[00:02.980 --> 00:04.860]  Greetings and thanks for coming to HOPE X.
[00:06.960 --> 00:18.640]  This talk, Shortwave Pirate Radio and Oddities of the Spectrum, is I think in line with some of the other stuff at HOPE because we cover the oddities that you're just not going to hear at any other conference.
[00:18.900 --> 00:21.160]  I've known Andy Yoder for a long time.
[00:21.380 --> 00:30.680]  He's written several books about shortwave pirate radio and he's just an overall really nice guy and is extremely knowledgeable about this topic.
[00:31.060 --> 00:34.520]  And I'm really pleased that he came to HOPE X.
[00:34.560 --> 00:35.860]  He came to HOPE 10 years ago.
[00:36.020 --> 00:39.980]  And I finally, after many years, all the planets lined up for him to come.
[00:40.200 --> 00:43.360]  So I want to introduce my friend, Andy Yoder.
[00:50.500 --> 00:57.700]  I guess the first question that I have is how many people listen to shortwave radio or have really listened to shortwave radio?
[00:59.680 --> 01:00.900]  Okay, a good many.
[01:01.040 --> 01:04.680]  More than I thought and maybe a little bit more than I planned for.
[01:05.440 --> 01:24.820]  I have... This is kind of a basic presentation on shortwave pirate radio and hopefully for those of you who maybe have listened to a lot of shortwave or a lot of pirates in the past will bear with it and it won't be too much information that you already know about.
[01:26.120 --> 01:34.740]  So, of course, my goal with this presentation is to educate you about a topic that I've been interested in and that I find fascinating.
[01:35.240 --> 01:46.800]  And I try to be at least a little bit entertaining, but really, I hate public speaking and my real goal is just to get through this without winding up on a YouTube Ultimate Fails compilation.
[01:49.060 --> 01:56.780]  So, I thought the best way to start with a talk on pirate radio would be to start with what got me interested in the topic to begin with.
[01:56.780 --> 02:14.480]  And I did a test run on this presentation last night and my wife and daughter said that I need to let you know that I have clips and stuff coming and that it's not just some experiences from when I was like 13 years old.
[02:15.780 --> 02:18.980]  But my first encounter with pirate radio occurred when I was 13.
[02:19.480 --> 02:26.880]  My mom took me to the brand new mall for my birthday and it was the first one in the area so it was like a new big thing.
[02:27.300 --> 02:33.120]  While looking through the magazines of Walden's, I found one of the last issues of S9 before they went belly up.
[02:33.840 --> 02:45.880]  S9 was a CB magazine that took off during the trucker craze of the 70s and it was on its death throes when everyone had finally gotten tired of saying good buddy and talking about Smokies.
[02:47.760 --> 02:52.680]  They cut much of the CB material in an effort to stay afloat by that point.
[02:53.620 --> 02:56.860]  Among the new material was a column on shortwave pirate radio.
[02:56.860 --> 03:05.800]  I saw radio cars from pirate stations around the United States and read about stations like the Voice of the Pyramids, Radio Indiana, and KRKY.
[03:06.260 --> 03:19.700]  And stuff that I just didn't really would have... I wouldn't have expected would have existed because I just assumed that you throw a station on the air and start broadcasting and somebody's going to show up at your door to close you down.
[03:19.840 --> 03:21.020]  But that wasn't quite the case.
[03:21.800 --> 03:29.180]  I love the idea that these mystery stations were on the air in spite of the government agents who were out there trying to close them down.
[03:29.780 --> 03:36.520]  One of my best friends got a Halicrafters SX-28A receiver and that was a 65 pound tube radio.
[03:36.820 --> 03:41.440]  It was used on Navy ships and in FCC monitoring stations during World War II.
[03:41.980 --> 03:48.160]  We sit around in his basement and listen to international broadcasters and talk about pirate radio stations.
[03:49.160 --> 03:55.340]  I had a Zenith AM FM radio and it was just one of the ones like a tabletop that you would have in your kitchen.
[03:56.040 --> 03:58.960]  But I was impatient to hear shortwave on my own radio.
[04:00.480 --> 04:09.120]  I don't know where I read this but I read somewhere that radio tuning was controlled by the capacitance of the tuning capacitor.
[04:09.120 --> 04:16.220]  So I thought maybe if I could just change the value of the capacitor that I could get shortwave stations on my AM radio.
[04:16.680 --> 04:18.140]  Which again sounds dumb.
[04:18.500 --> 04:20.460]  But here's my warning.
[04:20.760 --> 04:21.960]  Do not do this.
[04:22.140 --> 04:23.620]  Do not try this at home.
[04:25.000 --> 04:28.540]  Basically this is so stupid it might just work scenario.
[04:29.100 --> 04:33.360]  And I jammed a screwdriver blade into different areas of the tuning capacitor.
[04:33.360 --> 04:39.340]  So more than once I hit the wrong wire and shot blue sparks across the floor.
[04:40.240 --> 04:46.060]  But when I hit the right place I could hear international broadcasters mixed in with AM stations.
[04:46.540 --> 04:50.340]  And then when I hit a different place it was just shortwave stations.
[04:51.240 --> 04:56.280]  But I didn't have a good way to hold the screwdriver in place so I just kind of held it.
[04:56.280 --> 05:01.320]  So I listened late at night with an antenna wire in my mouth and...
[05:03.160 --> 05:07.280]  Because I didn't have a good antenna so I was using myself as an antenna.
[05:07.760 --> 05:10.960]  Trying to get the best signal while holding the screwdriver in place.
[05:11.800 --> 05:25.580]  With this health hazard shortwave system I heard Radio Moscow and the Voice of America, BBC, Voice of Nigeria, Radio Peking and many more legal stations.
[05:25.580 --> 05:27.820]  But I still hadn't heard any pirates.
[05:28.680 --> 05:34.420]  Eventually I saved up enough money to get my own receiver and I was able to start seriously listening.
[05:34.880 --> 05:39.500]  It took a few months of checking around the bands and getting my bearings on things.
[05:39.660 --> 05:45.160]  But when I heard my first pirate WRAM in 1983 it was pretty exciting.
[05:45.560 --> 05:48.500]  The second pirate that I heard was Radio Clandestine.
[05:48.500 --> 05:57.920]  They were a station with a big signal that they were kind of a professional sounding underground 70s rock station.
[05:58.700 --> 06:03.120]  Radio Clandestine claimed to be broadcasting from a board of ships in international waters.
[06:03.800 --> 06:11.960]  They had a big signal in North America and they liked to transmit hour long shows right after a licensed shortwave station would sign off.
[06:11.960 --> 06:16.070]  So it meshed right in with all of the licensed international stations.
[06:16.500 --> 06:23.020]  And it surprised a lot of listeners because they thought they were listening to maybe Radio Prague or something.
[06:23.240 --> 06:24.940]  And here was Radio Clandestine.
[06:25.220 --> 06:34.780]  So I have an audio clip of Radio Clandestine and here is a letter from the station that I received back in 83.
[06:38.580 --> 06:41.840]  And I need to get this at the right place.
[06:42.880 --> 06:47.560]  This is RF Burns for the staff and management of Radio Clandestine.
[06:47.780 --> 06:54.700]  We now dig into our files for the utmost in musical enjoyment for you, our valued shortwave listeners.
[06:55.180 --> 07:04.180]  And we feature this artist for this hour from your bootleg radio station, Radio Clandestine.
[07:13.700 --> 07:22.500]  Another of the first pirates that I heard was KPRC and they operated on 1616 kilohertz, just above the AM dial at the time.
[07:22.860 --> 07:26.500]  It's since changed and now the top would be more like 1710.
