconic British band ... Talk Talk .....Some great music on that station ... Big thumbs up ..... The guy tracking really needs to get a life and a girlfriend to keep him of the streets ..... He's a knob !
I'm waiting for Harry to yell Talk Hard!! A directional antenna would be good once you hit the strong point. It would give you bearing on the direction.
hey time traveller 8o's is calling you back,, but bud please wont you stay awhile!? ... the feeling the music watching that little man jump up and down! i can you enough for the feelings! where does this go down id like to hear it myself some day!
My brother and I ran a pirate station from our dad’s garage in the 80’s. Mostly obscure metal. What a blast that was. Our dad was amazing and helped us get all the gear. Never got caught.
nice!
I did the same thing in 85
I ran a pirate radio station up in Maine
Really cool
What a cool dad!
You either weren't running much power or no one was looking at starting THEIR own station on the same frequency and thus, didn't turn you in.
Whoever these pirates are, they have some great taste in music...unlike actual, licensed radio stations. Power to the pirates!!
Edit: I just realized that the uploader is the guy who *ran* the pirate radio station. (It's on 89.1FM now, officially licensed since 2014)
To be honest, Pirate FM stations don't really do any harm as long as they are on unused frequency.
agreed. I like it too. Better than mine.
And no car lot commercials.
Great station!
🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️📻📻📻📻📻
@@JFK_Speedwagon Couldn't agree more, but they don't care (FCC). If you don't have their little "note from Daddy," they'll bust ya no matter if the frequency is empty or not.
this is 1000% better than the corporate radio crap on the air now!!!
what about noncommercial
Pirate radio stations are where it's at. It's been a huge thing in The UK. They're great for playing music of those undiscovered artists.
This station sound so good, with the music programming, audio procressing and the jingles, that I surely would tune it on.
Some explaining is in order.
I am a friend of Ken. He runs the station, 94.5 on the FM dial, shown in this video. This station is now defunct and has been replaced with 89.1 KNNZ FM.
He runs the show, Modern Rock Worldwide, between 12AM and 4AM CST on a Sunday morning.
He isn’t just some nerd with a Ham license and a boatload of ADHD medication. He’s a friendly, and he’s legit.
I just looked up the call sign of his full-power 100 kW station, and while he didn't go into any immediate specifics on what town he was located in, I was able to find that KNNZ is licensed to Hawley, Minnesota. There is also now a licensed station at 94.5 on Hawley, Minnesota's FM dial: KDLB, an 11 kW country station under the Bob FM brand.
Yeah us ham radio nerds are able to track your signal down in no time flat. so yeah it's not like we know what we're doing or anything. Compared to someone with an illegal FM transmitter just transmitting cuz he wants to be a radio DJ. I have helped along with other Hams in my community shut down people causing interference in local police,fire, ambulance and amateur radio repeaters. We tracked the dude down in his car driving down the road with a handheld. Needless to say it does not have that radio anymore.😂
@RFI420 I'm all for people who are interfering to be turned off, but unfortunately there's a phenomenon of people who come around and stuff with people who aren't doing the wrong thing.
Screw the corporate media.
I think he deserves to be on the air more than some of the licensed stations...
That’s a professional sounding pirate station. I even like the music they are playing. It would be my new favorite station if I was located where you are
"High Tech Equipment" pulls out spectrum analyser from 1991, lol.
😂😂😂😂😂
😂😂
HP9845 is a great machine, used them when working for the DD
It's high tech compared to a handheld transistor radio and whip antenna that could also be used to triangulate by signal strength
You have a nicer one in YOUR car?
Actually pretty good music playing :D
More power to the pirates. That's all I can say.
born in 1994.....been online from day one
i feel the same way man
Wuda Joke born in 1945 & been online since 1979 .
I can't even imagine... Wow!
Started using the Net in 2003. Had an alright time.
Morcaiden tell that to the FCC
When I watched this video when it was new over 11 years ago, it introduced me to the US extended edit of Talk Talk's "It's My Life". It's the only version I've wanted to listen to since and has become one of my most listened to songs. They say if what you do makes a positive difference to one person, then it's worth it. So Modern Rock 94.5 certainly did good. Thanks!
