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.
@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
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.
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!
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
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!!
In my country (Norway) all the radio stations have moved to DAB now, and the FM band is being repurposed. Music on DAB sounds like crap in a tin can, I think they have like 64kbps bitrate or something... 😖 A good FM signal could be near CD quality with a good receiver.
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.
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!
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
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!!
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!!
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.
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
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.
in 80s we have in south poland many pirates stations fm .. comunism are censored of the air .. on 90's. we have transmiters for the fun for the girls .. Resopect . Grettings from south Poland Pirates FM Krakow city
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.
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.
It is really a quite big transmitter antenna and here in Germany they are hunting pirate readios active. I also got a 15W and a 10W Stereo transmitter but currently no good antenna :/ would be nice to see more informations about 94.5 and maybe tips how to protect ourselves.
if you had lowered the volume of your radio we could have heard your comments at the pirate's location. The copyright thing from TH-cam cut out your commentary..................it's a shame corporate radio doesn't have ears to hear the moaning over their repetitive replays of the 200 hundred songs on their hard drives. There is so much music out here to listen to.
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)
I think part 15 is limited to only 200 feet or so, so it's only legal to broadcast FM up to 200 feet away from the transmitter without a license, and I think this guy was much farther away than 200ft at the start
Please tell me that you've been hunting one of those cheap FM transmitters (94.5) from your Ipod. Also can you tell me the name of the song they're playing @ 2min 24sec. It's pretty damn good.
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 :)
yeah i know running any type of power costs in the electric bill greatly. I have a 5 Kw PA deck but I don't run it instead I run my 100 watt PA at 90 watts or so.
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 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.
@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.
according to part 15 of the FCC rules you are allowed to broadcast without a license. although the signal can't travel very far usually no more than 200 feet at the most I think the full legal power is just a little under watt.
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!
Yagi antenna and a field strength meter used from 3 locations taking readings for degrees at highest reading and triangulation of the signal will get you pretty close
i had a pirate radio station in michigan in 1956. hooked up to my 45 record player. i was caught by FCC but not prosecuted because i was 15 years old! Thats what we did in those days. messed around with radio gear usually old army surplus. I promised never to do it again and my parents took away my final tube.
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.
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.
@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.
This station sound so good, with the music programming, audio procressing and the jingles, that I surely would tune it on.
"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?
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
I think he deserves to be on the air more than some of the licensed stations...
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
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!
Actually pretty good music playing :D
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.
What happened to the audio at the end? I guess its got to do with some of the copyright laws on here.
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!
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
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!!!
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!)
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.
The song is called. "You were the last high" by The Dandy Warhols
p1r4t3z a"BOHEMIAN LIKE YOU,"
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
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.
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!!
In my country (Norway) all the radio stations have moved to DAB now, and the FM band is being repurposed. Music on DAB sounds like crap in a tin can, I think they have like 64kbps bitrate or something... 😖
A good FM signal could be near CD quality with a good receiver.
The music is better because it's not from the WestwoodOne short play lists junk. LOL.
What's the song that's pIaying from the beginning of the video until around 2:10?
Dandy Warhols - You Were the Last High
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.
This has always been one of my favorite videos on TH-cam, I’d like to find a version that still has the original audio at the end.
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
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!
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.
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
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
So according to part 2 you found your own pirate radio station 94.5mhz
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?
They got some awesome music, no crappy commercials
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...
@BlGDOG18 The song is "You Were The Last High" by The Dandy Warhols
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.
2;14 perfect music ,does anybody knows whats the name of band?????
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!!
Does anyone know what song is playing in this video at 1:29? It actually sounds really good
The sound cut out at 8:30.
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!!
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
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
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.
in 80s we have in south poland many pirates stations fm .. comunism are censored of the air .. on 90's. we have transmiters for the fun for the girls .. Resopect . Grettings from south Poland Pirates FM Krakow city
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
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!
What’s the name of the song playing at 6:00 minute area?
It blew my mind when “Its my life” came on 🤣 They had me right there!!
th-cam.com/video/cFH5JgyZK1I/w-d-xo.htmlsi=Px7ylQMITnixsFxh
what's the name of the song at 2:16
Yevgeniy Anikin The song is called Darkness, it's done by a local band called Almost Something. Unfortunately they are not together anymore.
