I Ran a Pirate Radio Station and Got Busted by the FCC!
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- čas přidán 17. 05. 2024
- True story of when I was a teenager running an AM and later an FM pirate radio station. It was an exhilarating journey filled with late-night broadcasts, and the thrill of connecting with an underground audience.
But all good things come to an end, and my adventure was no exception.
Join me as I recount the highs and lows of my pirate radio days, culminating in the fateful moment when the FCC caught up with me. This is a tale of passion, rebellion, and the price of pursuing your dreams. I hope you enjoy this personal story of youthful ambition and unexpected consequences. - Zábava
I worked at a AM Radio Station that went off at midnight.
Sometimes i would go up around 3am anf just turn it on amd start playing music 🎶.
Never got caught by bosses or anyone else.
I worked part time there on a Sunday night til midnight.
About the last hour of my 6 hour shift, I'd ignore the programming printout and play entire Albums from 11pm to midnight.
Well, after a few weeks i got caught and got fired.
Ended up having a following and some commercial got pulled because i wasn't there .
The Station manager got FIRED, and i was brought back lol.
Money talks and BS walks LOL... And the BS boss ended up walking ha ha
That's RIGHT!
No idea where I am… but when this man says he ran a pirate radio station, I believe him.
its a 1/3 of a marathon because one has to carry 50 records along
I had the same thought 😂 not sure how I ended up here, but very glad I did.
i was stationed at an air force base in the 1980s and ran a pirate FM station from the barracks for several months. my "exciter"was an old car radio where i used the local oscillator and fed the mono audio in through the AFC diodes. then i modified a cheap FM microphone PCB with a 5 watt output transistor as the output device (i was probably only getting 2 watts out of it) . i ran antenna wire out of my 3rd story window to the top of a nearby tree. it was a thin wire, so it was not visible from the ground. i ran that station for several months from midnight to 3am until my schedule changed and i was moved to a different room on a lower floor of the barracks. quite a few people in that barracks listened to it, but were befuddled that they could only find the signal between midnight and 3am. i only played good music, no speaking, so nobody ever figured out it was me.
I wish i could have met you when i was a young teen. Thats the kind of things i loved to experiment with but didnt know what i was doing. 😂
I once helped out at a local 30 day licensed station as a teenager, one of the guys gave me a little plastic box that contained a PCB, and showed me it could transmit on FM, I took it home, connected a rather large wire to it, popped it out the upstairs bedroom window and up over the roof, I tested the signal out and got easily 5 miles out of it , those were fun times :)
i did as well in the army in germany. we recorded on a vcr tape and it would play for 8 hours
"Don't get caught" is the best advice anyone can give
Some survival tips are #1. Never tell anyone or friends...#2. Never keep a regular Schedule. ... #3. Keep it Short
Great tips!
Could see lots of pirate stations popping up if the world goes mad max. It isn't too difficult to build a transmitter, but it is difficult to get propagation and not to step on other stations.Lots if vacancies on the lower end if the FMB.❤
@@christopherleubner6633 Literally the only channel in my area that's not belting out kw is 88.5.
Let's see, the second of 87.9 is 175.8. What am I missing?
Great video, I really enjoyed it. 73!
Great story. Had a friend that set up a pirate FM station in the mid 90s' Was totally automated and ran about 40 watts. He operated that 24/7 for about 25 years and was never caught. Covered the entire town. One day it was off, so I figured he had a knock at the door, but as it turned out a wind storm took down the tree the antenna was in.
Bummer
Needs to grow another antenna tree.
FCC has a long history of intentionally overlooking low-ish power 'pirate' broadcasters. Unless you do something which messes with another station's transmission or gets people to complain, it isn't worth their time and is even seen by a few folks as a good thing (especially in case of emergencies).
We really should fix the laws to encourage more local non-profit radio.
@@travcollier But PBS/NPR doesn't want that and previously killed such laws. They want to support big pharma, globalism, communism, etc., and their argument is that an organized non-profit, cookie-cutter approach is the best. I disagree as people are different, and have different needs, values, and cultures.
Good. The air waves belong to the people!!! Take back the air
If you play terrible music and lots of ads you will never get shut down by the FCC.
nah, you gotta pay them off, and you can do anything in this world.. money rules
I was a an FM pirate running 10W into a well tuned antenna. Got out very well. The FCC came around after a few months of broadcasting 2 times a week. We took requests for music and had the best sound. This was 1973. FCC decided to just let it go. I told them everything was destroyed.