You're not turning these people in, are you?
No commercials every 5 minutes, no "puking" announcer, no cutting into the song to inject artificial wit, no repetitious, short, high-rotation playlists and no payola-induced music.
Hell, I enjoyed listening to it!
Talk Talk - It's My Life. Cracking tune!
US extended edit. Rare. The best one and not on any streaming services! (The normal extended one doesn't count!)
Snitches get stitches!
Carl Brutananadilewski n
Snitches are bitches
Sharing is caring....
Ahrrrrr give me another torrent mattie....
The warez must flow.
Snitches get thorwm in ditches
Wish I lived in his neighborhood. Great music..
fuck commercial radio and corporate bullshit that goes with it. freedom of speech and the right to broadcast should be everyones god given right.
EllHawkes but you would be infringing on the corporates right to freedom of speech and pres
In Britain it was the Pirates (Caroline, London etc) who invented Commercial Radio and Music based non-commercial Radio too!
its all good and well until these pirates are interfering with licenced stations!!!
The FCC hates pirate radio. That's because they're afraid people just might listen to it, and that would take away from the ratings of commercial stations. And, their job is to protect the profits of corporate-owned stations. Not like in the old days, they don't give a damn about community/public service anymore.
Why don't you leave them alone? Its better than what's playing now
EP Washere watch part two
I just had someone bust me for my signal, FCC came right into my house. They took the signal down said they loved my station
woooow
Hellman_x amen
The music is better because it's not from the WestwoodOne short play lists junk. LOL.
Must been a pretty good station. I picked two songs from the video to add to my Apple playlist...lol
What are the names of the tracks? His talking made me song identification app non-functional. I was like, "Shut up pirate hunter!"
@@captaincarl1 Trying to find the one that says "I can see that you're jealous of me" but he literally talks whenever the singer starts singing. Googling lyrics is one of the only ways i know how to find music lol
@@sebbykaiser6466 You're welcome ;) kensfm.bandcamp.com/track/almost-something-darkness-2008
Why use a scope in the first place?, How about an attenuator and directional antenna like the Hams use on fox hunts?
Yes, you are correct. Typically triangulation is used by the FCC. Basically they take a bearing and draw a line on a map. Move in one direction, take another bearing, etc. Then when you have at least 3 bearings from three different locations, the signal is where all the lines intersect!
That would be the best method if the signal was in the medium wave band where a magnetic Loop Antenna could null the signal voltage, with FM the directivity from the VHF FM type aerial wouldn't be quite selective enough though a digital signal strength meter could do they job similar to the analyser he's got there. I like his curiosity and I think he just used what he had and thought was best lol
love that extended mix of Talk Talk it's my life ❤❤❤
I had a pirate fm station. 90.3 I was running 100 watts. It was a college campus transmitter. The stero composite generator sucked. At the time I was doing commercial radio tower work. One piticular station i saw that they had 3 Orban Optamod stereo composite generators. New when they bought them they were probably 20,000.00 I asked the engineer what they wanted for it. He said 100.00 $ I bought it and he helped me get the station sounding good as a pro station. I had a limiter / compresser. It sounded great. Furthest I was able to hear it was about 10 miles away. 100 watts.
You can do this type of direction finding with a small laptop and a USB SDR with SDR# which is a lot lighter and less power demanding that a bench spectrum analyzer.
Also you can put a VHF Mid band Yagi on it and move that around and get a direction instead of driving all over town wasting gas.
Typically triangulation is used by the FCC. Basically they take a bearing and draw a line on a map. Move in one direction, take another bearing, etc. Then when you have at least 3 bearings from three different locations, the signal is where all the lines intersect!
its more fun driving around in a car and using a bench analyzer.
The song is called. "You were the last high" by The Dandy Warhols
p1r4t3z a"BOHEMIAN LIKE YOU,"
Direction finding with an omnidirectional car antenna is not very easy. You should use a Yagi or similar directional, like the FCC use when tracking pirates. Would make your search much faster and simpler!!
