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from the nobody-had-a-flashlight-(you'll-need-to-RTFA) dept.
FCC tries to make Miami pirate radio station walk the plank
"Pirate radio" in 2017 takes many forms, but here's one: a north Miami couple hosting a transmitter in their backyard shed while a DJ's signal is piped in over the Internet and promoted on Facebook—even after multiple warnings from the government and a gear seizure by the US Marshals. Oh—did I mention the $144,344 fine? Not that anyone's likely to pay it.
Welcome to 90.1 MHz, "Radio Touche Douce," a Haitian music station appearing to be so obviously illegal that it even has the ability to unite the current fractious set of FCC commissioners. It's not even a secret; as the Miami Herald notes, the station is "the pulse of the Haitian music industry in Miami, organizing some of the most popular big-ticket parties while promoting bands and guiding konpa music fans to the next hit." But that doesn't mean it has been easy to shut down.
Here, in statements pulled right from FCC documents, is the story of how Radio Touche Douce has operated for years right under the nose of government investigators—and how the FCC has now upped the ante.
(Score: 3, Funny) by fishybell on Saturday December 30 2017, @08:31PM (3 children)
What I'm really taking away from all of this is that the FCC doesn't like black and white photos of guys wearing sunglasses and not smiling. I mean, there's the token smiling guy without glasses, but I think that's just in there to appease to the PC-side of the FCC a little.
(Score: 3, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 30 2017, @09:27PM (2 children)
Shut 'em down - pirate radio stations piss me off. In this area, the pirates are Mexicans. I really don't give a small damn how many Mexican radio stations there are. But, they need to be assigned a frequency of their own, and USE IT!! Stations that bleed over two stations higher and two stations lower frequencies should be blow to hell and back, with the technicians locked inside. Get licensed, get legal, and operate the station properly, then I'll have no problem with Mexican, Hatian, Cuban, or any other radio station.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @10:09PM (1 child)
I do have a problem with that.
Well, not with the fact that the operator might be of such an ethnicity. What isn't OK is non-English shit on American airwaves. If you want that, put your antenna in a different country.
Multiculturalism is toxic. It is divisive (to use a Hillary campaign word!) and will ultimately cause our nation to be torn apart just as the Roman empire was. Language diversity keeps Papua New Guinea a hopeless country and continues to strongly block success in Africa. We need cultural unity for our long-term survival.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @11:38PM
Este cobarde anónimo es bastante hijo de puta.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @10:00PM (2 children)
I looked around for FM costs, and I found this:
Well that is in bumfuck Wisconsin. This station is in Miami.
Prices seem to start at $100,000 and go up to tens of millions. Again, this is Miami. I think we could be looking at spectrum worth $50,000,000 being swiped from adjacent operators who have paid for legal operation. (swiped via interference, spilling over in multiple ways)
The FCC didn't even collect the last fine. If the fine isn't at least several times the cost of legal operation, and we don't manage to collect it, there is no disincentive to misbehave. It becomes a business cost at best, or even a non-issue.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ledow on Saturday December 30 2017, @10:14PM
Seems to me that it's probably cost more in investigate costs / visitations already than they were ever fined.
In the UK, we're a bit more strict apparently:
"Anyone involved in illegal broadcasting is committing a criminal offence and could face up to two years’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine or both."
And rightly so. Who knows what that cheap shite broadcast equipment is actually interfering with.
Also, the definition includes all the people you want rather than just the guy with the transmitter:
"You may be committing an offence if you know, or have reasonable cause to believe, that unauthorised broadcasts are being made, and you:
keep a station/apparatus available for its use;
allowing your premises to be used;
advertise;
promote;
provide content;
or otherwise enable the broadcasting, including managing or rendering any service that will facilitate the operation."
My bigger question, though, is really who listens to FM radio nowadays? I can't even remember the last time I did it deliberately (sometimes if I press the Mode button in my car stereo, it goes through FM and DAB). Hell, even the maintenance people at my workplace just get me to kit up their phones with the app or stream of their favourite radio station rather than actually faff about with a real radio. And they drive minibuses for part of the day, so they just bluetooth it in from the same phone.
Last time I listened to radio was against-my-will at a workplace nearly 10 years ago, where the IT department had a radio on 24/7 tuned (badly) to a crap signal of a major radio station. It drove me potty and I used to turn it off as soon as I could if it was just me in the office. Even then, I remember thinking why not just stream it?
The cost to operate a radio station (even minus fines) honestly can't be worth the bother, what money do you get? Some revenue from "unofficial" advertisers who themselves could invite a visit from the authorities for financing the operation? I can't see that making even a laptop and broadcast running 24/7 be worth the effort, even if the licence was free, let alone with all the associated hassle.
