I am reading Tim Weiner’s disturbing history of the CIA, Legacy of Ashes. The tome portrays the agency as a dysfunctional outfit which often failed to achieve its goals. When the CIA did get something done in its formative years, it was usually a dastardly deed, accomplished by a combination of brute force, bribery, and […]
Archive | Pirate Radio
New York state bill aims to criminalize pirate radio
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 […]
Behind the Scenes at Radio Valencia
I’ve been sharing the progress of San Francisco’s newest community radio station, Radio Valencia, from inception to its launch in August; so was happy to see DJ Tony DuShane’s first-person account of what it was like for him to be at the station from the beginning. Currently an Internet-only station, there are rumors that Radio […]
Pirate Cat in fundraising mode to buy radio license
Pirate Cat radio says that the operation has “two FM stations that it has the option of purchasing,” but it needs $60,000 to do so. Hence a fund-raising drive on the Kickstarter site. The Kickstarter campaign has until October 21 to raise the money. San Francisco’s Pirate Cat has an interesting history. For a while […]
Radio Nonchalance Hits Pirate Radio with its Urban Participatory Game
A mysterious pirate radio station cropped up today during the 2010 01SJ Biennial Build Your Own World conference in San Jose, California. According to the festival website, ZER01 and other artistic collaborators will convene in San Jose from September 16-19 to present various events and performances. The pirate radio arm of this event is airing […]
Radio pirates do not go to jail in 48 states
Pirate radio has been a favorite topic of mine since I first built a little AM transmitter from a Radio Shack kit as a kid. In the mid-90s, just as the microradio movement started to take off with inspiration from Human Rights Radio’s Mbanna Kanatko and Free Radio Berkeley’s Stephen Dunifer, I started to follow […]
FCCFREE RADIO: Pirates No More
Lately there’s been a lot of buzz about the comings and goings of pirate radio stations, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area. New station Radio Valencia is about to begin broadcasting any day now in San Francisco and pirate radio stalwart Freak Radio Santa Cruz is continuing in its mission, while looking for a […]
![Freak Radio Studio [image courtesy DIYmedia/flickr]](https://www.radiosurvivor.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/213634017_eacc013ca2_m.jpg "Freak Radio Santa Cruz's transmitter looking for a new home")
Freak Radio Santa Cruz's transmitter looking for a new home
San Francisco's Newest Radio Pirate: Radio Valencia
Of course I’m biased, but San Francisco seems to have always been ground zero for radio innovators, back from the early days of pioneering technologists, to the freeform FM era, to punk and new wave stalwarts in college and commercial radio in the 1980s, to pirate radio champions like Free Radio Berkeley in the 1990s, […]