[07:27.480 --> 07:38.560]  KPRC broadcast the talk show format with liberal politics and lots of call-ins through a variety of telco loop numbers, which I'm sure would interest a lot of the people here at HOPE.
[07:39.720 --> 07:42.820]  KPRC was raided by the FCC in the spring of 1984.
[07:43.580 --> 07:53.300]  At that time, it was discovered that the pirate was operating from the facilities of WOZI, WOZW, which was a licensed station in Monticello, Maine.
[07:54.180 --> 08:10.780]  They would... what would happen was the station personnel would shut down the station for the night at midnight, and then they would connect a World War II era military surplus BC610 transmitter to the station's antenna, and would broadcast an hour or two per month... or I mean,
[08:10.900 --> 08:12.840]  sorry, a broadcast or two per month.
[08:13.060 --> 08:15.700]  Often the shows would run maybe four hours.
[08:15.900 --> 08:20.300]  And they would do that after they would sign off... sign the license station off for the night.
[08:21.160 --> 08:37.920]  Unfortunately, I have some... I do have some audio from KPRC that I recorded, but the signals weren't too good because I'm from western Pennsylvania, and the signal from the very tip of Maine wasn't great into... into western PA.
[08:37.920 --> 08:44.260]  But I have a different station that also broadcasts from right around the same time.
[08:44.480 --> 08:57.500]  A station that I heard a little bit later called WDX, and they were thought to be from the New York City area, and they also featured a lot of telephone call-ins by Telco Loop.
[08:58.760 --> 09:05.720]  And this is WDX from... this was from January of 1984.
[09:07.960 --> 09:16.320]  Ontario, Canada, North Carolina, from Cape Cod to western Ohio, the entertainment and informational needs of listeners everywhere.
[09:17.480 --> 09:24.280]  1620 is the place to be for music on Live Mike with Pirate Mike, and Pirates of the Caribbean with Pirate Jack.
[09:24.860 --> 09:34.540]  At midnight, listeners are invited to participate on the WDX Pirate Line, the call-in show which lets our audience express their feelings and opinions on any topic.
[09:35.720 --> 09:44.420]  If you would like to write to us for information or a QSL card, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to WDX Radio.
[09:46.980 --> 09:53.040]  And that was a recording that I made just on a boombox with the loop antenna inside.
[09:53.040 --> 09:57.180]  It wasn't any... it wasn't any special radio system.
[09:57.360 --> 10:02.200]  So, as you can see, they had really a pretty good signal into western Pennsylvania at that time.
[10:02.960 --> 10:03.760]  After the talk.
[10:05.980 --> 10:08.660]  Again, for me, it was really cool to hear these stations.
[10:08.860 --> 10:21.300]  I would... after like a late night of listening to them, I would excitedly tell my friends the next day about all the stuff that I heard, and, you know, wondering what was going on behind the scenes of all this.
[10:22.540 --> 10:24.020]  And even... that's the thing.
[10:24.160 --> 10:29.500]  Even when the programming wasn't exciting at the moment, like, I think that these two clips were kind of entertaining.
[10:29.780 --> 10:34.220]  But you never knew what would happen next, even if the station really wasn't that exciting.
[10:35.260 --> 10:38.560]  And I found that aspect to be both exciting and refreshing.
[10:39.100 --> 10:43.900]  And a lot of stuff has changed, uh, technologically and otherwise, in the past 30 years.
[10:44.160 --> 10:49.040]  But, uh, this aspect of pirate radio has really kept me fascinated with the hobby the whole time.
[10:50.260 --> 10:56.660]  Okay, so, this presentation isn't just on pirate radio, but also on some oddities of the spectrum.
[10:57.060 --> 11:02.280]  Um, so, if you haven't heard shortwave, you won't really know what's an oddity and what's normal.
[11:03.060 --> 11:11.920]  Um, so, let's go back in time about 80 more years before this, and everything will get blurry or wavy, and when it gets back in focus, you'll know you're there.
[11:14.180 --> 11:22.360]  Um, the first... what is often considered to be the first broadcast was by Reginald Fessenden in 1906.
[11:22.840 --> 11:33.900]  And he, uh, put a little broadcast on the air of some, some, uh, just a few different things, like a song that he played off of a record and some things like that.
[11:33.900 --> 11:41.560]  But, in the next 15 years from that point, um, a number of amateur radio operators from around the country were experimenting with broadcasting.
[11:41.960 --> 11:46.060]  Uh, both music and community news, just for their little hometown area.
[11:46.540 --> 11:50.460]  Uh, at the same time, the Navy was also very interested in radio.
[11:50.980 --> 11:59.160]  And, if you know anything about the Titanic, you'll understand why the Navy wanted a large amount of spectrum space and transmitters on every ship.
[11:59.160 --> 12:03.760]  Um, by the 1920s, radio broadcasting exploded.
[12:04.080 --> 12:10.020]  Uh, for example, on March 10th of 1922, there were 67 broadcasting stations.
[12:10.320 --> 12:13.920]  And by 1926, there were 536.
[12:14.720 --> 12:24.560]  So, it just exploded kind of like, uh, how the Internet has taken off, uh, between, you know, from 1994 to 1998.
[12:25.380 --> 12:32.760]  Um, one problem with everything was that in the early days, no one had yet developed vacuum tube oscillators.
[12:32.900 --> 12:38.300]  And the problem was... the result was that stations could only transmit on a small chunk of low frequencies.
[12:39.280 --> 12:45.300]  Another problem was that transmitters at the time were not exactly filtered and receivers were not exactly selective.
[12:45.680 --> 12:50.860]  The result was that one station on the air might occupy about a third of the broadcast band.
[12:50.860 --> 12:54.980]  So, you can imagine, uh, what that would be like in a place like New York City.
[12:55.180 --> 13:00.800]  It's one thing, if it was in the middle of Iowa, there might only be two stations on the air.
[13:00.900 --> 13:05.000]  And it wasn't hard for the stations to, uh, not cause interference with each other.
[13:05.200 --> 13:09.320]  But along the coast, especially, uh, the bands were a mess.
[13:10.120 --> 13:18.380]  Uh, so, by the 1920s, uh, radio listening had become a hobby, somewhat like a high-tech version of stamp collecting.
[13:18.380 --> 13:23.620]  And people across the country stayed up late at night, uh, trying to hear as many stations as possible.
[13:24.240 --> 13:27.640]  And writing for radio stamps and cards from the stations.
[13:27.980 --> 13:33.680]  It was such a fad that even movie stars participated in contests to hear the most difficult stations.
[13:34.080 --> 13:46.060]  Which is kind of hard to imagine now, and it makes me try to think of a modern-day radio listening contest with Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus trying to battle each other for who could hear the most difficult station.
[13:46.320 --> 13:55.620]  Um, the radio listening hobby, which is called DXing because DX was a radio abbreviation for distance, also brought about pirates.
[13:56.770 --> 14:04.320]  Although unlicensed broadcasts occurred back to the days of Fessenden, uh, the first pirate broadcast that I found documented was from 1925.
[14:04.320 --> 14:16.360]  I found a newspaper that described how during one of these contests, uh, some pirate in the Midwest broadcast music and used a fake English accent and the call sign of an English station.
[14:16.940 --> 14:22.340]  Um, the article said that hundreds of people were fooled into thinking that they'd heard their first transatlantic station.
[14:22.980 --> 14:26.180]  And, uh, apparently a lot of people were not amused by that.
[14:27.820 --> 14:32.720]  Um, so now to jump ahead a little bit so that I don't spend all my time on radio history.
