Great Irony Here: New York Pirates Rebroadcasting Howard Stern Free

[Jared Moya]

<p>Will the FCC, which chased Stern off the public airwaves, now crack down on the pirates? The agency needs a complaint to begin an investigation.<br />Will Stern or Sirius be the complainer? </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Stern's Sirius may have started a revolution it hadn't planned on. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>For those unfamiliar with pirate radio, here are the basics: The airwaves are regulated by the FCC, the Federal Communications Agency, which was created to apportion and license spots on the radio dial, making sure signals didn't bleed over.</p>

Read the complete article (http://www.zeropaid.com/news/6082/Great+Irony+Here%3A+New+York+Pirates+Rebroadcastin g+Howard+Stern+Free/)

[Boomer The Dog]

I love pirate radio, it's just the neatest thing that there are stations like this, lurking in the dark corners of FM/AM. Most of the pirate stations I've heard just play their favorite music, and that's probably what the majority of the radio pirates do, but replaying Stern over the air sounds like more of a political statement than that.

I wonder if the guys from Radio Newyork International are involved in this somehow. They were legendary NYC radio pirates in the 1980s.

[kebis]

i heard stern talking about this last night. he seemed to think it was pretty funny but i'm sure Sirius wont see it that way.

[MorphineInduced]

ya they will be a little upset about that......... but the only good thing about it is that you get his radio show and it has no commercials or ads and yet its free..... that kind of beats the paying to hear him on sirrus and then when he was being played on regular radio and yet every ten minutes he took a break for advertisement.........

[teto]

If only we could regulate the radio stations using their money and clout to blast the radio frequencies full of their manipulative propaganda, pseudo-southern drawl, and twangy electric guitars. Instead we end up regulating the radio that people actually want to hear, and handing our freedom and communication over to corporate robber barons protected from justice, by law. How to turn that sort of thing around?

[Boomer The Dog]

Radio Newyork International (RNI) was a group that put a radio station on a ship off of the coast of New York City, outside of USA territory. The station ran for a week or so, on AM, FM, and shortwave. The AM transmitter was the best, and it reached half of the US, with 1000 watts I think.

The government decided it had to do something, it didn't want a fleet of these ships broadcasting outside of the reach of US authority, so as I understand it, there was a ruling that extended the the US territorial waters out another few miles, an area which included the ship. The Coast Guard and the FCC then raided the ship, damaging the radio equipment so it couldn't be used.

RNI tried to make a comeback a couple of times by registering the ship in other countries, but the plans to bring it back fell apart. Allen Weiner, the head of RNI, now runs a commercial shortwave station called WBCQ at the frequency of 7415.

It's true that radio is another monopoly like the media companies, and everything is set up efficiently, to keep them in control of the airwaves through legal games.

Satellite radio paid their big money for the "rights" to the spectrum they use. Now they can broadcast almost anything they want to, so in a way, this works some of the content restrictions of AM and FM.

[Boomer The Dog]

From Wikipedia:

"Using this Honduran flagged vessel without a working engine, Weiner and Hungerford transformed it into the home of Radio Newyork International. It had several transmitters and a studio on board. The ship was towed to its location off Long Island by Frank Ganter and his towboat the M/V Minzer and began broadcasting with signals that were picked up over half of the United States. Within days a raid took place by federal authorities and Weiner and others on board including reporters from the Village Voice were arrested and brought back to shore and the radio station broadcasting equipment was rendered unusable. Soon after, the Honduran Consulate nullified the ship registration."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Newyork_International

RNI page with pictures, by a former RNI staff member:

http://rni.hankhayes.com/

[Afn]

The less people consume, the less that they buy. I do not listen to satellight radio, or for that matter radio. The shortwave set I have has not been turned on in 5 years.

Corporation monopolies, fcc lax regulation and overproduction of content are all factors in making broadcast media mostly meaningless.

I think narrowcasting will work, but then again, overproduction of content and cheap consumer DV is making even specialization irrelevent.