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Tag Archives | Pirate Radio

Radio Is My Bomb Feature Image

“Radio Is my Bomb” ‘Zine Is a Still-Relevant Snapshot of Free Radio in the 1980s

Thanks to Twitter, I learned about a UK ‘zine recently scanned and uploaded to the Internet Archive: “Radio Is my Bomb: a DIY Manual for Pirates.” Published in 1987, it’s a fascinating document of the 1970s and 80s free radio in the UK and elsewhere, though principally focused on western Europe. Amusingly, the entry on […]

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1700 AM

Confirmations of 1700 (AM)

Thanks to our intrepid and loyal readers I’ve learned a bit more about the mystery signal I reported on last week. To recap, I DX’d a station at 1700 AM – a frequency with very few stations assigned across the continent – that simply played 80s pop music, with station IDs that were difficult for […]

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Podcast 229 - PIRATE Act - Radio Transmitter

Podcast #229 – Reading the PIRATE Act

The PIRATE Act, recently passed by Congress, is intended to stem the tide of unlicensed radio broadcasting by providing the Federal Communications Commission with new tools. Chief amongst them are new maximum fines, and a shortcut to issuing them. But will this really work? Author and radio scholar John Anderson says that a lot of […]

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Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map feature image

From Brooklyn to Afghanistan, The Verge Does Right by Pirate Radio

Last week The Verge wrapped up a three-part series on pirate radio, examining a US-government-sanctioned form in Afghanistan, radio-like conference call services used by the Hmong diaspora and unlicensed Haitian stations in Brooklyn, NY. Recovering from the holiday weekend I finally had a chance to catch up, read the three articles and listen to their […]

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Podcast 178 - Irish Pirate Radio Archive

Podcast #178 – Irish Pirate Radio Archive

For about a decade, ending in 1988, pirate stations dominated the Irish radio bands, exploiting a loophole in the law that made punishments for unlicensed broadcasting on par with a speeding ticket. Now the sounds and artifacts of this cultural movement are being preserved online in the Irish Pirate Radio Archive. Archive co-founders Brian Greene […]

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