Very nice!
@@Barry-Watson - We ran an unlicenced AM station for 2 weeks at 1KW day and night on two inverted V antennas so we had North South and East West covered. Drove the local stations crazy because we were killing them in rations and using a cell phone as a call in line. Ran old commercials from the 50's. The DJ and owner of the motorhome with the 1KW installed in it is a silent key now. I still have the Tshirt for helping... He gave away lots of prizes from the station and had us passing them out at a local bar he loved in town. It really drew a crowd for them and people still talk about the weekend the booming station was on the air and promoted the town and this favorite bar/eatery. The 11th commandment. THOU SHALT NOT GET CAUGHT. ha ha
@@KlodFather Was the DJ an geriatric punk rocker? This seems an awful lot like Blank Reg from Max Headrom.
Never ran a pirate radio, but we built a giant Tesla Coil , by giant it was about 25 feet and powered by arc welders driving two pole pigs. It lobbed sparks from the top that were 50 feet long. We played with old 8 foot floresent tubrs running the thing while we were having a pretty lively house party. Anyway a few hours in, we had cops and the FCC show up. Turns out it was jamming most of the AM band as well as nany FM bands. They told us to cease and desist, dismantle the tesla coil, and a few people got ticketed. 😂
Oh wow, that sounds amazing. I've always wanted to build a Tesla coil, but never got to it. Stay dangerous. ;)
How did they find you?
You broke the 11th commandment. THOU SHALT NOT GET CAUGHT. ha ha ha
😂😂 W
@@KlodFather Nah, thats the "#0" commandment. Most important and before all others.
I ran a pirate radio station for 2 years as a commercial business. Got a 30 mile range with 100 watts and never had an issue with the FCC, but that's because I stayed away from FM. I eventually shut it down after my neighbor got cable installed and I was getting my station on his TV, phone line, and every band on his radio. I'm not an engineer and I couldn't figure out how to make it stop, so that was the day the station died.
I knew a guy who broadcasted a Pirate station in Philadelphia on the weekends. He said after a few months he received a letter from the FCC stating what he was doing was illegal and prompting him to take advantage of the Public Broadcasting stations in his area that were available to him. This went on for a few more months when one weekend he decided to mention a local Pizza Place that told him they’d hook him up with some free food in exchange for mentioning them on the air. That next Monday Feds raided his house and confiscated all of his broadcasting equipment. The Feds told him they would probably have never made physical contact with him if he didn’t advertise that Pizza place, as soon as he benefited monetarily the game was over.
It is a lot deeper than this but the FCC was established to keep pirate stations from stealing the revue of the licenced stations. Someone would pay writers and performers to do show so they could make their money back selling commercials. Then some "smart" people would just set up on the same frequency and sell their own commercials in an area, pirating the show. The point, even today is to keep stations on the same frequency from interfering with each other. To enforce the whole system, you are not allowed to charge money while using the public airways without doing what everyone else has to do. There are a lot of non-monetary rules a legit station has to follow to keep from interfering with everyone else's use. That is why you need a licenced engineer. (Not that hard to get your cert guys and you no longer need code).
I'm a retired CATV tech. Back in the mid 90's when I lived in a trailer park, I back fed my cable line and tap with about 60 Db of a xxx ( American Exxxtasy) channel from my big dish. I remember calling my friend next door and asking him to tune to such and such channel. His response was "WTF" LOL. The signal would have covered about half of the trailer park in the FWD direction of the line amps. I only ran it for a few minutes just so I could see if it would work.
Several decades ago, while I was in college, I worked in the college's FM radio station, 100,000 watts and classical music. In those days the station signed off at midnight and I often worked the sign off shift. I would hit the switch to shut off the transmitter at midnight and then run to my dorm room where I would fire up my own FM radio station. It was a crude oscillator that was FM modulated and I had it tuned to the exact frequency of the college's station. There was a flurry of activity in and out of our dorm room as calls would come in from students in other dorm rooms all around the campus requesting songs to be played so we often had to run around to our neighboring rooms to find the specific albums we needed. We didn't play classical music.
100,000 watts? Are you sure about that!