(Score: 2) by hoeferbe on Sunday December 31 2017, @07:55PM
Maybe the story is incomplete, but the Ars Technica article doesn't mention this pirate radio station interfering with others, at all. The only mention of interference (and even he phrased it as "potential interference") is in a quote from Federal Communications Commissioner Michael O'Rielly, "for whom pirate radio crackdowns are a key issue".
His discourse reminds me of other government bureaucrats and politicians going off on how we need to get rid of strong encryption or anonymity on the Internet in order for them to protect us against drug-dealers, child-pornographers, terrorists or whoever the bad guy of the decade, is.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @10:06PM (1 child)
Nothing I'm seeing specifies how many Watts they were running.
A decade ago, a guy in the Bay Area had a Christmas lights display [google.com] in his yard, animated to a Trans-Siberian Orchestra song.
He had a micropower transmitter so that you could drive by and tune it on your car radio.
(100mW is legal without a license.)
On days with just-right atmospherics, I can receive an FM station that has a 42 Watt output, [wikipedia.org] licensed under a special community radio thing. [wikipedia.org]
(Some days it's down in the mud and some days KGB in San Diego, on the same frequency, walks all over it.)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @10:49PM
From what I can decipher out of the complaint. They exceeded part 15 rules. Meaning more than 100 milliwatts.
People like this are exactly why we have the FCC. They tromp all over the place and they do not care.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @11:13PM (3 children)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfL9R2Wrhck [youtube.com]
we are in a period where all public space is now privatized, innovation and exploration is gone despite all things pointing to the commons being the source of pretty much all progress, we like little children demand immobility, so facefuck, and ingrate and twit are all we can manage.
Like the USSR was counter revolution-ed by Stalin the idea that science and knowledge could be used to improve society and the condition of humans was cooped and and perverted by greedy and sociopathic people so here we are
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @01:42AM (2 children)
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/7n2s34/iama_survivor_of_stalins_communist_dictatorship/?sort=top [reddit.com]
https://www.amazon.com/Gulag-Archipelago-Aleksandr-Solzhenitsyn/dp/1843430851 [amazon.com]
Stalin ruled by power and murdered millions for little more than the serious heinous crimes like 'mailing your family in another country'. Marxism begat communism, socialism, and nazism. All three have murdered millions all in the name of negative thinking. They are as much as about science as what comes out my ass is edible. Do not let them fool you into dreams of being someone important in their society. They have no room for you. You will be taken care of. You have too much free thought. The only thought that is deemed good is for the state. Once you realize you have been fooled it would be too late. At that point they will take care of you. But in their way that benefits them. Not you.
If you want to pretend they were not practicing those things, then go right ahead. I however will take them at their word (in their own words) at what they were practicing.
The only perfect societies do not exist (they never will). We have a blend in many countries because most people are greedy and douchbags. Once you realize that you can understand why these grand systems fail and why they will never work. This is equally true for Capitalism. Remember Capitalism is a Marxist invented term to deride the system he did not like. To overthrow something most people use you need to put a negative spin upon it first. It works for those who have nothing. As they are as I said greedy and douchebags (remember this holds true for everyone including the 1% and 99%). Marxist systems depend on everyone being perfectly nice and reasonable and benevolent. None of that is not true. We can wish it was but it can not be. We are greedy douchebags. Capitalism uses greed and douchbagary as a strength for its system. As whoever is the best at doing that 'wins'. Everyone is motivated to do it because they are already natural at it. All of the systems devolve into feudalism or dictatorships. Capitalism does it slower than the marxist classes. We have been doing that by balancing it with socialism like ideals. The problem is socialism is at direct contrast to Capitalism. As to live in the Capitalistic system you need capital and money. Marxism runs out of money quickly. For there is no incentive to fix what is wrong as, 'someone else will do it'. Remember we are lazy greedy douchbags.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @04:16AM (1 child)
Either you are brainwashed or do not know much about Nazism.
Nazis despised Jews for their lack of creativity as can be seen in the documentary The Eternal Jew.
Nazis celebrated their own achievements in science, technology, arts, literature and so on. Nazism is a beautiful system designed for the greatest benefit for the individual and the state. National Socialism has a future, others have none.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @07:54PM
It's zero-sum. Tipping the balance towards the state directly detracts from the autonomy and freedom of the individual. "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins" is a simple way to put it, and any limits beyond that are a direct infringement on the exclusive self-ownership of human beings.
If you're not just being an edgytroll, I'd like to read your reasoning as to how there can be a state with logically-limited power over individuals when participation in the state isn't completely voluntary and can be disassociated from at any time and for any reason. If there ISN'T a way to limit the power of a given state, then the result is yet another authoritarian hellscape like the rest that litter history.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @04:55AM (1 child)
People that are swatters, it's not a glorious job but neither was nurenburg
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 31 2017, @05:07AM
Check what topic you are replying to, jew. Your comment is off-topic, jew. Tell your JIDF masters not to send you here, jew. There are too many brainwashed morons here whose lives revolve around holocaust guilt, jew. Go away, jew.
Jew begone!