[14:32.720 --> 14:40.240]  Uh, in the early days, the Navy wanted transmitters on every ship, the public wanted entertainment, and amateurs wanted to experiment.
[14:40.700 --> 14:45.540]  All were fighting over just a limited amount of space, and they were all interfering with each other.
[14:45.960 --> 14:53.060]  So, uh, the bands just sound like a mess of Morse code from both Navy and amateur stations, and that was all mixed in with music.
[14:53.980 --> 14:57.900]  The radio spectrum, uh, began to be regulated at that point.
[14:58.060 --> 15:04.700]  The Navy and the broadcasters took the prime frequencies, and the amateurs were given the worthless frequencies above the AM band.
[15:05.280 --> 15:13.560]  The only thing is that this range was actually usable for longer distances than those that the Navy took, or the AM broadcast band, for that matter.
[15:14.120 --> 15:20.680]  Um, everyone eventually figured out that the amateur frequencies, called shortwave at the time, were extremely valuable.
[15:21.320 --> 15:35.240]  Uh, before long, this huge swath of radio spectrum was subdivided into different bands, and some of these bands were used for shortwave broadcasting, some for amateur radio, some for military communications, some for aeronautical beacons, and, uh, then,
[15:35.600 --> 15:41.520]  uh, above the CB band, there was a section that was, uh, dedicated to diathermy equipment.
[15:41.520 --> 15:46.260]  So there was a lot of different weird things that were, uh, placed onto shortwave.
[15:46.980 --> 15:54.840]  Um, so, the first digital mode was Morse code, and that dated back to the days of the telegraph.
[15:55.120 --> 16:02.260]  But in the 1920s, radio experimenters had invented different methods of transmitting television and also fax.
[16:02.720 --> 16:18.720]  A lot of people think that, uh, television went back to the, uh, just the 1950s, like maybe 1950, but actually, uh, regular TV broadcasting went back to 1939, and before that, they were experimenting with TV as early as, uh, the late 20s.
[16:19.200 --> 16:22.920]  Um, and early fax was transmitted by radio.
[16:23.160 --> 16:25.300]  Usually, you just think of it as by telephone.
[16:26.000 --> 16:33.840]  And, uh, uh, one of the, the concepts behind fax was that people would be able to get their newspapers by fax.
[16:34.080 --> 16:45.400]  That they would, uh, uh, set their radio to a certain frequency and then, uh, turn on their, their newspaper printer and go to bed that night and wake up in the morning and have a newspaper.
[16:45.920 --> 16:56.480]  But, uh, uh, unfortunately, it wasn't so much the technology that was a problem, but more the, the, uh, um, you know, how do you work that out with revenue for newspapers.
[16:57.700 --> 17:08.510]  Um, so now it seems like as good a time as any to play a few audio clips, uh, from different digital modes and different, just kind of odd things you might find across the, the band.
[17:09.160 --> 17:12.790]  Um, this small selection of clips isn't con-, comprehensive at all.
[17:13.010 --> 17:18.880]  Uh, but this week I was spinning through the, the dials and I rec-, recorded a few segments as I passed through.
[17:19.290 --> 17:25.250]  And also, uh, I found a couple of things while I was digging for some of this archive audio, like from WDX.
[17:26.460 --> 17:29.580]  So, this is, uh, scrambled voice.
[17:30.210 --> 17:37.490]  And this is, uh, uh, uh, this is, uh, uh, military of, of some sort.
[17:37.840 --> 17:38.730]  Uh, probably U.S.
[17:57.310 --> 17:59.490]  Oh, that's not a lot of fun to listen to at that volume.
[18:04.970 --> 18:06.430]  Here's some radio teletype.
[18:06.730 --> 18:14.990]  And, uh, um, for the next couple here, uh, radio telet-, well, I don't know about Link 11, but, uh, that and STANAG, uh, 4285.
[18:15.250 --> 18:25.650]  Uh, whenever they, uh, imagine whenever you're watching a TV show and they're talking about typing something and they show something typing, or somebody typing on the screen.
[18:25.950 --> 18:32.250]  Um, this is about how fast, uh, the radio teletype and, uh, STANAG 4285 come through.
[18:32.510 --> 18:40.050]  They're just, uh, um, different systems of, of, uh, uh, delivering simple messages.
[18:40.050 --> 18:42.090]  And this is radio teletype.
[18:54.450 --> 18:54.970]  And...
[18:56.290 --> 18:57.550]  this is Link 11.
[18:58.090 --> 19:01.330]  Um, from everything I've read, this is used by, uh, NATO.
[19:16.800 --> 19:25.120]  Okay, I'm not sure who all uses STANAG 4285, but I've seen, uh, uh, some of the decodes were from, uh, uh, French Navy ships.
[19:25.460 --> 19:30.460]  Basically just telling basic stuff about their coordinates and, and things like that.
[19:44.810 --> 19:45.330]  But...
[19:45.830 --> 19:47.950]  Okay, here's some, uh, airport communications.
[19:48.330 --> 19:50.110]  Uh, just, uh, a little sample.
[19:50.350 --> 19:53.090]  This was on, uh, about a week ago.
[19:53.730 --> 19:57.010]  Um, this was, uh, from...
[19:57.570 --> 19:58.790]  Once my cursor comes back.
[19:58.830 --> 20:01.550]  This was from, uh, an airport in Newfoundland.
[20:21.450 --> 20:23.530]  Uh, actually I don't know.
[20:23.810 --> 20:28.490]  Because for most of these, I mean, I kind of have an interest in this a little bit.
[20:28.710 --> 20:37.050]  But, uh, for most of these, these are the, the noise sources that I hear on the band, uh, that I'm avoiding so that I can listen to pirates.
[20:37.050 --> 20:41.630]  So, uh, uh, I don't pay as much attention to them as some people.
[20:41.930 --> 20:47.170]  And, um, there are some sites that really get into what all the, the data's are.
[20:48.450 --> 20:49.410]  Um, one...
[20:49.410 --> 20:52.270]  Okay, those were really pretty much normal stations.
[20:52.890 --> 20:54.930]  Uh, some kind of strange stations.
[20:55.110 --> 20:56.270]  One is Yosemite Sam.
[20:56.510 --> 20:57.950]  At least that's what it's been called.
[20:58.370 --> 21:02.470]  Uh, the three over on the, the right hand column, uh, down.
[21:03.250 --> 21:05.570]  Um, not SSTV, but the other three.
[21:05.570 --> 21:10.670]  Uh, those are all mystery stations that nobody really knows what they are, what they're for.
[21:11.390 --> 21:16.430]  Um, there are some theories about them, but these are the, the strange stations.
[21:16.770 --> 21:19.690]  Uh, Yosemite Sam uses, uh, or used.
[21:19.850 --> 21:22.750]  It was on for just a little while for like 24 hours a day.
[21:22.910 --> 21:31.150]  And it was a repeating clip of Yosemite Sam from, uh, uh, a clip of, uh, of him from the cartoon Bunker Hill Bunny.
[21:31.150 --> 21:34.010]  And, uh, and then there's data in between.
[21:34.450 --> 21:36.030]  And this is what it sounded like.
[21:55.520 --> 22:00.740]  Okay, the next one was a lot the same, except there wasn't a data burst in it.
[22:00.740 --> 22:11.160]  And I, I tuned through when there was a, uh, there was not quite a contest, but it was an international pirate radio day.
[22:11.480 --> 22:19.940]  And so, uh, pirate stations from around the world, uh, were broadcasting and hoping that people from around the world would tune in.
[22:19.940 --> 22:25.080]  And there, so, there were stations in Europe that were heard in India for the first time.