@@NigelDixon1952 WREK or WRAS, both are 100kW college stations. Are you sure about your naysaying?
How were people able to listen to your FM station broadcasting on Am frequencies? Were they just all close enough that the FM signal could be heard on AM, or did it require special equipment?
@@callhoonrepublicanwhere did they say anything about AM in their comment?
Class c1 @@NigelDixon1952
I'm 65 years old and boy do I miss pirate radio. Radio today is so bad I haven't listened to it in over 30 years. Now I have my own collection of music that I run off my own server. Thanks for the video, good stuff!
Thanks for listening
18:53
Pirate DJ: "Got any requests?"
FCC: "Please cease and desist."
Ha, yeah. But I don't remember the "please" part.
I ran a 150W FM pirate station when I was a youth. Best fun I've ever had. Right now I'm learning to build RF transmitters. Never got busted here in the UK.
Alright, I gotta chime in. I ran a pirate FM for a decade in my hometown. God bless my parents for letting me do it. My dad even built a mast on the roof for my 1/4 ground plane antenna that was fed by a ten watt transmitter. Only stopped because I moved out, never got caught. Signal wasn't too bad even though the heavy foliage ate up the RF quite a bit. I started when I was 16 or so, slowly over time improved the audio and signal, and brought in many of my friends. Towards the end of the station when I was much older and wiser, it was running 24/7 using RadioDJ and StereoTool for processing. The damn thing sounded better than many of the local FMs! Once you experience the thrill of running your own station, you really can never shake it off. Not saying to go out and build your own, but..y'know.
Know exactly what you're saying, I was an indoor grower for 11 years and every single day I laughed at the fact that I was "Gettin' over on da man".
And you know what? It's the only time in my life that things worked they way that they told me they do in America when I was growing up, the better of a job I did the more I prospered, the harder I worked at it the more I made, the smarter I was than others trying the same thing the more I was in demand, instead of like every job I've ever had where I was smarter than everyone around me and solved all the problems but it was always a suck up or someone's relative or friend that got the promotion or raise, I'm an honorably discharged veteran that was on armored vehicles in the Army that were very similar to the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and I couldn't even get a job in my hometown at a defense plant that opened up rebuilding Bradley's because they were too busy hiring friends and family at the place, and the VA or no one else would do a thing about it, that's when I said "OK, you don't wanna play by the same rules you tell me I have to live by, fine, I know what to do", and for 11 years the world was fair with me and it was the 11 happiest years of my life, then they legalized it and put me in the poor house, but hey, I still had those 11 years where I wasn't anybody's stooge for once in my life, and nobody can ever take that away from me.
That red shirt, looked like a prisoner's jumpsuit... thought at first you were broadcasting from inside the penitentiary. Haha. Great story!
LOL, I thought the same thing!
hahahaaha same thought
I'm sure that was not accidental
I was like daaaaamn, they threw the book at him.
A fascinating tale and well narrated. Some parallels in my life too, I built an FM transmitter when I was at school, my radio amateur father just let me get on with this stuff. The transmitter was very low powered and i knew nothing about aerials/antennas. No idea if I had any audience at all, used a reel to reel tape recorder as an audio source, took a portable radio out to see how far away it could be heard. Later on a friend and I built a 3 element cubical quad antenna for it using scrap aluminium from window extrusions. Was never caught, probably due to low power and very little air time. About a decade later I was working for the UK equivalent of the FCC. I went on to spend about 40 years in legitimate radio.
Before I retired, I worked for a local government agency. One day, after just finishing my lunchbreak, I was driving back toward my shop. (I worked in 2-way radio communications). I tuned in the vehicle's FM radio to catch some tunes on the way back. I caught a station, playing some decent music. I quickly realized that it was not licensed. Pretty strong signal. Being experienced with direction finding, I found the transmitter without much time or effort. As I passed the house, the signal left the air. I guess the sight of a white van with a yellow government tag and "Communications" printed on the side of it, didn't set well with the broadcaster. I never heard the station again.
😂😂😂😂😂
Yeah right lol
That was me! I flipped the switch just in time too!
It would have been nice if the FCC had allowed for something like 85-88 MHz (either edge of the FM or AM bands) to be for public use, with power restrictions, id requirements, etc, so folks could have neighborhood chatrooms without needing a special radio.