The band is called Almost Something, the track is called Darkness. They are a local band, you can find them on MySpace.
Where can I find them now? I love the song.
First song was Dandy Warhols
Thanks! just bought it in 2020!
@@austinorth5549 I found this:
kensfm.bandcamp.com/track/almost-something-darkness-2008
@@rebilacx thanks for this. Such a cool riff.
There was a pirate radio station in Munich, when I was little. It only played Michael Jackson and Phil Collins Songs. The radio station was perfect to me.
thanks this video is cool... love what you're doing & because of this video, I discovered that Dandy Warhols "you were the last high" song... i was immediately addicted to it...so good!!! AND... I've always loved the idea of pirate radio & Pump Up The Volume has always been one of my absolute favorite movies since I was kid!... thanks again!!
They got some awesome music, no crappy commercials
Could be LPFM (Low Power FM) Class L2 (1 to 10 Watts), also LPFM is considered non-commercial educational. LPFM is licensed by the FCC. There is also QRP or Part 95 rules (no license) for low power stations, typically these have antenna restictions. Then there are the 'pirate' stations!
This has always been one of my favorite videos on UA-cam, I’d like to find a version that still has the original audio at the end.
Awesome story bro. It's now October 22nd 2017 and I am listening to your 100,000 watt station through the internet on my smartphone in California. I am a ham operator licensed up to 1500 watts. You should do a video of how you get audio from the studio to the transmitter site. Also show us the equipment in the transmitter building and the type of feed line needed to handle all those watts.
I still love watching these. Probably the 6th time I've watched this series 😁
So according to part 2 you found your own pirate radio station 94.5mhz
Can you tell me what the third song was in the video?
Man, you're playing better Alt. Rock than the other stations in my area are.
What's the song that's pIaying from the beginning of the video until around 2:10?
Dandy Warhols - You Were the Last High
Great sounding track from The Dandy Warhols. Better music than commercial radio, it has to be Pirate Radio.
Does anyone know the song that goes "I can see that you're jealous of me" at 2:20? I've been trying to find the song for the last 5 or 6 years now lolol
What happened to the audio at the end? I guess its got to do with some of the copyright laws on here.
given three points with known locations and a directional antenna, you can triangulate it with just the deviation from north that the antenna gets the strongest signal, and then use a very fine graph paper to get their approximate location
People, stop calling him names, he IS the pirate, this was just his way to slowly build up the story.
What model of spectrum analyser is this ?
can you send a link to the band Darkness - Almost Something please really want that song
What type of ham radio can transmit on frequencies my car can pickup?
I don't think there are any, HAM bands are differnet than your normal AM and FM
Do you have a link to the FTC website with the list of registered frequencies
Interesting video. Years ago, I did a video looking for a pirate transmission on 37.1MHz. It was centred at the other end of our street. I suspect it was an accidental leak from a satellite TV station, as the suspected house had a satellite antenna. The programming was Chinese. Since that time, the signal has ceased and the house has been demolished.
It's My Life - Talk Talk (Extended Remix)
what was the program that you used to find your local radio stations?
My uncle told me he had a pirate station broadcasting out of his house in Greece in the 60's. When the electric bill came, his dad kicked the living shit out of him. lol!!
I built a rig once where the local oscillator did not operate until the mike was keyed. It was a portable rig I used in my car. Our broadcasts were under one minute , then off again. The period of operation was totally random. This idea was used again in the jungles of Nam. You could only trace me while I keynote mike,,otherwise there was radio silence. Cool,analyzer ! How do you know the station wasn't moving? We kept on the move.
Whats that first song called? :)
That station is playing some pretty good music. That song that starts at 4:23 is also in the GTA Vice City Stories video game. He mat be operating illegally but going by your scope he isnt interfering with any of the other stations. What is the broadcast range of this station?
@BlGDOG18 The song is "You Were The Last High" by The Dandy Warhols
This reminds me of ghost-hunting videos where the guy is telling you what he's seeing, but doesn't have a flashlight, so you can't actually see it.