[22:25.440 --> 22:27.940]  And, uh, a lot of different places like that.
[22:28.100 --> 22:33.480]  And, and there's, there's some shortwave listeners who don't necessarily listen to pirates a whole lot.
[22:33.620 --> 22:39.460]  But they're like, oh, hey, there's, uh, a, uh, a pirate thing going on, so I'm just gonna tune in.
[22:39.640 --> 22:47.820]  So, um, this was down, uh, nearby, but not too far from, uh, where some of these stations were on the air.
[22:47.820 --> 22:55.840]  So I don't know if it was a, uh, a pirate station that was putting something on that sounded kind of like Yosemite Sam.
[22:56.160 --> 23:00.100]  Or if maybe there was, if it was a military station or what.
[23:00.260 --> 23:08.120]  But it broadcast, um, this message, um, and then it had 20 seconds of dead air.
[23:08.440 --> 23:10.300]  And then it repeated the message again.
[23:10.300 --> 23:13.180]  And it went on for, I heard it for about five hours.
[23:13.200 --> 23:16.620]  So I don't know exactly how long it, it did this.
[23:17.160 --> 23:19.320]  But, uh, it was on for a while.
[23:20.760 --> 23:23.180]  Get your dark suit and greasy wash water all year.
[23:23.460 --> 23:25.540]  Don't ask me to carry an annoying rag like that.
[23:25.740 --> 23:28.480]  I use an aggressive policeman to flag thoughtless motorists.
[23:41.720 --> 23:51.240]  So, it doesn't really sound like much anything, but if you do a search on these, these are phrases that are used to pick up different dialects from around the United States.
[23:51.840 --> 23:58.640]  And, uh, that, uh, I didn't realize that there were, uh, set phrases to, uh, to pick up different dialects.
[23:58.720 --> 24:00.300]  But, that's what they're used for.
[24:00.480 --> 24:03.100]  So, it's an, uh, these are linguistic tools.
[24:03.360 --> 24:10.160]  And why somebody would transmit them over and over and over again on shortwave, I have no idea.
[24:10.160 --> 24:12.480]  So, I guess that's part of the mystery.
[24:13.360 --> 24:16.100]  And, uh, the next one is Backwards Music Station.
[24:16.920 --> 24:23.740]  And it's, uh, it's another digital, um, uh, digitally encrypted format of some sort.
[24:23.900 --> 24:28.120]  And I, I guess it's data, but I don't know if it could be something else or not.
[24:28.120 --> 24:33.140]  You know, I don't know if there's voice in it or, or anything else, but it sounds like this.
[25:13.290 --> 25:15.410]  Okay, well, I guess I had that a little longer than I should have.
[25:15.830 --> 25:23.350]  Um, but, uh, uh, some people also call that a, uh, the, uh, a whale call station for obvious reasons.
[25:23.790 --> 25:28.170]  Um, and a lot of people were kind of interested in that one just because it's so weird.
[25:28.330 --> 25:29.930]  That's why I recorded it to begin with.
[25:29.930 --> 25:32.370]  I recorded that one about four years ago.
[25:32.570 --> 25:39.170]  I think it was, uh, it was, uh, broadcasting on the, or transmitting on the edge of where a lot of the pirates, uh, broadcast.
[25:39.510 --> 25:43.670]  So, I tuned across and was like, eh, I might as well record that because it's so weird.
[25:44.350 --> 25:50.430]  Uh, and now the last one here is, uh, slow scan television, SSTV.
[25:50.830 --> 25:52.130]  And there's my cursor.
[26:06.840 --> 26:10.040]  And that's one sound that I know very well because...
[26:12.360 --> 26:14.720]  It's not, uh, not actually a TV.
[26:15.120 --> 26:18.920]  It's more like, just like, uh, JPEGs for radio.
[26:19.540 --> 26:23.380]  So, you can actually transmit JPEGs on the radio.
[26:23.680 --> 26:33.860]  And so, obviously, it's a really popular one with pirates because they can broadcast a program and then put on their station logo either before or after the show.
[26:33.860 --> 26:37.900]  So, that one was from Wolverine Radio, which is a pirate.
[26:38.380 --> 26:44.700]  And, uh, and I have one of the, an image of the SSTV from Wolverine Radio right there.
[26:47.300 --> 26:52.720]  So, um, getting back to, uh, the twenties and thirties.
[26:52.920 --> 27:03.640]  Um, most pirates at that time were, aside from that hoax station, uh, were unlicensed AM band stations that were broadcasting from, uh, a town like a regular station.
[27:03.780 --> 27:07.340]  A lot of times they were on from maybe, uh, really small towns.
[27:07.720 --> 27:19.180]  And either they couldn't get a license or they were, um, maybe doing it because they didn't like the, the government interference and were just like, well, I can put a radio station on the air so I will.
[27:19.840 --> 27:23.080]  Um, and they tried to hide the fact that they were unlicensed.
[27:23.080 --> 27:26.740]  And a lot of times they were operated by local businesses.
[27:27.160 --> 27:31.000]  Um, so, they just sounded like a, regular radio station.
[27:31.220 --> 27:35.480]  Probably most of the people assumed that they were a licensed radio station.
[27:35.780 --> 27:41.540]  I've seen some, uh, reports of stations like that that were broadcasting from coal mines.
[27:41.820 --> 27:45.980]  So, they were just the, the, a local station.
[27:46.760 --> 27:51.220]  Uh, one exception to this was WUMS, which started in 1925.
[27:51.220 --> 27:56.180]  And they sometimes went by the slogan, uh, we're unlicensed mystery station.
[27:56.480 --> 28:00.500]  So, obviously, that was very different from those other stations.
[28:01.020 --> 28:15.660]  Uh, station operator Dave Thomas, uh, not, not the Wendy's Dave Thomas, um, he, uh, broadcast, he had emergency flood, uh, broadcast warnings, uh, from near the High River because he lived right at the High River.
[28:15.660 --> 28:20.280]  So, he was trying to do some community service work on, uh, kind of a temporary basis.
[28:20.280 --> 28:25.540]  And he also aired tests specifically short, for short-wave, uh, hobbyists.
[28:25.720 --> 28:30.020]  Uh, Thomas sometimes provided advance notice for his tests.
[28:30.340 --> 28:33.840]  And his, uh, operations weren't exactly a secret.
[28:34.320 --> 28:40.520]  Uh, after a while, his broadcasts caught the attention of the FCC, which regulates communications in the United States.
[28:40.960 --> 28:51.420]  Uh, 1930s radio technology was not exactly mobile, so he didn't have a way to just drive around in his car, and, uh, and broadcast or anything like that.
[28:51.740 --> 28:54.100]  Um, and here is a picture.
[28:54.600 --> 28:55.120]  Oops.
[28:55.340 --> 28:56.680]  Oh, here's WUMS.
[28:56.820 --> 28:59.060]  This is a, uh, radio card from WUMS.
[28:59.900 --> 29:02.100]  This one is from, uh, 1948.
[29:02.580 --> 29:07.160]  So, this was near the end of, uh, the station's regular broadcasting, uh, career.
[29:09.320 --> 29:17.540]  And, uh, this is, uh, some transmitting equipment from an amateur radio station in the night, late 1920s.
[29:18.120 --> 29:36.260]  And, uh, yeah, it became miniature, more miniaturized by the 1930s, but still, most ham stations at that time, you would have been looking about this much equipment, and it would have been heavy and really unwieldy for just taking on a backpack or, or anything like that.
[29:36.680 --> 29:37.160]  Um...
[29:37.160 --> 29:38.460]  How big is that?
[29:38.680 --> 29:40.260]  Oh, okay, uh, let's see.