Yevgeniy Anikin The second tune sounds like It's My Life by Talk Talk
You wouldn't happen to still have a cd of it or something, would you?
No but you can get it on iTunes... I have just checked.
Yann Kitson I'm talking about the local song
It is really a quite big transmitter antenna and here in Germany they are hunting pirate readios active. I also got a 15W and a 10W Stereo transmitter but currently no good antenna :/ would be nice to see more informations about 94.5 and maybe tips how to protect ourselves.
Can you tell me what the third song was in the video?
if you had lowered the volume of your radio we could have heard your comments at the pirate's location. The copyright thing from TH-cam cut out your commentary..................it's a shame corporate radio doesn't have ears to hear the moaning over their repetitive replays of the 200 hundred songs on their hard drives. There is so much music out here to listen to.
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)
Whats that first song called? :)
Anyone know the song playing as this video ends? This station plays cool music.
Do you have a link to the FTC website with the list of registered frequencies
Maybe it is a perfectly legal Part 15 station? Just because it is not on the FCC list doesn't make it instantly and ilegal pirate station.
I think part 15 is limited to only 200 feet or so, so it's only legal to broadcast FM up to 200 feet away from the transmitter without a license, and I think this guy was much farther away than 200ft at the start
can you send a link to the band Darkness - Almost Something please really want that song
Please tell me that you've been hunting one of those cheap FM transmitters (94.5) from your Ipod. Also can you tell me the name of the song they're playing @ 2min 24sec. It's pretty damn good.
Green Day?
Darkness - Almost Something, they are a local band.
love that extended mix of Talk Talk it's my life ❤❤❤
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 :)
Leave em alone they ain't hurting nobody and playing OK music
Why didn't you make a simple loop antenna? For the FM band, that would be very easy.
It's a perfectly legal station since they are transmitting in low power. You should read Title 47 › Chapter I › Subchapter C › Part 73 › Subpart G
Could you show this kind of video with your new 100kw signal on 89.1 with this equipment?
I though he kept it tuned it back to 38 Kw or so.
Melinda Green I think he has at the moment due to the cost of the electricity, according to a recent fundraiser announcement.
yeah i know running any type of power costs in the electric bill greatly. I have a 5 Kw PA deck but I don't run it instead I run my 100 watt PA at 90 watts or so.
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.
Wait so what’s the point of pirate stations? Do the artists they play on the station still benefit?
Great sounding track from The Dandy Warhols. Better music than commercial radio, it has to be Pirate Radio.
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.
Could it be a micro fm station? A two watt broadcast system. These were popular in the late eighties.
They were used mainly on college campuses and public schools.sort of a wireless intercom.
Or a public address system.
Have you ever thought about basket weaving ?
No, have you?
Good video. Whats the analyser?
What was that song playing ???
So lost audio near end what happened?
What was the first song
How many pedestrians were killed during the making of this video?
@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.
according to part 15 of the FCC rules you are allowed to broadcast without a license. although the signal can't travel very far usually no more than 200 feet at the most I think the full legal power is just a little under watt.
What model of spectrum analyser is this ?
CRTC truck driving up and down the road
Then some Helicopters fly around for hours
You broadcast on Shortwave as well??
This was an awesome video by chance can you tell me the name of the second. Song that would be great
I still love watching these. Probably the 6th time I've watched this series 😁
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.
Can't see the antenna because it's to dark. How much is a license?
Man, you're playing better Alt. Rock than the other stations in my area are.
I’m 10 years late....... Is this still a thing?
what happens when you find them?
94.5 is like the most popular station where i live
Houston?
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!
Yagi antenna and a field strength meter used from 3 locations taking readings for degrees at highest reading and triangulation of the signal will get you pretty close
what was the program that you used to find your local radio stations?
I have a question whoever is doing that can they get in trouble with the law for that?
Could you help me get a Fcc LPFM License!!!
That’s some great music on there. Wish them pirates lbroadcast in northern AZ
i had a pirate radio station in michigan in 1956. hooked up to my 45 record player. i was caught by FCC but not prosecuted because i was 15 years old! Thats what we did in those days. messed around with radio gear usually old army surplus. I promised never to do it again and my parents took away my final tube.