Re: Licensed Pirate Radio??

[Your Real Name <vortec@channel1.com>]

>Not exactly the NY Times...But an interesting article none the less.  I
>believe it was the Friday before last.  (Green/money section, cover
>story)
>
>You should get a copy....would love to hear your comments...


I believe I've already read this article -- this is the one which focused on
Micro KIND radio in San Marcos, TX no?  

I think the most interesting and worthwhile opinion I've read on that
article so far was from Chris Hurd.  Chris is more or less the online
"spokesperson" for MicroKIND and has posted some responses to the article on
usenet.  One of the nice things about the internet -- you don't have to
depend solely on watered-down nationally-distributed rags of transcribed
soundbites which are always pushed towards as much of a racey/doomsday slant
as the publishers care to stake their' reputations on.  That's the stuff
that sells newspapers after all.

I can assure you that there is almost no difference between the people doing
"pirate" radio "now" versus "then".  Let's face it, people who want to
communcate use radios -- that leaves us with a pretty broad spectrum of
folks.  I can think of one possible and interesting difference in terms of
who is involved in the recent pirate "wave" -- that being a number of
formerly licenced local independent station owners who have been pushed
either out of business or out off the spectrum by Megacorp USA.  Are we all
familiar with the rather disgraceful case of WZLS-FM in North Carolina?  I
think this first recieved national attention in The Wall Street Journal
6/18/97.  I had heard there was a recent Supreme Court reversal of the FCC's
suposed "final" decision in this case -- but many other "legitimate"
stations have not been so lucky in these matters.  The purveyor of "Radio
Mutiny", a prominent Philadlelphia area "pirate" got a phone call one day
from a long-time owner of two local radio stations.  At first the "pirate
radio guy" (as the "legit" staton owner playfully refered to him) didn't
know whether he should just hang up or get ready for another pompus, self
rightous nose-in-the-air lecture about "radio criminals" (snicker snicker).
He decided to just let the guy talk.   What the station owner ended up
saying to him was complely unexpected.  The station owner had worked in
radio all his life, the radio business was his first love, and in his
present late stage in life there really wasn't much else he could do or
wanted to do.  Unfortunately, both his statons were being put out of
business because Big Dumb Bland Worthless Corporate Radio Inc. had completly
undercut his advertising rates and the statons could no longer support
themselves.  The guy had nothing left and nothing better to do, so basically
he was asking this goofy hippie guy advice on how to go pirate!

It seems to me that many of the posts on this list attacking the current
"pirate" phenomenon tend to be based more on an unfortuneate level of social
isolation (and possibly and older generational bias against people who
didn't grow up trusting govenment agencies and "the system" virtually
without question) rather than any directly experienced or even
well-reseached viewpoint.  It's all about fear, nothing more....

                                                        --Y.R.N.>

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