[29:40.540 --> 29:42.240]  The, the bottom part is a desk.
[29:42.960 --> 29:46.620]  Uh, the, the, the, up at the top, you can see a couple of lights.
[29:46.840 --> 29:50.780]  So that, that box at the top, uh, that's probably about this big.
[29:51.720 --> 29:56.980]  So, uh, and you can see some, like, 8x11 plaques in the upper left-hand corner.
[29:58.260 --> 30:02.760]  So it's, it's probably, uh, hundreds of pounds of equipment, at least, right there.
[30:03.400 --> 30:10.780]  Um, so, uh, Dave Thomas had to try to avoid the FCC, even though he was broadcasting like that.
[30:11.040 --> 30:14.480]  So, uh, I haven't, uh, uh, found...
[30:14.480 --> 30:22.480]  Uh, okay, the, uh, I should say the, uh, the rumor is that, uh, he had built a transmitter into a large table.
[30:23.160 --> 30:30.620]  And, uh, I don't know if the power to the transmitter or the antenna led through the antenna legs, but, uh, or through the table legs.
[30:30.800 --> 30:34.920]  But I'm assuming that they both led through separate legs.
[30:35.100 --> 30:40.300]  And when the FCC would arrive, he would bump the table out of place and knock the transmitter off the air.
[30:40.580 --> 30:46.800]  And then the FCC would come in and look around for the transmitter and couldn't find anything because the whole time it was in the table.
[30:47.740 --> 30:54.760]  Um, that, that probably wouldn't fool too many, uh, FCC agents now, but it was pretty clever about 85 years ago.
[30:55.200 --> 31:01.120]  Um, and I also wonder about how the, the connections were, if, if that's actually how it was done.
[31:01.120 --> 31:08.420]  Because, uh, if he had AC power hot on the floor like that, I can't imagine that he would have mopped his floor too often.
[31:11.190 --> 31:18.150]  He wound up, uh, going to civil court a few times before 1950, but he got away with, on technicalities each time.
[31:19.450 --> 31:20.010]  Okay.
[31:20.750 --> 31:21.310]  Next.
[31:22.590 --> 31:24.410]  Here is RXKR.
[31:25.010 --> 31:31.430]  And, uh, in the 1930s, another station caught the attention of the FCC and of the other broadcasters.
[31:31.950 --> 31:38.170]  Uh, RXKR took advantage of loopholes in the rules, and they put a transmitter on a ship, the city of Panama.
[31:38.730 --> 31:41.590]  And it was licensed to the country of Panama.
[31:42.410 --> 31:47.310]  And the idea was that if they were licensed to a different station, then, uh, the U.S. couldn't interfere with them.
[31:48.870 --> 31:57.030]  They sailed out into international waters every morning, uh, from the coast of California, um, to, uh, outside into international waters.
[31:57.190 --> 31:57.970]  Okay, I said that.
[31:58.390 --> 32:03.390]  Um, because the boat was also a floating speakeasy in Casino, uh, the U.S. State Department, uh, pressured Panama to revoke the registry of the ship.
[32:07.030 --> 32:12.790]  Uh, as soon as Panama complied, the state, the ship was towed into custody by U.S. authorities, and that was the end of the station.
[32:15.410 --> 32:23.670]  Uh, part of the pressure for the, the station to go off the air was, they were broadcasting with 500 watts at that time on 815 kilohertz.
[32:23.950 --> 32:30.990]  And, uh, they were, uh, really interfering with stations from Los Angeles on either side of them.
[32:30.990 --> 32:41.110]  Um, and, uh, stations complained to them and to the FCC, and they, uh, they said that they would move to a different frequency for, I believe it was $10,000.
[32:41.870 --> 32:45.710]  So, uh, they had some other things kind of going on there, too.
[32:46.510 --> 32:56.270]  Um, the 1930s gave way to World War II, and in one sense, uh, these were not good years for pirate radio, and they were not good years for a lot of other people, too.
[32:56.930 --> 32:58.430]  Uh, the war consumed everything.
[32:58.430 --> 33:02.050]  The amateur radio band in the United States was closed down.
[33:02.230 --> 33:05.810]  I'm not sure if it's closed down everywhere, but, uh, it was in the United States.
[33:06.050 --> 33:10.130]  And many amateurs, uh, became radio operators in the military.
[33:11.250 --> 33:30.790]  Plenty of illicit stations were on the air from Europe, but these were clandestine stations, which, uh, might be somewhat of a synonym for underground or pirate, uh, to most people, but in the radio sense, radio terminology, clandestine only means that stations that are operated by an opposing government,
[33:31.050 --> 33:35.830]  uh, or military group with the intention of demoralizing or overthrowing the target.
[33:36.570 --> 33:48.750]  Uh, just a few of the stations, uh, the World War II clandestines, clandestines, I'm sorry, uh, included, uh, the new British broadcasting station, Gustav Siegfried Einz, Radio Caledonia, and Radio Atlantic.
[33:49.930 --> 34:08.710]  And, uh, um, although some of these stations claimed to be, uh, broadcasting from either England or Germany by a little underground group that was, um, you know, somehow rallying against the authorities, uh, they were almost all operated by the big, uh,
[34:09.330 --> 34:10.310]  uh, government stations.
[34:10.470 --> 34:18.250]  So, uh, in England, they had a special group to broadcast to, to Germany with, uh, a whole bunch of different stations.
[34:18.630 --> 34:20.830]  And, uh, the same thing for, for Germany.
[34:21.110 --> 34:25.150]  So, this is, uh, one of the, uh, Nazi systems.
[34:25.330 --> 34:31.850]  This was the, the Zeeson, uh, transmitter, uh, or antenna form, uh, near Berlin.
[34:32.530 --> 34:39.050]  So, some of these stations, uh, were being broadcast to England from, uh, places like this.
[34:39.850 --> 34:45.330]  They weren't at all like somebody running around in a van, uh, broadcasting or anything.
[34:46.930 --> 34:54.710]  Um, famous underground groups, such as the French, Dutch, and Polish, transmitted coded messages, either to each other or to England.
[34:55.010 --> 34:58.030]  Uh, you've seen all that kind of stuff in the, in the movies.
[34:58.630 --> 35:00.550]  Um, but they didn't broadcast programming.
[35:01.590 --> 35:06.590]  Uh, World War II required fast-moving armies, intelligence, and communications over long distances.
[35:07.050 --> 35:16.550]  Uh, the war greatly advanced the miniaturization and portability of electronics, but, and on the other hand, it also sharpened the FCC's abilities to direction-find radio stations.
[35:16.750 --> 35:21.110]  Because the FCC had a huge network, uh, going on in the, in the U.S.
[35:21.210 --> 35:29.050]  And they were able to track down some, uh, German spies that were, uh, feeding back information from here.
[35:29.870 --> 35:40.950]  Um, and here is, uh, uh, just a snapshot from someone in the German army, uh, looking at one of their, uh, just, uh, field communication.
[35:40.950 --> 35:42.670]  Radio stations in the field.
[35:43.290 --> 35:45.850]  Um, one of them is a receiver.
[35:46.030 --> 35:47.050]  The other one's a transmitter.
[35:47.210 --> 35:47.890]  They work together.
[35:48.230 --> 35:49.970]  And the antenna is on top.
[35:50.250 --> 35:54.230]  And as you can see, the, the equipment here really has been miniaturized.
[35:54.470 --> 35:56.030]  And it's, it's not small.
[35:56.150 --> 35:57.530]  You're not going to hide it in your pocket.
[35:57.570 --> 36:01.210]  But you're also going to, you will be able to just pick it up.
