Boxford pirate's coax cable cut

[Aaron Read]

Bob, you've hit the nail exactly on the head.  Most of these pirates 
aren't interested in operating legally even if given the opportunity. 
They're mostly on an ego trip and they want total control of their 
broadcast outlet...FCC be damned.

This was especially true back when the LPFM license class was created in 
1998-99 and there was still hope that there might be room for one in 
Boston, and also this was before webcasting was really a mainstream 
option for most stations.   I was one that advocated strongly that 
pirates should volunteer at local college radio stations.  Do it over 
the summer when you can almost have your pick of timeslots, and you can 
just stick around afterwords.

This was never more on display than in 2002 or so when I was 
volunteering at Allston-Brighton Free Radio.  IIRC at that point we were 
still a legal Part 15 AM station (although later a not-so-legal 20w 
carrier-current AM transmitter and homebrewed TIS-style antenna was 
used) and summer was coming up.  I was also volunteering at WMFO and 
that was a bad patch for the station...given the number of supposedly 
dedicated volunteers at ABfree we could've easily volunteered to fill 
half their schedule, and half their management board, and both the 
station members and Tufts would've been grateful for the help.  Within 
five years, ABfree could've had de facto control over everything that 
mattered.

But no, nobody wanted to be bothered hoofing it up to Tufts' Medford 
campus.  So much for dedication.  :-P

These days college radio seems to be more in vogue so it'd be harder to 
pull off a "bloodless coup" like that.  But it's still do-able.  And 
especially in more rural areas where there are literally stations going 
dark because nobody can figure out what to do with them, I think if 
these pirates got their act together they could probably take one over 
with little up-front capital.

I should also point out: an unsurprising amount of "community 
broadcasters" (aka not-quite pirates, but close) who *did* successfully 
get LPFM licenses, have either failed to renew the license or just gone 
dark due to lack of funds.  Surprise, surprise, it's not all fun and 
games to run a radio station...it's a lot of money, time and hard work!

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Aaron Read                  |  Finger Lakes Public Radio
friedbagels@gmail.com       |  General Manager (WEOS & WHWS-LP)
Geneva, NY 14456            |  www.weos.org / www.whws.fm


Bob Nelson raccoonradio@mail.com
Tue Sep 29 11:19:20 EDT 2009
I know signals are scarce in Boston (perhaps someday the FM band will be 
rolled back to 76 or so?) and I wish somehow some groups
would work together, get a legit license, and all these organizations 
can do shows on a LEGAL station. Or maybe they can get time,
free or paid, on a legit station. I cite my own WMWM which has some 
Spanish language programming. These DJs could have started
a pirate station in our area but they came to WMWM and did it legally. I 
don't know how much free time is ultimately available on
the various AM and FM outlets around here (college radio, etc.) but 
better to do it legally.