Monthly Archives: March 2018

FCC enforcement update: Boston, Brooklyn, Miami, Newark and Fayetteville

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Many thanks to an SWLing Post contributor who shares the following FCC enforcement items:

RADIO EQUIPMENT SEIZED FROM TWO ILLEGAL RADIO STATIONS IN BOSTON

https://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2018/db0328/DOC-349973A1.pdf

STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER MICHAEL O’RIELLY ON ACTION AGAINST TWO BOSTON PIRATE RADIO “STATIONS”

https://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2018/db0328/DOC-349972A1.pdf

Notes:

These news releases do not indicate whether the U.S. Marshals Service and FCC agents personally interacted with the alleged operators of these stations.

The FCC stated that the items were seized from the stations’ “antenna location,” which suggests that transmission equipment, but not studio equipment or persons, were taken into custody. For those details we will have to await official legal texts and not news pieces from the FCC media office.

Only a small minority of unlicensed stations ever have their equipment seized. Increasingly the FCC sends enforcement notices to the landlords of these stations, in the expectation that they will act against broadcasting tenants.

Additional enforcement actions against unlicensed stations were released today:

JEROME MOULTRIE; MIAMI, FLORIDA. Notice of Unlicensed Operation issued for radio signals on frequency 90.1 MHz in Miami, Florida. Action by: Regional Director, Region Two, Enforcement Bureau. Adopted: 03/28/2018 by Notice. EB DOC-349981A1.docx  DOC-349981A1.pdf

JEAN CLAUDE MICHEL; BROOKLYN, NEW YORK. Notice of Unlicensed Operation issued for radio signals on frequency 90.9 MHz in Brooklyn, New York. Action by: Regional Director, Region One, Enforcement Bureau. Adopted: 03/28/2018 by Notice. EB DOC-349979A1.docx  DOC-349979A1.pdf

ANGEL RIGOBERTO PINZON; OSSINING, NEW YORK. Notice of Unlicensed Operation issued for radio signals on frequency 90.5 MHz in Newark, New Jersey. Action by: Regional Director, Region One, Enforcement Bureau. Adopted: 03/28/2018 by Notice. EB DOC-349978A1.docx  DOC-349978A1.pdf

FREDDIE RODRIGUEZ; FAYETTEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA. Notice of Unlicensed Operation issued for radio signals on frequency 87.9 in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Action by: Regional Director, Region Two, Enforcement Bureau. Adopted: 03/28/2018 by Notice. EB DOC-349980A1.docx  DOC-349980A1.pdf

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Reminder: Global HF Pirate Weekend – March 30, 31, and April 1, 2018

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Andrew Yoder, who shares details about the upcoming Global HF Pirate Weekend:

Next Global HF Weekend – March 30, 31, and April 1, 2018

The idea behind the Global HF Weekends are to promote friendship through radio around the world. The hope is that listeners will be able to hear different stations and for broadcasters to reach distant locations. Anyone may participate.

The last one, which occurred during the first weekend of November 2017, was very successful. A handful of North American stations were reported on Europe and vice versa. And South American stations were heard in the North. Other stations were active specifically for the weekend, but just for a local or regional audience.

We’ll see how many stations show up during the next GHFW. It seems unlikely that stations will be using 13 meters this time and much more likely that stations will be trying the 6900-kHz range and possibly 31 and 25 meters.

March 30, 31, & April 1, 2018
Maybe 15010-15090 kHz, probably 6200-6400 kHz and 6800-6990 kHz

Of course, these were general frequency ranges used by pirates during prior Global HF Pirate weekends. Some stations will surely operate on frequencies and times outside of these ranges. In fact, the way conditions have been lately, frequencies at or below 15 MHz seem like they will be more effective for intercontinental broadcasting. These will be updated on the Hobby Broadcasting (http://hobbybroadcasting.blogspot.com/) blog as it happens and also check the loggings on HF Underground (https://www.hfunderground.com/).

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Interval Signals + Radio Astronomy = Bliss

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Yesterday, I spent part of the better part of the day at the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute (PARI): a place that has begun to feel like a home away from home.

As you might imagine, radio astronomy observatories are places with very low levels of radio frequency interference. Since I had a few hours on the PARI campus to play radio, I used it as an opportunity to evaluate the CCRadio-EP Pro‘s AM/mediumwave performance.

For comparison purposes, I packed the CCRadio-EP Pro, Tecsun PL-660 and (for kicks) my Sony ICF-5500W.

Now isn’t the ICF-5500W a handsome boy?

I’ll post some of the CCRadio-EP Pro videos in my final review.

Though it was immense fun tuning through the AM broadcast band right through the gray line,  being an SWL, I eventually turned to the shortwaves. The only shortwave radio I had on hand was the amazing little Tecsun PL-660. Conditions weren’t as bad as I had expected–propagation was decent and did I mention no noise?

After tuning around a bit, I happened upon one of my favorite interval signals: that of the Voice of Turkey.

Everything around me–all that was on my mind–simply took a backseat to the simple pleasure of listening to an interval signal on a cool, foggy spring evening surrounded by the beauty of PARI’s campus and those giant radio telescopes.

Though the feeling was nearly impossible to capture, I did make a recording to share with SWLing Post friends and readers from around the world. I hope you enjoy:

Click here to watch on YouTube.

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RSGB and WWII Voluntary Interceptors

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(Source: Southgate ARC)

WWII role of the RSGB and Voluntary Interceptors

A new RSGB web page highlights the role of Voluntary Interceptors in the Second World War and the crucial involvement of the Society

At the outbreak of WWII in 1939 MI5 established a unit known as the Radio Security Service (RSS) to detect and monitor enemy radio transmissions. The RSGB were approached to help pick and recruit radio amateurs with advanced Morse skills. These volunteers became known as the Voluntary Interceptors.

Read the RSGB story at
http://rsgb.org/main/about-us/national-radio-centre-gb3rs/the-role-of-the-rsgb-and-voluntary-interceptors/

The former President of the Chelmsford Amateur Radio Society, Harry Heap G5HF (SK), was a Voluntary Interceptor, further information at
http://g0mwt.org.uk/society/g5hf-sk/g5hf.htm

Click here to read at the Southgate ARC.

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RadioWorld: “Radio Caroline Returns to Its Roots”

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(Source: RadioWorld via Mike Hansgen)

The station is now operating 24 hours seven days a week on AM

NEAR COLCHESTER, England — Well into its second half-century of broadcasting, Radio Caroline has begun the next phase of its operations, returning to wide-area AM transmissions for the first time in nearly 30 years. Although by no means the first offshore radio station (that honor probably goes to one of the gambling ships that operated off the coast of California back in the mid-1930s), it is nevertheless the archetypical “pirate” station and one of the most famous names in European broadcasting.

[…]Under its new license, Radio Caroline is permitted to broadcast with a radiated power of 1 kW, not a particularly high-power service in terms of its earlier offshore activities. However, given the lack of incoming interference on the frequency, and its long-wavelength signals, the result is effective coverage that, in practice, for many listeners is larger than planning criteria might suggest.

In many ways, Radio Caroline has both kept up with the times in terms of the broadcasting technologies it uses and come full circle with its recent return to AM broadcasting.[…]

Click here to read the full article via RadioWorld.

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Email restored!

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Dear Post readers: If you tried to contact me yesterday, you likely received a “Message not delivered” reply.

After turning off our old web server yesterday morning, I discovered late in the day that our “MX” records (which route email) did not convey with the DNS settings. Our host updated the records and it seems email has been back as of 03:00 UTC today.

This was the only major snag after our server migration, so I count us quite lucky!

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