@@dengyun846 that's just ham, but a neighborhood amateur radio group would be sick as hell
Great story thanks for sharing! This reminds me of a few stories Jean Shepherd told one time on his radio show out of NYC back in the 60's - 70's. When he got his HAM license he found out there were "outlaw" HAM operators in his area when he was a teenager. One actually got not just once , but twice ended up going to jail. Best story he had was one were a couple of guys wanted to get into radio so bad, that they started procuring the proper equipment illegally and actually even had a building to broadcast from. They got got quickly broadcasting one day. Of course they were totally stunned. The FFC couldn't believe all the equipment they had.
I think I am a tiny bit older but it's not surprising to hear you operated a pirate broadcast station in the 70s. There were quite a few pirate stations across the country. Most that could be picked up ran only in the early morning for only two or three hours. But the 70s were a cool time to be a teenager / young adult. Rock on dude. . . .
Barry this is amazing. Not going to lie enjoyed every moment of this
Fantastic, glad you enjoyed it.
Loved your story. Always great to hear and be reminded what a curious youth's mind can accomplish when they've put their energy into something. Never get old, people. 😀
Fantastic story and storytelling as well!
Thank you!
I too put together a pirate radio station. It was 24/7. It was stereo. First was a 5 watt exciter. We had a Beringer compressor, a Radio Shack mixer, phone patch, a Free Radio Berkeley exciter, a homemade transmission line bandpass filter, SWR meter,100 feet of Belden 9913 feeding a J-pole antenna made of 1/2" copper tube.
BTW you can run Class C on FM with good filtration. We switched to a 35 Watt final amp and a commercial 5/8 wave antenna.
The mistake that you made was broadcasting from a house with a ham license attached to it and secondarily inviting the agents in.
Our (and I said our because I invited the community in) policy was to ask for a warrant.
The transmitter was in an activist flop house. One day, two suits were at the door. One suit said that they were from the FCC and they wanted to inspect the transmitter. The 12 year girl that answered the door said "Ya got a warrant?" The one suit said "No mam". So she replied "Hit the road. ".
Years later they came back with a warrant. The person who was on the air announced the raid. Members of the community came down and darned if all of the air leaked out of their tires.
They took all of our equipment and a month later FRSC went on the internet and a different group of people (the same people) brought another transmitter back up with a headless computer, a sound card and an internet connection in a different location.
I had three shows. A political call in called Connect the Dots with a theme song TVII by Ministry. A call in talk show called alt.talk. The theme was things like paganism, S&M, Cosplay, gaming and stuff. I had a third show called Cold Dark Matter that was an Industrial/Gothic music show.
I had Netwerk, Wax Trax et. al. sending me free CDs.
We had (I guess they still have) 2 turntables, 2 cassette players, a phone patch, a couple of SM78s, an SM7 and 2 CD players in the studio. The FCC couldn't touch that stuff and they never came back to the transmitter site either.
That’s where it’s at! 😮
Your story brought back fond memories of some of my childhood. It's an honor to meet you.
Nice story! The joy of being young and precocious, thanks!
Glad you enjoyed it!
So many parallels. At age 12 I got so busted by Uncle Charlie in the early 70's running an old Tempo One (very early tube Yaesu) SSB on 11 meters. (slightly extended band). The same charge and it scared me pretty bad. Remember sweep tubes? They and the driver tubes would have such a glow in the dark. I've had the bug since infancy. Radio has followed me (happily) all my life. A true joy. Antennas to me are an object of great beauty. I am subbed.😀
When I got my first full band scanner with all mode I was scanning the TV UHF band and I picked up the mic packs from my nearby TV station.
I was Shocked how far those reached
Listening to the behind the scenes talk was cool
That's called an Interruptible Fold Back System, has to deal with remote stations in the field being able to hear control channels and know when to start their live segment or when commercials are coming in.
YES!! I used to listen to those frequencies as well. Very interesting while watching the news
Great story! I am a ham radio operator, and one thing is clear when it comes to the FCC- they only care about the money. There's been a few amateur frequencies where the rules have been being broken daily for decades- music, illegal power, intentional jamming- you name it. The FCC does NOTHING about this, and I can only assume it's because once you pay a small fee for your license, use of those airwaves is free. Now, in the commercial spectrum- broadcast radio, television, business bands, etc., The FCC makes A LOT of money off of the leases of those frequencies. If you go clowning around in the frequencies that butter the FCC's bread, they'll throw down the hammer, and they're not much interested in easily letting a small hobbyist play- even if there are huge gaps between stations. but enforcing their own rules on the amateur bands? Nah, they can't be bothered with that.