[36:01.310 --> 36:02.510]  You can see the handles on it.
[36:02.670 --> 36:06.610]  And two guys could carry it around and, uh, and transmit.
[36:06.610 --> 36:12.090]  And that, uh, that kind of led into the next era.
[36:12.710 --> 36:27.690]  And although I don't know of any pirates who operated during World War II, um, one of the key points of this discussion is that shortwave radio is sometimes dismissed by government budget cutters as just a quaint, obsolete medium.
[36:27.690 --> 36:31.330]  And pirates have been dismissed for years as kids playing radio.
[36:31.810 --> 36:38.870]  But if you read the personal accounts of World War II or watch movies, uh, one of the key things that comes up is broadcasting.
[36:39.130 --> 36:40.730]  And it's usually by the BBC.
[36:41.350 --> 36:47.030]  Um, the BBC was the lifeblood of freedom at that time for people in Europe and around the world.
[36:47.330 --> 36:51.130]  Um, and people risked their lives many times to hear the BBC.
[36:51.130 --> 37:04.170]  So even though the Axis controlled the skies of Europe, uh, along with the governments, the press, the roads, the seas, they couldn't stop shortwave radio signals from entering their territory.
[37:04.810 --> 37:05.790]  And they did try.
[37:06.370 --> 37:08.970]  Today, the Internet is the information highway.
[37:09.510 --> 37:15.850]  More music, newspapers, magazines, and opinions can be found on the Internet than have ever been published in any given year.
[37:15.850 --> 37:23.590]  But with just the click of a button, sites can be removed or blocked, postings can be traced, and posters can be jailed.
[37:24.090 --> 37:29.690]  If you travel to North Korea, um, you won't be accessing the Internet or your smartphone.
[37:30.110 --> 37:34.590]  You won't be accessing any unrestricted media unless you own a shortwave radio.
[37:34.590 --> 37:43.990]  Because Kim Jong-un can, uh, stop anything from happening in his country, except, uh, he can't stop Dennis Rodman from making a fool of himself.
[37:44.310 --> 37:46.190]  And he can't stop shortwave signals.
[37:48.430 --> 37:55.190]  I'm not saying that shortwave radio or pirate radio makes a healthy democracy, but I do feel that it's a component of one.
[37:56.350 --> 38:03.550]  So, going back to World War II, uh, the directions of pirate radio went in the next era are difficult to explain.
[38:03.750 --> 38:04.930]  In Holland, it exploded.
[38:05.350 --> 38:10.050]  Starting in the 50s, dozens of pirates sprung up using abandoned and surplus U.S. military transmitters from the war.
[38:12.030 --> 38:17.350]  These stations were often operating relatively in the open with the support of their town.
[38:17.350 --> 38:26.230]  And I've heard stories about, um, these stations, they would set up a, a big tent in their town and bring the transmitter out.
[38:26.410 --> 38:37.190]  And they would play polka music and the whole town would dance around while they, uh, while they, uh, uh, drank beer and, and did pirate broadcasting.
[38:37.890 --> 38:40.810]  Uh, which sounds kind of strange.
[38:40.810 --> 38:49.190]  Uh, here is a BC610 transmitter, the kind that, uh, uh, that, uh, KPRC used.
[38:49.710 --> 38:55.350]  Uh, this one wasn't used by a pirate, but it is one that was left behind in Europe.
[38:55.550 --> 39:01.190]  And it was used by, or it is being used by, uh, an amateur radio operator in Europe.
[39:01.810 --> 39:08.590]  Um, and in the United States and Canada, it's been nearly impossible to find a mention of pirate radio in the 50s.
[39:08.590 --> 39:18.170]  Uh, instead the roots of modern day North American pirate radio, uh, seems to be the little kit transmitters that were used to relay the record player to the hi-fi set.
[39:18.730 --> 39:23.110]  Um, these were called phono oscillators or sometimes home broadcasters.
[39:23.410 --> 39:27.970]  And it seems like most of our 60s and 70s pirates got their start from these kits.
[39:30.050 --> 39:36.550]  And, um, this is station KOS from Cleveland, uh, from 1966.
[39:37.070 --> 39:40.550]  Uh, these guys have graduated up from those little kits.
[39:40.670 --> 39:46.050]  They have a really pretty, uh, nice setup here for, especially for 1966 with the dual turntables.
[39:46.270 --> 39:49.210]  We've got other equipment in the back that I can't see what it is.
[39:49.310 --> 39:50.510]  Uh, and a reel-to-reel.
[39:50.630 --> 39:53.490]  No, I think there are two reel-to-reels, um, back there.
[39:53.670 --> 39:56.410]  So, these guys had, uh, moved along pretty well.
[39:56.610 --> 39:59.550]  And this was pretty advanced in the United States for 1966.
[40:00.950 --> 40:09.070]  Um, in the British Isles, on the other hand, and other parts of Europe, the next step was commercial, high-budget, ship-based broadcasting from international waters.
[40:09.550 --> 40:14.410]  Uh, this is well-documented, and you might have even seen a movie or other things about it.
[40:14.890 --> 40:18.830]  Uh, this is Radio Nord Sea International, uh, card from the station.
[40:19.350 --> 40:22.670]  And, uh, they were broadcasting, uh, pretty much in the early 70s.
[40:23.290 --> 40:24.990]  And they were on, uh, shortwave.
[40:25.030 --> 40:27.510]  You can see the big shortwave mast in the center of the boat.
[40:27.850 --> 40:34.210]  And the FM, I think, uh, FM transmitters on either side, or FM antennas, sorry, on either side of that.
[40:34.910 --> 40:40.150]  Um, the ship was painted, if you noticed across the sides, it was painted all different colors.
[40:40.430 --> 40:48.370]  And between the colors and the mast, there was no questioning that this was not just a freighter, uh, hauling some stuff somewhere.
[40:48.370 --> 40:55.630]  This was a, a, uh, pirate broadcast station that was, uh, uh, playing lots of new music for Europe.
[40:55.950 --> 40:57.770]  That's also a dazzle ship configuration.
[40:59.330 --> 41:00.110]  Excuse me?
[41:00.190 --> 41:02.310]  Are you familiar with the dazzle ships on World War II?
[41:02.950 --> 41:03.430]  Oh, okay.
[41:03.590 --> 41:04.430]  It's harder to spot.
[41:07.540 --> 41:08.060]  Okay.
[41:10.100 --> 41:16.020]  Um, so these guys went off by the mid-70s.
[41:16.020 --> 41:24.420]  And, uh, um, by the early 70s, uh, well, by the mid-70s, the European laws, uh, drove the, the potential offshore stations onto land.
[41:24.760 --> 41:32.220]  And the, uh, North American kids who were playing with the phono oscillators, that discovered underground music, politics, and higher power transmitters.
[41:32.400 --> 41:35.940]  And the Dutch kept on broadcasting polkas and rock music to their friends and neighbors.
[41:36.760 --> 41:39.160]  And everyone lived happily ever after.
[41:39.780 --> 41:43.580]  Um, the past 40 years of pirate radio are the modern era.
[41:43.580 --> 41:48.180]  And plenty of names have changed, but a lot of everything else has remained the same.
[41:48.720 --> 41:54.700]  So I'll try to address, uh, some more about the specifics of the operations and the equipment and everything in this section.
[41:55.160 --> 42:01.760]  Uh, I think the best way to get a grasp on how a pirate operates is to think theoretically about a new station.
[42:02.260 --> 42:08.560]  Uh, like, if someone today would be thinking, I want to start broadcasting, uh, what would be the first thing that he would do?
