Net gives pirate radio the last laugh

YOU are chilling out to your favourite songs on your car radio, only to have them drowned out by an appalling, fuzzy din you didn't tune into. It happens all too often in cities, where legitimate stations in the FM band lose out to pirate stations playing their own brands of music alongside brash nightlife advertising. And this hijacking of the airwaves won't change any time soon, thanks to the internet. So says airwave watchdog Ofcom, which manages and protects radio frequencies for the UK government. Ofcom cites two major threats in its annual enforcement report: keeping pirate stations off the air and preventing people buying and using illegal radio-frequency equipment designed to jam cellphones. In both cases, the internet is aiding and abetting "spectrum crime" - hijacking radio frequencies which broadcasters, including legitimate radio stations and cellphone companies, have already paid huge sums to use, says Ofcom. In the past, pirates would have put an unlicensed radio station on the air by fixing an antenna on the roof of a tall apartment block, connected to an FM transmitter close by. Essentially a large amplifier, the transmitter lets the antenna radiate a 200-watt signal covering a radius of a mile or so. About 20 years ago, says Paul Mercer, head of spectrum enforcement at Ofcom, the pirate's "studio" would be in the same building, but to evade arrest and seizure of studio equipment, they began using a radio link from a studio elsewhere, feeding their music across the rooftops to their transmitter, which rebroadcast it in the FM band. In the event of a raid, only the transmitter and antenna would be lost. Ofcom teams had no trouble picking up those studio radio links, in bands at 55 and 180 megahertz, because they were fairly broad and gave their presence away by interfering with other licensed radio services. So the pirates then switched to studio-to-transmitter links in the harder-to-detect microwave band, around 10 gigahertz. These are more focused and less likely to cause telltale interference. "So we then developed, or procured, equipment that lets us detect those microwaves, too," says Mercer. In addition, the focused directionality of microwave signals meant a visit to an illegal FM antenna would also reveal the microwave-receiving antenna. "And it will be pointing straight at the studio supplying the station's content," he laughs. Pirate radio is no longer such easy prey, thanks to the internet. "Illegal broadcasters are now seeking to distance their operations from the likelihood of enforcement action by streaming their broadcasts online," says Ofcom in its report. While people can listen to a legitimate web-based radio station, that same audio stream can also be used to get the signal via modem to a remote transmitter without using a (detectable) radio or microwave link. "Many have now replaced their radio link with the internet," Mercer says. Pirates aren't content with web-based radio because they want to reach the all-important street audience too. "Our research shows that most people listen to illegal broadcasters in their cars or on cellphones with FM receivers," he says. Even if a pirate's transmitter and antenna are seized, they simply redirect their internet audio stream to another transmitter/antenna on another building and carry on broadcasting. "Effectively, this allows pirate radio stations to be operated remotely," complains Ofcom. So taking them off-air only works in the short term. As an example, Ofcom cites a series of simultaneous raids on London's pirate stations in 2005. In that operation, 53 transmitters and 17 antennas were seized and illegal broadcasting was reduced by 57 per cent. Success was short-lived - over the following weeks, pirates crept back on air (see graph) until after a few weeks the number of illegal broadcasters crept back up to the pre-raid level. But Ofcom says those coming back on air are often new radio pirates taking up the frequencies - not those they have prosecuted, seen heavily fined or sentenced to community service. To combat pirates getting on-air, Mercer's team is "upskilling" - learning a new bag of internet and surveillance tricks that, for instance, let them track down the hosts of web radio audio streams that in turn may lead them to pirate broadcasters. Ofcom's big, probably impossible, dream is that pirates will migrate to the net and eventually ditch FM. The internet may also be responsible for other airwave problems. Ofcom says the "exponential growth" in websites selling illegal cellphone jammers is wrecking services carried on expensively licensed frequencies. Jammers create holes in cellphone coverage that lead to complaints from mobile phone networks which have paid billions for blanket coverage - and Ofcom found, for instance, that last year a Mosque and a theatre had installed them. Ironically, people afraid of cellphone radiation are major buyers of jammers - not realising that they work because they give off higher-energy microwaves than the phone itself. People afraid of cellphone radiation buy jammers, not realising they are sources of energetic microwaves Last year, Ofcom stripped 42 jammer advertisements from 19 websites and is prosecuting three vendors. By writing to those sites' customers, they have even managed to convince some buyers to surrender their devices. Others clearly love the peace and quiet their jammers give them. "Not everyone answers our letters," Mercer admits.

by Paul Marks

The Boat That Rocked - Pirate Radio - The Movie

Last week we discussed Radio Caroline the Pirate Radio on the high seas, and now there is a movie coming out soon - here is all about it:

Pirate Radio is star of Richard Curtis film The Boat That Rocked

Director's love of pop inspired movie with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost and Kenneth Branagh Stephen Armstrong

The Boat That Rocked is an unashamed tribute to the handful of pirate radio ships anchored off the UK coast during the 1960s, which broadcast rock’n’roll to a beat-starved nation rationed to two hours of pop a week by the BBC. At their peak, about 25m people — more than half the population of Britain — tuned into the pirates every day. Many of the DJs hailed from Australia or America, with their bustling, highly experienced pop music stations, and the on-air stars shattered the dreary RP intonation of bow-tied BBC announcers. Inevitably, the government decided that Something Must Be Done and, in 1967, outlawed any contact with the offending ships — which meant the stations’ advertising revenue was cut off and their supply ships were barred from sailing from UK ports, ultimately starving the pirates of revenue and even food. In a classic case of woolly government principle meeting nervous populist pragmatism, the BBC promptly hired most of the pirate DJs to front the launch of Radio 1.

The film boasts an astonishing cast: Oscar-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman as the loud Yankee main man on Radio Rock; Bill Nighy as the ship’s owner and captain, Quentin; Rhys Ifans as a cocky, sensual mike controller, Gavin; Nick Frost as the sarky jock Dave; and Kenneth Branagh as the cold, cruel minister determined to close down the fun. It’s the kind of cast in which Jack Davenport, Chris O’Dowd, Ralph Brown, Rhys Darby, Will Adamsdale, Tom Brooke and Mad Men’s January Jones “also appear”.

“So The Boat That Rocked is not a film about Jimi Hendrix dying of drugs or someone being killed at a Stones concert. It’s about a pirate radio station that people loved. In the same way, the No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is about crimes, but they’re not big crimes. It’s meant to be a real effort to say something positive.” He pauses, then sounds faintly irritated. “There’s this idea that if you write about someone falling in love — which happens a million times every day — that’s unrealistic and sentimental, but if you write about women being brutally murdered by a serial killer — which happens, if we’re unlucky, maybe once a year in the UK — then that’s searingly realistic.” He sighs. “I just don’t understand the mathematical truth of that.”

The Boat That Rocked opens on April 3

KryKey Personal Web Radio will bring you the review as soon as we see it.

Radio Caroline - Pirate Radio

Radio Caroline – Pirate Radio

by WezG

The sixties saw a massive boom in popular music. It was the golden age of Rock n’Roll. The youth of the world had a voice, and despised as it often was by the authorities, rock and roll redefined global culture. The birth of Pop music created a huge broadcast requirement. Vinyl making factories boomed as billboard artists fought for market share. Consumer society had a new outlet and the music industry seized control. In order to generate sales and introduce new music to the masses, a strong, effective medium was needed. Radio came into its own and Rock and Roll stations sprung up across America, beaming the controversial culture to the enthralled audience. In the UK there was no pop music radio station. Yet Britain was a country at the cutting edge of the revolution with the Beatles riding on a global crest of a wave. America had an easier time with its expansive commercial radio networks, though seizing the airwaves for pop music was not without its own battles there. In Britain the radio network was in government hands and tightly regulated. Radio Caroline looked for the loophole and found it in setting up an offshore broadcast, thus avoiding terrestrial regulations.

Ronan O'Rahilly and Oliver Smedley set up radio Caroline, named after President Kennedy’s daughter, and began broadcasting in international waters 5km off Felixstowe on 28th March 1964. It was not the first maritime radio broadcast. The Americans had conducted maritime radio stations since the 1930s. Also, in the North Sea, the Dutch and the Swedes had set up maritime radio during the 1950s. However, Radio Caroline was the first English language broadcast in the area and was specifically a pop music broadcast channel. Quickly dubbed ‘pirate radio’, Radio Caroline battled with the technologies and began to rapidly acquire a huge listenership. Logistically, running maritime broadcasts was a costly affair, in terms of finance, equipment, staff and dealing with constantly changing regulations. To generate income, Radio Caroline relied on advertising revenue and also subbed itself out to evangelical and religious broadcasts. As a business it was more a cutting edge technology, a disruptive technology, a people’s technology, rather than a money-making venture. As a cultural enterprise it was very successful. It gave birth to the careers of such legendary DJs as Tony Blackburn, Johnnie Walker, Dave Lee Travis and Tony Prince.