In Italy is even worse than that. Eh eh
I think I have to agree. 7200 kHz is just one of many frequencies that is full of bullshit transmissions. Listen to WebSDR and I have heard people actually using foul language like they don’t care. It sometimes sounds like the 27 MHz children band and I sometimes get a good laugh out of it too.
I agree about the buttered bread, along with the insane corporate lobbying of congress by the broadcast industry that result in massive campaign contributions..
I have been in both Commercial and private broadcast and two way land mobile radio since the 80s. In those days, the FCC "Charlie" as it was referred to, would hit an area in their mobile lab and monitor operations off the air. If you weren't doing what you were supposed to do, you would get a notice in the mail of the violation. They would show your station frequency as licensed, and then what they measured down to 6 places to the right of the decimal. As well as transcribed conversations at the timestamp. This happened routinely.
I haven't seen or heard of any FCC field work in over 30 years. All about the money
Commercial radio licenses only cost about a thousand dollars per year for the first 5 years, and then less after that.
You had me with Rush dude!🤩Attention all listeners of this neighborhood radio station, we have assumed control, we have assumed control, we have assumed control.
Haha, most definitely! 2112 was an epic album.
And then. I'm on a train to Bangcock
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. Glad you got off easily.
Called mine WTNT ..."The Burnt spot on your Dial" !!....
We used to have a legit high power station called KOME. They called it the **m spot on your radio dial. Then one day somebody thought they would change it up just a wee bit and said "Don't touch that dial! It might have **m on it." He found the fine line, crossed it and got walked.
Your story brought back a lot of memories from the 60's for me..
I did exactly the same as you, on the AM band with a bit more power than your transmitter (around the 100 watt region), fed into a tuned long wire, end fed antenna between two buildings, hardly visible from the street below.
This was not in the U.S., in fact I was in a southern European country.
I broadcasted regularly for over 4 years, between 9.00 pm and midnight without been detected by the authorities.
I was a bit smarter though, not giving my phone number on the air for requests. Instead, the number of a friend of mine was given (with his approval of course), some 5 miles away from the transmitter site. He was taking the requests and then phone me and pass them on.
He was raided by the police who searched in vain to find the "illegal equipment" without any success.
What made triangulation difficult for them was the fact that, I lived in a very densely populated area full of tall buildings with many floors of apartments.
This ended when I decided to go abroad and, by then, there was already a few private but licensed FM stations which was a new thing at the time.
Yet, I had a lot of fun broadcasting and, to my surprise, I had reports of people receiving my broadcasts well over 100 miles away. That of course was the
night propagation that increased the signal traveling much further.
Thanks for sharing your childhood adventures with us. BTW, in my case, I was around 17 y.o. when I did this so, I should have known better!
Best regards from Australia.
Nice, and those are some good ideas!
Great story. I never bothered with AM. Just FM. I tweaked a RadioShack Wireless mic and got out about two miles.
I was running a 40 watts FM stereo transmitter in 2003. I'm pretty sure my ex friend ratted me out to the FCC. They drove 100 miles to my house. They complemented me on how good it sounded then told me to turn it off. They made me sign a paper, and they left. Never heard from them again.
A few months later I was back on the air at 40 watts, and never had another visit.
A few years ago my wife suggested I put on a low power FM transmitter for our park. I decided to bring out the old the 40 RF Amp. We are a bit high in elevation. The station got out 20 miles west. That was fun! So I scaled it back to almost nothing.
One day I get a visit from the local radio engineers. They came right up to the door of my house. They didn't even see the antenna. The only way they could have done that was that someone tipped them off, and gave them my address. Only one person had that address, and that was my ex friend.
Never never tell anyone what you're doing. Especially a friend who you might piss off sometime.
you know people in the hobby like to do foxs hunts (looking for illegal stations) I doubt your friend remembered
@@Dudleyism1
Wow, that's a shame...