[42:09.120 --> 42:13.160]  Uh, first would probably be the band of operations, AM, FM, or shortwave.
[42:13.160 --> 42:17.220]  Uh, FM is most popular, but the FCC polices it the most.
[42:17.460 --> 42:19.500]  Uh, the coverage area is the smallest.
[42:19.820 --> 42:21.660]  And it's the easiest to trace.
[42:21.980 --> 42:28.400]  So, uh, there are an awful lot of FM stations that go on the air and wind up getting fined.
[42:29.060 --> 42:36.980]  And, uh, uh, uh, so it's, it's not necessarily the best place for pirates to operate.
[42:37.280 --> 42:42.100]  Um, especially because these days I'm not sure how many people will actually tune their radios.
[42:42.100 --> 42:52.140]  Uh, it seems like most people, uh, know what's on a specific frequency and they hit their auto, uh, select and the radio's there and that's it.
[42:52.660 --> 42:58.480]  Um, so, with the AM band, it has the fidelity of shortwave, but it's overcrowded at night.
[42:58.680 --> 43:00.820]  So, uh, it's really limited.
[43:01.020 --> 43:06.200]  It kind of has the worst of, of both, uh, the worst aspects of FM and shortwave.
[43:06.200 --> 43:12.980]  Um, so, uh, um, I'll talk about shortwave because that's what this presentation is about anyway.
[43:13.900 --> 43:18.320]  Uh, the main question then for a pirate is what transmitter to use?
[43:18.440 --> 43:25.140]  Because the transmitter is what makes someone a broadcaster and not just a program producer or, or a webcaster.
[43:25.560 --> 43:31.480]  Uh, the main choices here are the amateur radio transceiver, the amateur radio transmitter, or the homemade transmitter.
[43:34.280 --> 43:40.920]  And here is a modern, uh, or relatively modern, uh, amateur radio transceiver.
[43:41.120 --> 43:43.540]  This is an Icom IC746 Pro.
[43:44.460 --> 43:52.400]  And, uh, uh, let's see, uh, uh, transceivers like this one are popular because they work as a full coverage receiver.
[43:52.400 --> 43:58.380]  So you can turn, tune around and hear all of the shortwave dials, or, or frequencies.
[43:58.860 --> 44:02.160]  And, uh, they can also transmit on the amateur frequencies.
[44:02.640 --> 44:10.820]  Um, but with the snip of a diode, uh, most transceivers can transmit anywhere from the AM band up through the top of the shortwave.
[44:11.200 --> 44:14.300]  So, it's, uh, they're popular for that reason.
[44:14.300 --> 44:21.260]  And, uh, uh, uh, this one, this particular, uh, IC746 Pro has a lot of features.
[44:21.260 --> 44:22.460]  So, it's more expensive.
[44:22.960 --> 44:28.040]  And, uh, in, uh, more in the, uh, $1,000 to $1,500 range, uh, used.
[44:28.660 --> 44:36.800]  Uh, transceivers are, uh, uh, also popular because nearly all of them will operate from either AC or battery DC power.
[44:37.060 --> 44:38.920]  Uh, so they can be used portably.
[44:38.920 --> 44:49.040]  Um, some cheap, cheaper transceivers are the Kenwood TS440, the ASU FT747, uh, the Icom IC735.
[44:49.500 --> 44:53.380]  And these are often more like $300 to $400 used.
[44:53.580 --> 44:56.280]  You can find a lot of these on, on eBay.
[44:56.620 --> 45:03.380]  And some of the ones that I've seen on eBay have already had the diode snipped, snipped so they can, uh, uh, transmit anywhere.
[45:04.240 --> 45:07.920]  Um, the next one is an old transmitter.
[45:08.840 --> 45:10.720]  This is a Heathkit Apache.
[45:12.100 --> 45:16.600]  And, uh, uh, this was, uh, a Heathkit produced a lot of different kits.
[45:16.860 --> 45:19.080]  And, uh, so you could build them yourselves.
[45:19.880 --> 45:24.600]  And, uh, this one is, uh, this would have been quite the project to build it yourself.
[45:25.100 --> 45:28.600]  Um, it's from the late 50s through sometime in the early 60s.
[45:28.600 --> 45:33.900]  And it has a sort of vintage car appeal with, uh, the chrome and everything.
[45:34.780 --> 45:39.580]  And, uh, I'm not sure how much they weigh, but I think they're about 90 to 110 pounds.
[45:41.100 --> 45:43.500]  And, uh, there's a lot of steel in them.
[45:43.760 --> 45:51.620]  Uh, so, like an old car, they also require some work replacing age-vulnerable parts, uh, before they can operate reliably.
[45:51.620 --> 45:59.560]  Uh, and especially with, uh, uh, uh, a transmitter like the Apache, which, uh, uh, could be bought in kit form.
[45:59.560 --> 46:09.120]  And you don't really know if it was maybe a 13-year-old building it without a whole lot of knowledge or somebody who was an electronics expert.
[46:09.120 --> 46:17.760]  So, even buying a transmitter like this particular one, not all of them, but this particular one, there are a lot of questions, uh, that would arise.
[46:18.560 --> 46:26.520]  Um, but, uh, with a few modifications, a transmitter like this will sound as good or even better than a local AM station.
[46:27.200 --> 46:31.020]  But they're, they're really heavy, and they limit mobility.
[46:31.020 --> 46:39.480]  Um, so, probably, uh, uh, some stations have operated by taking a generator out and, uh, running it off a generator from somewhere.
[46:39.700 --> 46:43.140]  But that's pretty loud, and, uh, that attracts attention.
[46:44.020 --> 46:59.820]  Um, depending on the condition and the operability, a transmitter like the Apache, the, the Heath DX100, the Johnson Viking Valiant, or the Johnson Viking Ranger, um, they'll often sell for anywhere from $100 to $1,200.
[47:01.500 --> 47:06.360]  And, uh, the next, uh, general category is the homemade transmitter.
[47:07.120 --> 47:11.000]  Um, people build their own transmitters for a variety of reasons.
[47:11.320 --> 47:15.240]  Uh, of course, one is just for the experience and to learn more about electronics.
[47:15.560 --> 47:25.160]  And a lot of the, the people, there are a number of people who get into, uh, pirate radio just because they're interested in building their own station and they like to play around with the electronics.
[47:25.900 --> 47:32.600]  Um, another important reason is to be able to have inexpensive, low-level stations, low-powered equipment that can be operated from battery power.
[47:32.940 --> 47:43.020]  Uh, transmitter like the one shown in the photo could be placed in a woodsy area or a state park or someplace like that that's kind of a no, no man's land where people frequently go.
[47:43.260 --> 47:46.060]  Um, so it's not unusual for someone to be there.
[47:46.700 --> 47:56.660]  And, uh, um, and they could be transmitting for, uh, an extended period of time without the operator being anywhere near the, uh, the transmitter.
[47:56.660 --> 48:07.780]  So that means that the government agents, if they would decide to, uh, go after the station, uh, would only get the transmitter and the antenna and maybe an iPod or some other, uh, audio source.
[48:08.260 --> 48:11.980]  And, uh, and they would not be wind up finding the operator.
[48:12.280 --> 48:19.880]  Uh, the transmitter shown in this photo is a little 1.1 watt corset and this is built into an Altoid scan.
[48:19.880 --> 48:22.560]  So it is really tiny.
[48:23.240 --> 48:25.400]  Um, and, uh, I've heard...
[48:25.980 --> 48:31.840]  I believe that I've heard this, uh, particular, uh, transmitter from hundreds of miles away.
[48:32.300 --> 48:36.760]  So, uh, they don't necessarily get out that well.
