Captain Morgan Confirms that VONT was in the Pirate Zone

In response to my report.

Rinse FM UK Pirate Awarded Broadcasting Licence

London's biggest "pirate" radio station is going legit. Rinse FM has been awarded an FM broadcasting licence, giving it further opportunity to bring dubstep, UK funky and other new urban sounds into the mainstream.

Founded in 1994, Rinse FM played a pivotal role in introducing London listeners to grime, garage and other homegrown sounds, when mainstream radio was still mostly concerned with Take That and S Club 7. More recently, Rinse FM has showcased dubstep producers such as Kode9 and Plastician. Initially an unlicensed radio broadcaster, Rinse has been available as an online stream since 2006.

The Guardian

Berlin Police Against Political Pirate Radio

The police raid in the housing project at Boediker Str. 9 in Berlin, because of the Pirate Radio, during the Action Day “Enter Media Spree” at 5th June, ended with about 25 arrests, unreasonable accusations and their inability to find the broadcasting equipment.

At around 17.00, the police invaded the building of Boediker Str. 9, in order to confiscate the broadcasting equipment of the action radio. Despite having searched for hours, supported by two employees of the Public Networks Agency from Mainz, who were also there with their vehicle, the police couldn\’t find the broadcasting equipment. Instead, they destroyed rooms of the building and broke several doors.

13 people were indiscriminately arrested, as they happened to be at this very moment at the stairs, in front of, or in the Action Infopoint at Bodiker str. 9. After the chief of the police force was informed by lawyers that the use of a frequency without a license by the District Media Authority is just a minor offence and not a crime, as he had initially claimed, he came up with a couple of absurd accusations, such as “causing serious physical injury due to the exposure to electromagnetic radiation” and “theft of electricity”, in order to legitimize the operation of the police in the building.

Later this evening, during the spontaneous solidarity assembly that took place in front of the building, 10 more people where arrested without reason. The police (of the 23rd and 24th squad) were extremely brutal, beating indiscriminately people and causing a serious head injury to at least one person, who had to be transferred with an ambulance.

This brutal tactic fits in the picture of the whole day, during which the police tried to prevent the protests against the Media Spree project. The same afternoon, the police attacked the van with the loudspeakers, after the end of the demonstration, as the action concept was supposed to be announced by the loudspeakers.
Nevertheless, the protests will go on and the people, despite the repression, hasn\’t surrendered to the terrorization. The estate on Cuvry Str. (by IVG Real Estate) was successfully occupied and more than a thousand people took place in a creative “Enter Media Spree” day.

We will continue to support the contradictory opinion that the city needs.
In order to reach new coasts – for a free radio in Berlin
against the gentrification, the neoliberal restructuring of the city and the magnification of the flat rents

Berlin, 6th of June
your pirate radio

LINK

Tougher action against Dutch pirate radio stations

The Radiocommunications Agency Netherlands (AT) is stepping up action to prevent illegal radio radio broadcasts. The agency will not only close down stations that are on the air without permit, but will also target aerial towers “obviously intended for illegal broadcasts”.

As a first step, AT inspectors will pay warning visits to land and home owners on whose premises suspicious constructions are spotted. “If these are used illegally, they will be fined 2,500 euros plus a conditional fine of 2,250.” The total fine that illegal broadcasters risk “can total up to 33,750 euros”, according to AT spokesman Gernant Deekens.

The new approach will first be used in the relatively rural northeastern province of Drenthe. Pirate stations are often run from hideouts in sheds and barns, playing popular music to a local audience for a couple of hours a day. It is often felt that “official” radiostations are catering insufficiently for regional tastes, prompting enterprising individuals to set up their own transmissions on AM or FM. The quality of the transmitters is often such that the broadcasts are causing interference on other channels, often without the pirates even being aware of it.

“Pirate radios are causing a lot of trouble in the north and east of the Netherlands,” according to AT Chief Inspector Peter Spijkerman. “Their illegal broadcasts are interfering with legal radio stations here and in neighbouring Germany. Air traffic communication, too, is disrupted by illegal transmissions. This can lead to dangerous situations. We primarily want to take preventive action, but if people break the law, we’ll give the pirates tit for tat,” Mr Spijkerman warned.

Source: RNW News

New Pirate - Radio Valencia

"In San Francisco, a brand new unlicensed community radio station, Radio Valencia, is about to get off the ground, with a hoped-for launch date of early July. Housed in artist/musician/activist/former San Francisco mayoral candidate Chicken John’s warehouse “Chez Poulet” in the Mission District, it’s being envisioned as not only an underground radio station, but also as part of a larger non-profit community resource."

Read more via Radio Survivor

VONT Stamp to go out on QSLs

I've designed a stamp to go onto the QSL cards I send out.

Harry Smith reports in

Just heard Voice of Next thursday as relayed by WBNY relay service . You were on 6900Khz AM at 0008-0039 UTC June 15'10. Very weak tonight with lots of atmo noise. SIO 333. I use a JRC 535 D with a R f Systems Mk 2 antenna 30 ' high N to S. Havent heard you in a long time and haven't seen any logs for you either. Would love to get the next QSL if possible.

Details are :

0008 ID WBNY Relay service WWV time ticks
0009 ID Voice of Next Thursday with Gabreal Syme
0010 Song
0013 Talk by G S very faint
0015 Music faint
0022 WBNY ads for hats then back to V of N T.
0032 singing interf from Span station
0036 closing annc about being back next Thurs.
0039 Id for WBNY The real voice of America .
Thank you for the program maybe i'll hear it again maybe under better conditions.

Thank you
Harry L. Smith