Pirate Radio

posted onMay 18, 2002

by hitbsecnews

What is Pirate Radio?

Pirate radio is simply broadcasting on an AM or FM band without a liscence. Pirates broadcast
either because they want to become radio personalities, or they don't find commercial radio all
that interesting. Clandestine, or "Guerilla" radio stations are pirate radio stations that are
politically motivated and are most often run by opposing governments or revolutionary groups.

What is DXing?

DXing is the hobby of scanning for distant broadcasts that you would normally not be able to hear.
This is where QSLing comes in.

What is QSLing?

QSLing is the hobby of finding distant broadcasts, and then sending the radio station a report
log. A report log takes quite a bit of time to make if you want a QSL card. In a report log
notes, among other thing, what time you heard the broadcast, what band you heard it on, and
what they were broadcasting. If the station thinks you wasted enough time writing the report,
most of them will be nice and send you a QSL card.

Wait wait wait! Go back! What's a QSL card?

QSL cards put simply are business cards for free radio stations. They come in various sizes,
most of them are made by hand, and the pictures on them give you a sense of what kind of people
run the station. They are basically the stations way of telling the listener, "Congratulations,
you heard us!"

Why is Pirate Radio illegal?

Because the FCC doesn't make any money off of pirate radio. Heh, I looked for quite a while to
find a legitimate answer as to why pirate radio is illegal, but I couldn't find one. So my only
guess is because since the FCC thinks they control any and all air in which broadcast exist, if
someone is broadcasting without paying up the ass to the FCC, they get shut down, their equipment
gets taken away, and they get a hefty fine. Ain't America grand?

If Pirate Radio is illegal why isn't Ham Radio?

Simply because ham radio is peer-to-peer broadcasting. Not everyone can hear the broadcast, unless
of course they too have a ham radio and are tuned into the same band as you are.

Conclusion

My hope is that this information will encourage whoever reads it to get into pirate radio, or at
least ham radio. It's a hobby, like any other, that yeilds a ton of information. Not only from
the construction of your transmitter, but from the kind of stuff you hear being broadcast. People
talk on ham radio like their talking on a cell phone. I've heard stuff from kids using their
parent's UHF radios to play cops and robbers, to people hanging around my old elementary school
at 2 in the morning.

Pirate radio should be legal because air is free. The only time when air isn't free is when you
pay 25 cents to fill up your tires, but I think that's worth it.

1.) Dumpster Diving - One Man's Trash - Grifter
2.) Ham Radio: An Introduction - A
3.) Pirate Radio - Manic Velocity
4.) Hacking by Numbers - madirish
5.) Authentication protocols and there weaknesses - Chernobyl Chickun
6.) Remote access and Security - Mark Jorgensen & Neil H Watson
7.) Myths about TCP Spoofing - Grandmaster Plague