… is located on my block, considering it’s where the capture effect is strongest, overpowering my Sirius receiver. I would set the Sirius car unit to transmit on another frequency, but I can’t; of the four frequencies to choose from, 88.5 MHz is the only frequency where there is no other station that would outcapture it.
Until now. In the past couple of weeks, on my way home from work, a previously unknown radio station would gradually start to outcapture my Sirius reciever about a mile from my house. Unlike other pirate stations I’ve heard, this one doesn’t play underground gangsta rap, techno or obscure local emo bands with nonsensical names. No, this station plays early-to-mid 1960s non-rock pop music; stuff like Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield and The Singing Nun.
What. The . Fark. Who in their right mind would set up a pirate radio station just to blast out “Dominique” to a Cleveland suburb?
If you want to see some fun, just call the FCC. Short of heliocopter gunships, those guys don’t hold back when it comes to defending our innocent airwaves from piratical menace.
You said the station was somewhere in your neighborhood. Is there a way you can find exactly who’s doing it so you can call the guy to tell him to either knock it off or move his station to a new frequency or else you’ll tell the FCC? (If there is, be a bit more polite in phrasing this threat than I was.)
As for his music selection, maybe the only artists in his record collection are Petula Clark, The Singing Nun, et al., so those are the only ones he plays. Perhaps he likes to pretend being a “1960’s MOR-station DJ” and this is his way at indulging his fantasy.
BTW, if he starts playing Bobby Goldsboro, Wayne Newton, or Montovani, screw being diplomatic–get the FCC on his ass ASAP!
It would be a fun exercise in trigonometry (or, well… some kind of ometry) to try to find out exactly where it is. Of course, you would need to drive around listening to that music while you were doing it, so then maybe not.
The music seems heavily female-orientned; Shirley Ellis, Lulu, Martha and the Vandellas, and the like. Occasionally there will be The Beatles, but it’s the older screaming-female-fans-era Beatles. They seem to play entire album sides, then play a side from another album.
There is now no free frequency where I can tune my Sirius car kit to transmit. 88.1 through 88.7 all have stations on them that outcapture the internal transmitter.
It’s not an LPFM station; nothing approved for that frequency in my area, according to the FCC Web site.
You know, I don’t mind pirate radio stations, but not when it makes my satellite radio reciever worthless, while playing crap.
I used to work at an easy listening station, and I watch with sadness as all the ‘music of your life’ stations disappear. Until our last station went to all rented-out programming, I was the only 30-something year old whose favorite station’s biggest advertisers were funeral homes, cemeteries, and assisted living facilities.
Let us know if your pirate throws in some Johnny Mathis and Bing this holiday season.
Back in the Seventies, during the big CB craze, there was someone in our neighbourhood who had a heck of a powerful transmitter. At the time, I had an old vacume tube guitar amp. The CB used to come through the amp! Scared the heck out of me the first time.
The same thing used to happen at church a few years ago but it stopped after a couple of times.
BTW, my guess, based on nothing, is that it’s not an intentional pirate station. My guess is it’s some geezer with a knack for electronics whose made a poor man’s total home stereo system. He can put on an LP in the living room, and listen in the basement, back yard, upstairs, wherever. It probably hasn’t occurred to him that he’s affecting anyone else’s radio.
If this station is interfering with your legitimate, paid-for satellite radio service, report them to the FCC. They’ll open an investigation and politely ask the operator of the station to knock it off under the pain of a hefty fine, possibly jail time, and confiscation of the transmitter .
According to my broadcasting professor, the specific penalties are confiscation of equipment (this involves a warrant against the station itself, not the operator). They can also fine the operator; the highest he’s heard is $17,000. If the signal interferes with public-safety frequencies, criminal penalties may also apply.
Go to the Enforcement Bureau of the FCC for the Northeast Region, which includes Ohio. Keep in mind, though, that the FCC has no police powers, and must go through the Federal Marshal’s service and/or a court before they can take any sort of action.
Even so, the FCC can have a word with this person. My professor told me that, more often than not, they will merely request that they not do what they’re doing.