(I can agree that flashlights probably scare ghosts away...but likely not antennas)
Does anyone know what song is playing in this video at 1:29? It actually sounds really good
The song at 2:16 absolutely rocks.
Been trying to figure out who sings the damn thing since you posted this comment. Let me know if you have any luck, I'm 2 hours into the research hole lol
@@sebbykaiser6466There’s an old comment above mentioning “Almost Something” by “Darkness”, he said they’re a local band and were on MySpace 14 years ago lol. I hope you find it.
@@sebbykaiser6466That was it! Almost Something - Darkness (2008) from Homegrown Rock & Roll Vol 1 by Ken’s FM. It’s on bandcamp!
Funny thing... Airwaves or legally public property, but only corporations can broadcast on them. What's wrong with this picture? I never understood why a permitting process was never put in place for people who are knowledgeable and could pass a radio theory test, at least showing that they know enough to broadcast properly. That being said, I think the first thing a low power broadcaster should have is compliant equipment. Some of the stipulations for LPFM licenses could be adapted to an individual license, at least on the technical side of things.
It doesn't really matter anyway, with the cheap transmitters coming out of China, everyone is going to get into it. There's going to be a lot of splatter from over-modulation :) They don't even put a hard limiter in those things. You can get seven watts for less than a hundred bucks.
A responsibly run micro station covering the things a local community cares about is far better for said community in my opinion.
I started researching setting up a low power station only to find that there really is no good way an individual can lawfully broadcast. I have to have "inc." after my name and lots of capitol; LOTS of capitol. so really the airwaves are rich people property. It stinks of injustice.
+docchocobo Or, you could just get on the amateur frequencies. All it takes is passing a simple test for licensing (much simpler than that required for the commercial licenses). The FCC has set aside a very large area of the radio spectrum for *amateur* use, just as they have for *commercial* use, and they require licensing for both to transmit. Anyone can purchase a receiver and listen without a license, however, just as on commercial FM radio.
no music and no broadcasting is allowed on ham radio though
It's called the principle of money talks and bullshit walks.
You're right; I got a 7 watt transmitter for $60. I was skeptical of how a cheap Chinese transmitter would sound, but it actually puts out an extremely clean, punchy sound, with no drift (PLL), and virtually no spurs. I hear a lot of the transmitters coming out of China use basically the same FM chip that a simple car radio transmitter uses, slaved through an amplifier. Regardless, it works, and I couldn't be happier. Planning on upgrading to the 15 watt unit by the fall.
You can reasonably blast 7w or less from a tuned antenna with good coax and $300 of peavey rack gear and a serviceable compressor
Great videos and it looks like pirate radio is alot different in the US than the UK.
And love the set up and mask.
So lost audio near end what happened?
There's a cheaper way to track down pirates. Just unscrew the car antenna and you'll hopefully still have a signal, only weaker. Then just drive around until it's nice and powerful, then with a little luck and practice you'll be looking at the broadcast antenna! I've tracked down lots of pirates this way, but I'd never go as far as to report them to the FCC or our UK equivalent of they're not doing any harm.
Report them if they are playing Hot Adult Contemporary.
Good video. Whats the analyser?
How much power do you guys run?
Hey p1r4t3z do you think you can upload that song Darkness by Almost Something? I remember I found this video 6 years ago and liked that song but their myspace is gone. I would like to here it again.
That track is now available on our "HomeGrown Rock and Roll CD, Vol, I. You can get the CD by donating $5.99 to Ken's FM. We use PayPal for donations and you just go to www.kensfm.com and click on the "Donate" button. Make sure you have a correct address for us to send it to and also put "HomeGrown CD in the comment window. Thanks for watching the videos :)
Good job, this is so cool :D
What a lovely spectrum analyzer :-)
Leave em alone they ain't hurting nobody and playing OK music
What was that song playing ???
what happens when you find them?
You broadcast on Shortwave as well??
nice analyzator! HP?Mhz?
What's the name of the spectrum analyzer in this video to buy Thanks!
mmm.... if you're just trying to show people how to find these pirate radio broadcasts, actually you could have started in the parking lot.