What @Dudleyism1 said. It's actually VERY easy to locate the source of a signal, even a very weak one. At 40w, a constant broadcast would take almost no time at all to locate. All this coming from one of many amateurs with the ability to do this. The FCC is way more proficient, they have vehicles designed specifically for this purpose. We use Yagi antennas and generally take several hours or a whole day. I think they use field strength measurements and will only take an hour or less. You should feel lucky, honestly. They sometimes make examples of people and slam them with a six digit fine, though those folks mostly are interfering with others. Anyway, your ex is probably off the hook for this one.
its really easy to locate a radio. All you need is a spectrum analyzer and a directional antenna a map and a pencil. take a reading from two different locations and draw a line on the map the direction your antenna is pointing. that. will get you really close. Then you just need to take a ride with a handheld. There is also radio equipment that uses 4 antennas on a van that's basically the electronic version of that technique, but the old methods still work really well. Going mobile is the best way. Remember if the person coming to your door doesn't work for a federal agency, the water hose is a great solution for getting unwanted guests to leave.
That person was a fair weather friend, probably a narcissist.
Hey Barry I was busted by the feds too back in 1975 as a teenager in Tucson, Az. but I was running illegal on the CB radio. I got visited by 2 FCC agents at my house. I was 18 and got fined by the FCC for various offenses. I learned also but quite an experience for me too! I became an electronics technician a little later in life myself. 73 Barry and stay out of trouble!
Thanks! Crazy wild times!
Junior High, Glendale California, 1971. My friend bought a radio shack fm transmitter kit and had an exciter. We chopped up a CB ground plain to tune it and we were on the air. We covered pretty well, a few good miles. Never busted.
Great story! Thanks for sharing it with us.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Bro, u totally look like someone who would run a pirate radio station
Thankyou for the story!
Many years ago I also broadcast on FM for about 30 minuets while I tried to see how far I could pick up the signal. I played a few tunes including some recordings of my own band (of chorus) But after 30 minuets I said to myself "I cant afford getting caught and I know how easy it is to find the origin of this signal." so I put it away. Ive always been infatuated with the idea of pirate radio stations and the stories of Wolfman Jack from years before my time. Radio in my area is so syndicated and full of commercials that its just painful but I listen to FM anyway. Id love to see a time when radio is more like it was before I was borne. At one time there was a station that played local bands and they were around for about 2 years before getting bought out by a country station and now they play the same crap every day. The rock station has "Mission Metalica" and dont get me wrong, I like Metalica but whats the mission? they are already big enough and we dont need to hear 3 Metalica songs every night at 10. There are bands out there that can use exposure and Metallica is not one of them. Where are the real live DJs? why is it all pre-recorded? Any way. "grumble grumble grumble."
I used to run a non licensed FM station in Houston over 20 years ago. I used a one watt driver which I hooked to the sound port on my computer and then I hooked the driver to the final box which was about 35 watts. . I had a antenna about 30 feet in the air . I would broadcast various on line radio shows etc. I got good coverage in the Houston area. What's funny about its that sometimes when I was out riding my bike here and there, I would hear someone listening to my radio station , while they were walking in the park etc. Thank goodness Uncle never bothered me even though their office was just a few miles from my house. I think in the early 2000's the FCC busted a bunch of micro stations in the Austin area but many more popped up after that .
We need more pirate stations like yours everywhere now broadcasting conservative radio to balance out the liberal media's lies and propaganda.
Thanks for sharing that store. It was fantastic.
I ran 911fm 300watt station transmitting my local police scanner 24hours. I got busted and received a warning letter in mail by FCC. They saw my large antenna
Enjoyed this!!
I was quite a precocious young brat myself, back in the 90's, so this rings true for me! I didn't engage in this particular shenanigan myself - mostly for lack of access to the equipment - but I do remember thinking about it and wanting to run a pirate radio station. BTW, your dad sounds so much cooler than mine! Mine regularly admonished me for my "don't get caught" philosophy.
Fantastic. Glad you could relate to the story, and that you pursued your passions!
Barry if you are interested, in the UK their was a pirate radio station called Rinse FM that went legit. They set up and broadcasted on an antenna erected on a tall high rise and then connected to the antenna via wi-fi. Enforcement could find the antenna but not the location where the wi-fi was coming from with 1,000s of wi-fi enabled apartments nearby.
