Back in January I reported on Ft. Myers, Florida resident Albert Knighten, a retired Navy air traffic controller who was arrested in December 2011 on charges of unlicensed broadcasting for running a neighborhood community radio station. Knighten got in additional hot water when he missed his arraignment hearing in order to appear on a panel […]
Costa Rica’s Tico Times recently published a profile of unlicensed Guatemala radio station Radio Ixchel, as part of an examination of the radio scene in that country. Guatemala has as many as 800 pirate stations, where most radio licenses are auctioned for as much as $100,000. While there are license categories for public stations, there […]
This post by John Anderson originally appeared at DIYmedia.net and is republished here by permission. Two decades ago, thousands of people took to the air without permission from the FCC to protest the agency’s draconian policies regarding access to the airwaves. The microradio movement conducted a campaign of electronic civil disobedience, demonstrating that there was […]
The Netherlands has been a hotbed of unlicensed radio activity for decades. Dutch stations like the storied Radio Veronica, which broadcast off-shore from 1960 to 1974, inspired the UK pirate radio scene during the same time period. The country still has many stations on the air, many of them explicitly political and anarchist in outlook […]
Mbanna Kantako has been running one of the longest lived unlicensed radio stations in the US, Human Rights Radio in Springfield, IL. He served as the inspiration for Stephen Dunifer and other microradio activists who used unlicensed broadcasting as a means for civil disobedience in the 1990s. While Kantako has had several run-ins with the […]
Although Free Radio Berkeley has not been an operational radio station for over a decade, founder Stephen Dunifer continues to champion the cause of unlicensed micropower radio. In this spirit FRB just announced its 2011 schedule of summer radio camps. Each camp is a four-day workshop where participants learn to build a 10- or 40-watt […]
Kanyi Pamukwendengwe a Rusitu villager in Zimbabwe writes in the South Africa Mail & Guradian about the brief run of Pachindau People’s Radio, an unlicensed shortwave station that broadcast from Chimanimani in Eastern Zimbabwe. As Pamukwendengwe explains, the inspiration for the station came from the fact that the state-run stations in Harare could not be […]
Record Store Day, now in its fifth year, is an annual celebration of the independent record store. This year it goes down next Saturday, April 16. Participating stores hold special events, like in-store concerts, while selling limited-edition singles and albums. I’ve been attending since 2008 and enjoy the recognition of the threatened species of the […]
A couple of interesting pirate radio stories passed through the transom this week that I need to share. First, a writer calling himself “Captain America” wrote a short piece for the Albuquerque, NM Alibi fondly recalling an unlicensed micropower station called Rebel Radio that broadcast from that city’s “student ghetto” during the mid-90s, a period […]
Apparently looking to follow the example set by New Jersey and Florida, New York state senate bill S2737-2011 is intended to create “the crime of unauthorized radio transmission, a class D felony, punishable by imprisonment and a fine in the amount of not less than $10,000.00.” Thanks go to John Anderson at DIYmedia.net and Paul […]
