MUTINY ON THE AIRWAVES OR, 
HOW TO BE A RADIO PIRATE

By Xav Leplae

"Every transistor radio by nature of its construction is at the 
same time a potential tranemitter...by circuit reversal. The 
development from a mere distribution medium to a communication 
medium io...coneciouely prevented for understandable political 
reasons. The technical distinction between receivers and 
transmitters reflects the social division of producers and 
consumers."
-Hans Magnus Enzensberger, 1974

Everybody can own a TV and everybody can own a radio, but how many 
of us own a TV or radio station? It is far from impossible, and 
it's easier to do now more than ever, because we now have 
camcorders, inexpensive audio equipment, and new wireless 
technology helping us jump onto the airwaves and speak to each 
other.

A Mr. Microphone is a radio transmitter, and a garage door opener 
is a radio transmitter. Cellular sations are picked up by some TV 
sets.So it is not technology, but the political and commercial 
potential of mass communications that is keeping access to the 
airwaves out of the public's hands. The Federal Communications 
Commission (FCC) has prevented most people from transmitting by 
ruling that only those who can meet exhorbitantly expensive 
standards of land and equipment ownership can apply for licensing.

The airwaves are property only a few are licensed to use, but with 
technology that's within everybody's reach, you can trespass onto 
these spaces. It is not as though there is no room for it. Every 
empty channel on your TV set, and every empty frequency on your 
radio dial, could be filled with programming, if more people knew 
how to hot wire the airwaves.

Tetsuo Kogawa, a Japanese media activist, faxed us his design for 
a cheap FM radio transmitter. He's been doing pirate radio and 
television for years in Japan, and his "narrowcasts" cover a 
college campus with this device. You should be able to build it 
for $20-50.

HOW TO USE THE "BLACK BOX" by Tetsuo Kogawa

Prepare the following materials:

- tape recorder with mini plug cable coming from audio out.

- 12v/500mA, or 12v DC power supply, or 1 2v regulator for car 
battery power.

- radio antenna, preferably vertical dipole, with enough wire to 
reach antenna from place of transmission .

- the "Black Box."

To build the system:

1. Extend the pole of a rod antenna to 85cm across. This is the 
length for 88MHz on your radio dial.

2. Attach the antenna to a plastic or wooden stick (not metal) at 
least I meter in length, using duct tape.

3. Connect the wire between the antenna and the Black Box using 
the coaxial cable connector. Make sure the connection is right; if 
you use the Black Box without doing so, the power transistor may 
get damaged

4. Fix the antenna on a high place, like a rooftop or a tree. The 
higher the better.

5. Connect the audio cable from the headphone jack or line out to 
the audio in on the Black Box (check that the volume is down on 
the tape player).

6. Everything OK? If so, connect the 12v power to the Black Box 
(never mix up plus and minus!). One watt should be at the 12v.

7. Start your tape player, tune your radio to 88MHz, and you will 
find the signal. Bring up the volume little by little until you've 
reached the appropriate level. Now you are an independent 
narrowcaster.

The good thing about 88MHz is that you get farther range with less 
power than at higher frequencies. Also 88.0 is much less likely to 
be occupied by a stronger transmission, because it is an unpopular 
location, "the far left" of the radio dial.

Kogawa also recommends using a number of these transmitters. By 
having one transmitter pick up the signal from the initial 
broadcast about half a mile away, and retransmitting it so that 
other transmitters can pick it up, you can begin to cover a 
substantial part of a city.

A pirate group in Wisconsin called WANTED recommends using 
carrier-current, which sends your signal through the electric 
current that comes to your home and brings it to any radio in the 
area that's plugged into a wall socket receiving power from the 
same transformer. Usually one transformer covers several blocks, 
or one skyscraper. It works by just plugging your transmitter into 
a wall socket.

If you want to get your antenna really high, attach it to a helium 
balloon, like the US government does for transmission of TV Marti, 
which invades Cuba's wavespace. In fact, since the US government 
broadcasts 24 hours a day across borders into nations whose 
governments totally oppose its reception, regardless of what 
licensed programming might be on the frequencies, you could say 
the feds are the biggest lawbreakers of all. So it's all-American 
to be a broadcast pirate!

One pirate told me that he used a car battery to power his 
transmitter in an apartment in the Bronx, placed the antenna on 
the roof of the building, and had a loose cable connecting the 
transmitter to the antenna through his window. That way, if there 
was danger of getting caught he would just pull out the cable from 
the antenna, and push the whole system under his bed. This made it 
very safe because the FCC can track down the origin of a 
transmission in 15-20 minutes, but to get a search warrant for 
every residence in an apartment building takes days or weeks. So 
if you're in a city, transmit from a large apartment building. 
They are also good because you can put your antenna t very high 
up.

WANTED, in Wisconsin, sometimes directly overrides the commercial 
television and radio networks within a radius of two or three 
miles by transmitting simultaneously from several vehicles, which 
makes detection by the FCC much more difficult. WANTED recommends 
locating your equipment in a panel truck and transmitting from an 
antenna on a nearby rooftop. They have been broadcasting TV 
intermittently for three years, and have not gotten caught yet.

The equipment to broadcast television is a bit more extensive and 
expensive than radio but not very hard to work with. Your biggest 
expense most likely will be your camera, or your jail sentence. 
Just kidding! If you transmit less than 15 minutes at a time, you 
can't get tracked down by the FCC. They usually need to be clued 
in to your transmissions by your own attempts at publicity or a 
complaint from someone picking up your signal. Most people get off 
for their first offense.

The first fine is $750, or one year's worth of ham sandwiches.

Xav Leplae is a member of Paper Tiger Television.

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