Great video thanks, sounds like you had fun times , awesome music choice too 👍
Fantastic, makes two of us. Built my own 20W AM transmitter many moons ago. I then learnt how to build FM transmitters (once I got the pre-emphasis, PLL properly locked and stereo MUX working). The FM transmitter was running about 10 watts. Used RF power transistors from a two way radio I bought for a few bucks.
They were fun days, I still remember the Gerard turntables I used and an old Philips mic, which sounded great.
For antennas, on AM I used a shortened vertical whip which was base loaded and a pretty good earth system.
For FM, just used a 4 way power divider feed into four dipoles. That pretty much got me a 360 degree radiation pattern.
On AM got about 50 miles while FM was around 10 or so miles.
Thanks for reminding me of those carefree teenage years.
BTW for FM, you can actually use Class C amps (no linear amps required) as long as you properly filter the output before
feeding into the antenna.
Wow, that sounds like a good time. Looks like you got more coverage than I did, fantastic!
Power is important but matching is critical. The better your match between TX and antenna, the more power will actually go out and increase range. Of course an efficient antenna is equally as important. You could transmit into a dummy load and have a perfect 1:1 match but that wouldn't get you very far. 😅
My how times have changed. I cover basically three or four residential blocks but it's all MPX, RDS and HD1 done in SDR inside the same Linux PC that plays the music processes the audio and other crap that I do. If they do show up because I pissed off a neighbor or something I just hand them my HackRF1, about the size of a pack of smokes. There is literally nothing else to it but for a couple blocks whatever, as long as I don't start looping George Carlin's list of words.
Cool story. I’m happy that they let things slide. Thanks for the good advice. 🎉
You won my thumbs up and sub after saying your type music you were playing was rush. 🤘🤘🤘🤘
Now THAT was a good story. I'm not much younger but as a kid in the 80's I hung around similar people as my mother was a licensed HAM operator and went to the local meetings, etc. I'm I.T. guy by trade but never ventured into HAM, GMRS, etc. or any other kind of radio transmitting. But i'm starting to become interested in it. Don't worry i'm not going to be standing up any kind of pirate broadcasting, either radio or IP based, lol. But yeah I very much enjoyed you telling this story from your teenage years, Barry!
You are very relaxing to listen to, I’m happy that this appeared in my recommended. Great story.
Glad you enjoyed it!
You brought back memories being young along with my brother that has long passed . Thankyou ! WA3FRD
I cant think if anything cooler than what you have acheived . Fn cool
My favorite legal advice is "don't make your own evidence." I think it surprising they left the equipment. One would expect it to have left with the agents. Your father must have been very respected.
That was a great story man.. Thanks for sharing!!
Glad you enjoyed it
Brilliant. All the way around! Thank you for this great story- Rock on- 🎉
Glad you enjoyed it!
That was an awesome story. Thanks
Love the story. You're a great storyteller. Thanks for uploading this!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I worked for a small college in the '80s with its own perfectly legal 10 watt AM station on 1400Khz .. the town had a population of about 4000, and it covered the town more or less. I lived on the edge of town , and could get the station clearly.
It used to be sort of a technical challenge to find pirate stations, and to record them as proof you heard it...some advertised! In the '70s and '80s, you would occasionally see small flyers in used bookstores or any place with a corkboard ( like laundromats or small diners).. frequency and type of music were given, but not times. Punk was really common at the time ( early '80s).
I never managed to hear a pirate station , though some coworkers did and recorded it. To me, it sounded fairly professional...at least that particular one.
Thanks for sharing this story. It was super entertaining
Cool! Thanks!
Great story, thank you!
Some of the best days of my life were spent working for Radio Shack back in 2005. Good times!
If you would have worked there in the 70's and 80's it would have been a better experience , cell phones took off in Radio Shack and that's what killed their business IMO ...
Very cool. Thank you for sharing. First time here.
Thanks for watching!
Cool story, and you told it wonderfully. Glad you didn't get a fine! Thank you for sharing it!
Thanks for watching!
i've always wanted to run a radio station....thanks for the info...very inspiring!
Thanks for sharing. I started my LPFM station in NZ in 2006 after working in commercial radio. Still running today and turning 18 years old on July 1st
Great story thank you for sharing. Very interesting and I listened beginning to end, very cool!
Awesome, thank you!
Enjoyed your story, I’m in to ham radio since 1996.