From day one, Radio Caroline had battles to fight, just to keep its very existence. Firstly, broadcasting from a ship was not technically easy. Broadcasting equipment was very expensive, required a lot of power and had to fit into a tightly governed network. Complaints were that the Radio Caroline signal interfered with other frequencies, thus being dangerous to maritime activity. There were staff issues at the station with DJs in the early days literally being at each others’ throats. The government fought hard with tighter regulations, driving Radio Caroline further offshore and even to broadcast in Dutch or Spanish waters. Throughout its history, various regulation breaches have been cited by the authorities and Radio Caroline has been shut down with equipment seized. One of the more obvious difficulties that arises from broadcasting from aboard a ship is that maritime conditions, especially further out in the international waters of the North Sea, are very hazardous in themselves. When the budget means that your ships are old and rickety, it only takes a storm and the very lives of the Radio Caroline staff are in jeopardy. Many times throughout its history has seen broadcasters rescued by the RNLI and problems with ships has seen them run aground and even sink. Just to keep a broadcast signal alive is a near mission impossible.

The authorities had to counter this disruptive technology and seize back some control. Radio Caroline soon faced competition. BBC radio caved into the listeners and set up Radio 1, a new terrestrial pop music service. This was competition for listeners for sure, but Radio Caroline had created its niche in the market and was well liked. Programming gave it a character of its own with anthems being a regular feature and specialist shows, for example the progressive rock trend it keenly supported, kept it ahead of the less adventurous government-sponsored alternative. When taken off the air for whatever reason, Radio Caroline always bounced back.

Nowadays, the station no longer conducts its maritime broadcast, but is based terrestrially. It broadcasts via satellite, DAB and internet. It is widely available across the world and is still as popular as ever. Radio Caroline is an interesting tale and is an important groundbreaking radio service that has pushed the boundaries and set the agenda for all broadcasts that have followed. We now move into an age where a definitive radio revolution, the internet radio revolution, promises to expand the Radio Caroline dream even further out to sea.

KryKey is part of this new wave of internet radio and offers a radical solution to broadcasters who want to set up their own PRS (Personalized Radio Station) from the comfort of their own home and reach the ears of listeners across the globe. Unlike Radio Caroline, there are no expensive broadcast costs, regulations aren’t as strict and more importantly by broadcasting you won’t run the risk of seasickness and sinking! Transmissions will increase as the web radio phenomenon booms.

KryKey is the new disruptive software for radio, the Radio Caroline of the electronic seas of the twenty-first century. We hope that in forty years time, our story will be as rich a read as the Radio Caroline adventure.

Hey Pirate Radio Operators - Now You Can Use KryKey

First lets look at the history and definition of Pirate Radio : Pirate Radio has been in general use for many years across the world, and is usually referred to the use of illegal or unregulated transmissions, but its roots can be traced back to the transmission using being unlicensed and the use of ships offshore being used as a transmission base and hence the word 'pirate'. So when you are talking about Pirate Radio, it is commonly used to describe illegal broadcasting for either entertainment or political purposes. They can also be called bootleg stations (a term especially associated with two-way radio), clandestine stations or Free Radio stations. These transmissions are usually illegal because rules and regulations vary widely from country to country, and for someone to transmit, this means having a radio license in countries such as the USA, Australia, the UK and many across Europe and generally describes the unlicensed broadcast of FM radio, AM radio, or short wave signals over a wide range.In some cases radio stations are deemed legal where the signal is transmitted, but illegal where the signals are received—especially when the signals cross a national boundary. In other cases, a broadcast may be considered "pirate" due to the nature of its content, its transmission format (especially a failure to transmit a station identification according to regulations), or the transmit power (wattage) of the station, even if the transmission is not technically illegal (such as a web cast or an amateur radio transmission).Therefore it can be said that pirate radio means different things to different people, implying some licensing procedure has been violated somewhere within the reach of the signal.

So now KryKey Personal Web Radio is a good alternative to Pirate Radio. Those who are currently or thinking about setting up a Pirate Radio Station, can do so perfectly legally with KryKey (www.KryKey.com) and broadcast locally and all over the world. Of course the limitations are that those wishing to listen their broadcast will need internet access, and in some areas this is unavailable, or the Government restricts its use.

Today on the BBC News there was a story of a Pirate Radio station being raided by Police and shutdown. The authorities said these sort of unlicensed radio stations have the ability of interfering with radio that is used by emergency services, and therefore puts lives at risk. The operators of these Pirate Radio Stations insist that they now transmit using microwaves to the transmission towers and that risk is low.

The official Government department (Ofcom) that licenses radio stations says that there is currently around 150 of these pirate radio stations in the UK and most are in London and the south east of England.

These pirate radio stations are prime candidates for using KryKey Personal Web Radio to do their broadcasting as they are in a country with ample internet access and no censorship on it.

So to all those Pirate Radio Stations out there - come to KryKey Personal Web Radio, create your own web radio station and start broadcasting locally and globally.