Pirate radio in North America

An introduction to the subject of pirate radio can be found under that heading.

Cuba

Government propaganda stations

Since the 1960s and the advent of the revolutionary government of Fidel Castro, the United States of America has engaged in a number of overt and covert political broadcasting operations intended to undermine the government of Cuba. Because these activites are licensed and authorized by the government of the USA, stations such as Radio Martí and TV Marti are not illegal according to the laws of the United States and they do not fall within the classification of pirate radio broadcasting. See the article about Propaganda broadcasting for more details.

Pirate radio by Cuban exiles

Unlike the sanctioned and fully licensed transmissions by the United States government, a number of groups in exile, mainly based in Florida, have attemped various offshore radio broadcasts to Cuba, from time to time. These stations are mainly short lived and sporadic in transmission times, but because their broadcasts are not licensed by any nation, their signals are considered to be from pirate radio stations and the USA has taken various physical and legal steps to close them down at different times.

Mexico

Border-blasters

From the earliest days of the history of broadcasting, a number of radio stations which were licensed in Mexico, became known to the general public as border-blasters. This was due to their excessive use of power which was necessary to reach their intended audience north of the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo) river which serves as the international border line between the two nations.

The strict definition of a pirate radio station is a station that operates from sovereign territory without a broadcasting license, or just beyond the territorial waters of a sovereign nation from on board a ship or other marine structure with the intention of broadcasting to that nation without obtaining a broadcasting license from that nation. The border-blaster stations in Mexico did not meet either definition. See the article entry at border-blasters for a complete history of these Mexican stations.

United States of America

Land-based unlicensed broadcasts

Compared to authoritarian systems of government which restrict access to the means of communication, the airwaves of the USA are relatively free from direct government censorship. As a result of this difference, the term pirate radio has a different interpretation than in countries where access to communication is limited.

In the USA pirate radio is frequently, but not always associated with anarchism which considers governmental spectrum regulatory schemes as favoring the interests of large corporations. Anarchists therefore consider pirate radio transmissions to be a challenge to that authority.

Pirate radio is also in large part the result of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations against low-power broadcasting, although this is how nearly all college radio stations began. NPR and the NAB got the FCC to eliminate the class D license in 1979. This kept all new low-power stations from getting a license, and bumped all of the old ones down to secondary status, forcing many more off the air since then. Despite this, an explosion of broadcast translators on FM, technically-identical but rebroadcasting other stations, has occurred since then. Because discriminating against stations due entirely to content is likely unconstitutionally against free speech under the First Amendment, this further fueled pirate operators in the 1980s and 1990s.

Because of this severe lack of access, numerous pirate radio operators (such as Stephen Dunnifer), as well as other groups petitioned the FCC for a new LPFM service. After many years of trying, this finally was passed around 2000, although it blocked former pirate operators from holding licenses. Lobbied by the commercial radio industry, the U.S. Congress intervened and limited the new service even further, though technical tests later proved this to be baseless, and the added restrictions were lifted.

Although this should mean that pirate radio has seen a decrease, most of the licensees are churches, colleges, and state or local government transportation departments, as the FCC requires the licensee to be a non-profit organization. Pirate radio also continues because legal open spots on the FM dial have been filled in since and because of the 1979 ruling, by both full-power and translator stations.

While Part 15 of the FCC rules allows for some unlicensed broadcasting, it is extremely restrictive in order to prevent its legal use by pirates.

Because basic radio transmission equipment is relatively easy to obtain in the USA and because it is relatively easy to hide, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which has the authority to regulate radio communications, sometimes has difficulty in finding and prosecuting offenders who transmit without a license. Triangulation may be used, but most frequently a spectrum analyzer is driven around the affected area, with a person monitoring where the suspect signal is highest, and another one looking for any obvious signs such as an antenna or small tower (like that used for amateur radio).

See also

Stations from international waters