[48:36.900 --> 48:41.420]  That's, uh, I think a better than the normal, uh, uh, result.
[48:41.720 --> 48:44.260]  But, uh, still the possibilities are there.
[48:44.500 --> 48:51.960]  Um, primarily in countries that don't have much enforcement, pirates build their own, uh, own equipment so they can get more power.
[48:52.520 --> 48:59.080]  Um, station operators in Serbia, Greece, and Holland are notorious for building huge multi-kilowatt transmitters.
[48:59.480 --> 49:03.080]  Uh, a number of stations run 5, 10, or more kilowatts.
[49:03.620 --> 49:07.140]  Um, some of these are really interesting, MacGyver-looking setups.
[49:07.500 --> 49:18.300]  Um, one of the ones that I've seen, uh, photos of, the transmitter was built into an old microwave and its power supply was built into a tower computer case.
[49:19.340 --> 49:33.420]  Um, and, uh, I saw one, or I've talked to one person who went to a, uh, visited a station broadcasting in Scotland and he had sections of the high-power transmitter everywhere.
[49:33.980 --> 49:45.900]  And, uh, okay, and, uh, there were, uh, wires running down overhead and, uh, his friend came through and said, well, what happens if I touch those wires?
[49:46.120 --> 49:47.820]  And he said, uh, don't do that, you'll die.
[49:48.320 --> 49:56.400]  So, not, uh, some of these homemade transmitters, uh, there's some other things, uh, other things that make them interesting.
[49:57.000 --> 50:03.180]  Um, and then there's other less used, uh, reason is to operate in a different mode.
[50:03.460 --> 50:09.940]  Uh, the operator of XFM, which is a current station, uh, built his own transmitter so that he can broadcast in CQAM stereo.
[50:10.520 --> 50:16.640]  And, uh, he broadcasts in CQAM stereo on shortwave and it sounds great on receivers that can decode it.
[50:17.200 --> 50:25.280]  Uh, there, there are some, uh, receivers now, the, uh, uh, the SDR, software-defined radios, that can decode CQAM stereo.
[50:25.280 --> 50:26.880]  And it sounds great.
[50:28.340 --> 50:32.180]  Um, here's a, a really common type of antenna that's used by pirates.
[50:32.460 --> 50:34.160]  Uh, this is an inverted V.
[50:34.440 --> 50:40.260]  It consists of, uh, two wire legs that run down from either side, um, that are cut to match a frequency.
[50:40.760 --> 50:46.300]  Um, uh, the center support could be a mast like this one, or it could be a tree or something else handy.
[50:46.840 --> 50:54.900]  Um, uh, this one, this particular one, is, uh, an image from, uh, Radio Lowland in Holland.
[50:54.900 --> 51:03.320]  And, uh, uh, evidently they don't mind if everyone from blocks away, uh, can see their antenna and see that this is a radio station.
[51:03.560 --> 51:13.360]  But, uh, most of the, the people who use an antenna like this will have them better camouflage like in, uh, woods or, or someplace like that.
[51:15.300 --> 51:18.640]  Um, and quick, because I'm running out of time.
[51:18.960 --> 51:22.300]  Here's a, a propagational map of, uh, a station.
[51:22.700 --> 51:27.520]  And this kind of shows how far, uh, uh, the way the shortwave operates.
[51:27.520 --> 51:30.400]  Is that it, it creates kind of a donut-like pattern.
[51:30.740 --> 51:35.760]  Uh, the smallest range is during the, the, uh, around noon.
[51:36.100 --> 51:37.960]  And then it expands until nighttime.
[51:38.700 --> 51:46.960]  And you can see that a, a station, the signal can spread out into Europe, into, uh, uh, down into Mexico and beyond.
[51:47.520 --> 51:52.800]  So, uh, um, that's the kind of, uh, propagation you could expect, uh, with shortwave.
[51:54.040 --> 51:57.180]  And, uh, uh, uh, I'm running out of time here.
[51:57.500 --> 52:00.080]  I've been kind of trying to compress too much.
[52:00.720 --> 52:01.560]  Um, so...
[52:01.560 --> 52:05.520]  A couple minutes of Q&A to do that, or, or you can just do that outside too.
[52:06.140 --> 52:07.400]  We've got a couple minutes left.
[52:07.520 --> 52:07.840]  Okay.
[52:08.280 --> 52:10.960]  Um, well, I've got, uh, a little bit to, uh, to add.
[52:11.460 --> 52:12.420]  Um, let's see.
[52:12.500 --> 52:13.860]  I've just skimmed the surface of this.
[52:13.860 --> 52:17.920]  So I posted a page of links with more background information on my blog.
[52:18.020 --> 52:19.800]  And that's, uh, the URL.
[52:20.120 --> 52:25.040]  Uh, some of the links that I have up right now are pirate radio forums that you can check out.
[52:25.180 --> 52:28.240]  Um, they have a lot of loggings as they happen.
[52:28.780 --> 52:29.720]  Uh, radio magazine.
[52:30.000 --> 52:32.360]  Links to some short, weird shortwave stations.
[52:32.720 --> 52:36.340]  Uh, background information on the Halicrafter's SX-28 receiver.
[52:36.740 --> 52:40.280]  Uh, background on the SCR-299 transmitting truck.
[52:40.540 --> 52:42.640]  A, uh, shortwave equipment dealer.
[52:43.300 --> 52:44.360]  And, uh, let's see.
[52:44.460 --> 52:50.620]  A page of schematics, photos, and parts layouts for Dave Mort- Yeah, Dave Martin's Corsair and Corset transmitters.
[52:50.740 --> 52:53.660]  That was the little one in the, uh, Altoids box.
[52:53.860 --> 52:57.540]  And more links, uh, that I might add over the weekend as I think of them.
[52:58.200 --> 52:58.620]  So.
[52:59.720 --> 53:00.160]  Great.
[53:01.240 --> 53:02.280]  Thanks very much, Andy.
[53:02.420 --> 53:02.540]  Woo!
[53:04.220 --> 53:07.620]  Before you go, before you go, there's a table.
[53:07.920 --> 53:10.920]  There's a, there's a table right outside the room here.
[53:10.920 --> 53:11.700]  Andy's gonna be sitting here.
[53:11.780 --> 53:16.340]  He's got a few copies left of his, of his, uh, latest pirate radio book, Pirate Radio Annual.
[53:16.600 --> 53:17.300]  I own a copy.
[53:17.400 --> 53:17.740]  It's great.
[53:17.860 --> 53:18.480]  I recommend it.
[53:18.920 --> 53:22.980]  Um, so he'll be outside a few minutes, uh, right outside here at the table to answer any questions.
[53:22.980 --> 53:25.720]  And if you want to buy one of his books, he might even sign it for you.
[53:26.300 --> 53:26.660]  Thanks.
[53:32.190 --> 53:33.450]  Make room for the next guy.
[53:33.650 --> 53:33.770]  Yeah.
[53:35.050 --> 53:36.350]  Can you do the questions outside?
[53:36.590 --> 53:37.290]  We're gonna clean up here.
[53:38.130 --> 53:38.590]  Good job.
[53:38.610 --> 53:39.490]  That's easy enough to get.
[53:39.770 --> 53:40.050]  Yes.
[53:43.310 --> 53:44.670]  He's already rushed you off stage.
[53:44.990 --> 53:45.390]  Oh no.
[53:46.250 --> 53:46.990]  You did great.
[53:49.130 --> 53:51.010]  I had several people say, this is great.
[53:51.250 --> 53:51.610]  This is great.
[53:51.770 --> 53:52.390]  You should come talk.
[53:52.390 --> 53:52.490]  What?