When you were first turning in the car, you could see the fluctuation in intensity. You can use that to find the lowest reception in the school parking lot. That tells you when your antenna is 90 degrees out of phase. From that you can get a direct line to the broadcast tower.
Then if you go down the block, turn in a circle, watching the spectrum analyzer, you'll get a second direct line to the broadcast.
If you use simple geometry, you can extend the lines out until they intersect. If you know exactly how far you drove from where one measurement was taken, you can exactly pinpoint the broadcast.
Depending on how good you are at math, it takes as little as 4 minutes to figure out exactly where that stuff is.
Or just use a yagi ffs
this reminds me of when Hal operated his radio station on Malcolm in the Middle lol
What was the first song
94,5 - that's a classic dutch pirate frequency ;)
@OSOEAST
One of the things I learned from my time in the army (rto) is that broadcast range is dependent on elevation, not power. That's why I ran a 8' whip on my freightliner. The higher you are, the farther you braodcast. You need to get above groundclutter (trees) or be on open ground.
94.5 is like the most popular station where i live
Houston?
2;14 perfect music ,does anybody knows whats the name of band?????
I would say a rather fun intro to a quite interesting series of videos.
It might me illegal to have a non licensed radio station. But what about uploading videos with music in. im sure you got permission from all the artists that feature in your little video
There's something called fair use of the copyright. He's not using in a commercial content and not showing the whole song (It's overlaped by his voice)
Good point. I think by him broadcasting the music,he himself is in violation of copyright infringements.
Ricovali Hey, read my previous comment!
José Qués I'm surprised no one flagged this video for that. I have a friend who received a warning and had a video deleted because you could hear a radio station in the background.
Ricovali Maybe a misunderstanding. You can file a DMCA counter claim if you think you're in the fair side of the copyright...
Do the authorities pursue you ONLY if they find a station suspicious? or do they have machines to detect any? I'm curious how tight the security is to be on the air, even if its like 20 meters, something small.
+Mitchell Martinez The FCC enforcement division usually only goes after very very blatant offenses that are causing harm to other stations and even then they a little weak about it, the content of the station usually isn't that big of a deal unless its anti whatever the current political environment is. The thing is radiowaves do not cooperate the way people might hope, they go across borders and cause problems to other states, countries, services, whatever so that's why you need a permit. You can use very very very very low power to hook an ipod up to a car with no aux audio in but other than that get a license.
It's actually complaint-driven. I had a pirate for YEARS...no problems. It had a loyal listenership and everything. It was plugging a hole in the market and serving listeners. No other station (licensed) was playing the music I was. It was on an empty frequency and everything. What happened was there was an LLC around here somewhere that wanted to put an LPFM on the very frequency I was using. So the c*** suckers reported me. Then their stupid LLC fell flat and went belly up. I'm seriously considering putting the rig back on the air.
The song is by Snow Patrol - Take Back the City
I love this stuff
Wait so what’s the point of pirate stations? Do the artists they play on the station still benefit?
Can't see the antenna because it's to dark. How much is a license?
Nice ..... enjoyed watching long time radio broadcaster myself
I almost wet my pants, the excitement of this video made me go over the edge.
Great station :)
I do like this kind of research . I myself have done this at one time. I have heard some pirate radio station. Haven't really heard much now adays. Keep listening...
That’s some great music on there. Wish them pirates lbroadcast in northern AZ
Who doesn't like the iconic British band ... Talk Talk .....Some great music on that station ... Big thumbs up ..... The guy tracking really needs to get a life and a girlfriend to keep him of the streets ..... He's a knob !
I'm waiting for Harry to yell Talk Hard!!
A directional antenna would be good once you hit the strong point. It would give you bearing on the direction.
Anyone know the song playing as this video ends? This station plays cool music.
hey time traveller 8o's is calling you back,, but bud please wont you stay awhile!? ... the feeling the music watching that little man jump up and down! i can you enough for the feelings! where does this go down id like to hear it myself some day!
This was an awesome video by chance can you tell me the name of the second. Song that would be great
Spoiler alert. It's his own house, his own studio, and his own tower. He's hunting his own pirate radio station.