I love it! what a fantastic story, Barry you're just too cool man! 😊 ❤
Thanks so much!
Nice story! Thanks for sharing the memories
Glad you enjoyed it
Awesome story mate, enjoy these historic radio tales.
Thanks for listening
Awesome story. Sounds like a great time!
Fun story, thanks for sharing.
Been pretty cool finding you through this video. Great story and delivery; wish you all the best in life
Thanks so much!
Grear Story Barry. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for listening
Great story - thanks for taking the time to tell it! My only related memory would be in high school around 2005ish I made a very simple crystal AM radio receiver for a project, but on the day of presenting it didn't work because of (unbeknowsnt to me at the time) a broken wire. It had worked great and was a pretty cool novelty of the past for some of my closer friends that had heard it outside of school. It was such a let down and I got like a low B, still remember it very well. What is worse is later in the day I discovered the issue, but it was too late. Going to explore some of your other videos!
So cool, thanks for sharing
Thanks for watching!
Great story thanks for sharing
Great talk. I was in the cb game a while!
That was cool. Thanks for sharing.
Loved the story!!
This is hilarious! Good job Barry!
21.09 lol fantastic .... thankyou for the story A+++
I ran many unlicensed am and FM stations over the years from the 1950s up to about year 2000. I stopped partly because of a loss of interest and partly because there were no more available clear channels on the radio due to the 1996 FCC ruling that allowed a lot of drop in class A radio stations. But at the peak of my quote unquote career, I was running 5,000 Watts effective radiated power using a California systems RF amplifier that was on loan to me from a licensed radio station operator who was supportive of my operations. We had signals reaching into three states and some of the best audio on the FM dial. Those were fun years but they were also stressful.
5 KW ERP - I am impressed! Best I ever ran was abut 450 watts.
Great & fun story!
Thank you!
Idk how i got here or why im watching this but i just watched it in its entirety. Very cool story.
A really enjoyable story. You are a master storyteller! Thanks for sharing 👍
Glad you enjoyed it!
I always wanted to broadcast a fuk'n pirate radio station . I salute you , Dude!
Great story ... loved it
Glad you enjoyed it
I own a part 15 C Crane FM transmitter in my room and I operate CJW Radio 95.7 FM. I play song requests on late Sunday night early Monday morning from 2am to 3am and I play mostly Smooth Jazz on iheart radio on the station. I go off the air Friday evening on weekends and go back on the air Sunday night, and I also play some lander lady bearcat basketball games on there as well as the DL Hughley Show, DeDe in the Morning and Love and R B with Ralph Tresvant at night.
Wow really great story. You are a great story teller. Very relaxed and engaging narrative. My friends and I built an FM transmitter on a small chassis but I don't remember every trying to put it on the air. We were all in high school in the mid seventies and met in the electronics class. I think the fun part was just building it. TYFP!
Wow, thank you!
Yo, this is a really cool story bro and, just the element that you simply a, young, intelligent, innovative and exploratory kid, at the time is entertaining and im waiting to here they recognized your potential, and hired you!
Great story and told in an appealing and interesting manner.
Thanks! Glad it was entertaining.
Cool story man! Ive always been excited about radio because my grandfather was a ham radio operator.
Super cool story thanks!
Thanks for listening
That's an awesome story mate.
I love it
& thankyou for sharing this.
I just subscribed.
I'm glad they were lenient on you
as you were just a kid ⚡🙏⚡
Glad you enjoyed it
Once upon a time, i had a friend, let's call him Mike. I changed his name to protect the innocent.
I bought a Knight Kit broadcast transmitter. Am -ancient modulation, it probably makes one watt.
Mike got the bright idea to connect it to the ground wire for the phone company.
His reason why was the telephone wire ran in front of all the houses.
Not only did it couple in the phone line of everyone on the party line, but everyone who had a telephone.
We got requests from 3 miles away.
The final requests was from the telephone company, disconnect the transmitter or we will disconnect your parents phone.
That was the most covert unlicensed transmitter ever because there was no antenna.
I had two turntables, two reel to reel, two cassette decks, and a Soundsign microphone that came with one of the tape decks.
I would record the audio and play it back when I was not home.
It was live, but hard to prove that it was me because I was outside listening with my friends when it played.
Late at night i would record, my parents were concerned that I was taking to myself.
And that was the best way to run a illegal radio station.