Pirate FM suspected near Indiana PA
August 16, 2022Indiana Gazette writer Pat Cloonan reports of a station operating without an FCC license on 99.9 near the rural college town. Cloonan first told PBRTV and reiterates in his article the station first appeared in late-May of 2022 with an unusual blend of instrumental music. At the time it was clear between Spring Church, Armstrong County and downtown Indiana. It wasn’t heard again until this week in downtown Indiana and Johnstown.
No word on the suspected pirate station’s power output, but it’s likely not affecting first adjacent channels – Renda’s WSHH 99.7 nor the FM translator for KDKA-AM at 100.1. It is also far enough away from Erie where WXKC is licensed to use 99.9.
I’d welcome a pirate station. Maybe something good would put on the air for a change. I don’t even listen to terrestrial radio any longer. It is total trash. As for the FCC? Hmmm, another 3 letter government agency, that has, perhaps, outlived their usefulness.
That’s a good point, licensed stations are pretty tight with technical standards, and transmitters are so good now that it’s rare that a station’s signal drifts enough to interfere with another broadcaster like in the old days.
To be fair, many of the old rules have been dropped over the years, like engineer on duty and amount of proof of performance tests have been reduced, and you don’t need that ‘yellow card’ FCC permit to be on a station these days, stations don’t ask recruits for it now at least.
I’m surprised that there aren’t more pirate stations on the air around Pittsburgh, when we’re known as a city that calls itself “The birthplace of broadcasting.”
One theory I have is it could be the hills, the rough terrain in the area, making it tough for smaller signals to travel. Note that there was little real interest in Low Power FM (LPFM) in our area, when the application window opened up for the 100 watt stations some years ago.
Boomer
Boomer there was interest in LPFM. My application was initially approved by the commission with a great non profit “The White Oak Animal Safe Haven” that would have benefited greatly. The only local frequency at the time was 92.3 and a local broadcaster fought my application on a technicality. He then got that frequency for a translator DURING THE LPFM OPEN WINDOW, against the FCC’s own rules ! I have the proof but wasn’t going to spend money on lawyers to fight him. The corrupt FCC now gives out translators to broadcasters that do not deserve them. They were originally created for daytime signals to have a night time presence. An example of this is KDKA. Did they need or qualify based on the original ruling for a low power translator with a 50K 24 hour signal? Hell No. Now the FM band is totally full of duplicated simulcasted garbage. The FCC gave out translators to whoever had the deepest pockets and now there is no room for LPFM community radio. I believe the FCC planned this squeeze out and prefers it.
Yes, I remember reading about your application at the time, possibly right here on this very site. There were a couple of other applications in the North Hills that were dismissed over having an out of town backer, and no one else tried to apply for those. The jazz museum organization I was close to at the time was interested, since WDUQ had just been sold and jazz fans were up in arms about it. Looking at REC Networks LPFM site, we couldn’t find anything without 2nd adjacent waivers in the right place in the west hills, and so it remained ‘bar talk’ for us.
I’m glad to hear that you got your application in, and stick with it, because there’s another LPFM application window coming up, though it hasn’t been announced when it’s happening, just that it would happen after the latest non-commercial window.
I laughed about that too, why does 50,000 watt KDKA need a hundred watt FM translator with a much smaller coverage footprint? One reason is smart phones, since they only can have FM receivers. You might be listening on the game on AM in the car, and if you want to continue, your phone could pull in the FM in the city.
There are other cities with stations doing the same thing, 50 kw legacy stations announcing their FM translators and barely mentioning the AM, like WSB 750 Atlanta is an example, I heard them only announce the AM at the top of the hour.
As for the subject of the article, maybe the suspected pirate could look into getting involved with an LPFM for their area.
Boomer