> Published Sunday, July 23, 2000, in the Miami Herald
>
> 100 unlicensed stations silenced in South Florida, the
> `pirate radio capital'
>
> Some disrupted aircraft communication, officials say
>
> BY DAVID GREEN
> dgreen at herald.com
>
> A few weeks ago, agents closed in on a pirate radio station airing gangster
> rap from a Fort Lauderdale warehouse.
>
> The warehouse turned out to be empty. The disc jockeys had tossed their
> portable transmitter into a van and were now spinning tunes as they cruised
> the streets.
>
> ``We'd see them,'' Broward sheriff's Lt. Ric Moss recalls. ``We would try
> to set up so we could move in and they'd disappear.''
>
> Such cat-and-mouse games are growing increasingly common as the federal
> government cracks down on unlicensed stations -- particularly in South
> Florida, which one federal agent called the
> ``pirate radio capital of the world.''
>
> Indeed, the Federal Communications Commission has pulled the plug on more
> than 100 stations between Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties during the
> past two years. In recent weeks, its agents have pinched pirate equipment
> in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.
>
> The growing battle over rogue broadcasters has dragged in combatants from
> across the spectrum: police, the federal government, the powerful
> broadcasters lobby -- even airports, which claim that
> pirate transmissions disrupt conversations between planes and control towers.
>
> In the eye of the storm is a ragtag collection of renegades. From ethnic
> broadcasters shut out of commercial radio to anarchists fighting for
> unregulated airwaves to opportunists running amateur ads for nightclubs and
> earning a mother lode of tax-free loot, they're united by a common attitude.
>
> ``The radio sucks,'' says Paul Griffin, director of the Association of
> Micropower Broadcasters, a Berkeley, Calif.-based clearinghouse for
> underground radio issues that publishes a newsletter for 300
> subscribers.
>
> ``Most of the dial is filled up with preprogrammed commercial stations that
> don't address the needs or interests of the local listening public.''
>
> It was the crowds that police noticed first.
>
> As many as 600 people would suddenly gather at a public park or gas station
> in Broward County. Complaints would flood the Broward Sheriff's Office.
>
> Deputies would arrive and find people drinking, smoking marijuana,
> fighting, peeling out, according
> to Lt. Moss. They'd break up the throng with tickets and arrests -- and the
> crowd would reassemble several miles away.
>
> Officials couldn't figure out how they all knew they should go to a
> particular spot. Informants told them where to turn for an answer: 90.9 FM.
>
> The unlicensed gangster rap station aired the latest uncensored hip-hop
> hits. It also broadcast the
> locations of spontaneous nighttime parties.
>
> ``We finally caught on,'' Moss recalled. ``We'd listen to the station, and
> they'd say, `OK, BSO's coming, we're going to try Troy's Lounge,' or
> `Everybody go to the Marathon station.' ''
>
> Sheriff's officials began eavesdropping on the station's broadcasts. In
> addition to having their ears blistered by explicit lyrics, they heard the
> DJs -- young men with names like Haitian Boy and Marti -- announce
> sightings of police, or locations of possible police raids.
>
> Sheriff's officials called the FCC. Together, the agencies used a
> sophisticated radarlike device that pinpointed the transmitter's location
> at a warehouse near Northwest Sixth Street and 22nd Road in Fort
> Lauderdale, the Broward Sheriff's Office said.
>
> Before agents could raid the station, however, the pirates tossed their
> transmitter into a van and began broadcasting from the streets. A few weeks
> later, agents tracked the signal to a house in the 2200 block of Northwest
> 19th Street.
>
> When police walked into the dilapidated shack on July 13, they found
> equipment -- a transmitter, CD players, headphones, microphones, a 30-foot
> antenna. The DJs were gone.
>
> ``We may have put them down temporarily,'' Moss said. ``But we anticipate
> them getting back into service.''
>
> STATIONS PROLIFERATE
>
> Several factors may have set the stage for the explosion of pirate
> broadcasters in South Florida -- and across the country, where by some
> estimates nearly 1,000 now jam the airwaves.
>
> In 1996, Congress passed the Telecommunications Reform Act. Among other
> things, the legislation loosened limits on the number of radio stations a
> single company could buy.
>
> The result: a corporate feeding frenzy.
>
> A handful of broadcast groups now own about 90 percent of U.S. radio
> stations, according to Griffin of the Association of Micropower
> Broadcasters. One pending merger will place more than 800 stations in the
> hands of a single company if it's approved.
>
> The resulting corporate-designed formats often fail to speak the language
> -- literally -- of America's growing ethnic enclaves. There is an incentive
> for them to provide their own programming.
>
> `Hispanics living in Detroit, Vietnamese in Arlington,'' says Mark Berlin,
> an attorney with the FCC's office of political programming in Washington.
> ``The only way they can get something [on the radio] is to just start [a
> station] up themselves.''
>
> Another factor: technology. Advances have made it easier than ever to start
> a station. As little as $700 can buy a pirate radio starter kit over the
> Internet -- a five-watt transmitter, an amplifier, an antenna.
>
> To stem the rising tide of pirates, the FCC launched a crackdown several
> years ago. The ongoing sweep has covered the country, the FCC said, taking
> down more than 500 stations since 1997.
>
> Those caught face up to $100,000 in fines, a year in prison and the loss of
> their equipment.
>
> In South Florida, harried federal agents have struck in three waves. The
> first two occurred in 1998 and took down 54 stations; the second, last
> year, closed 23 others.
>
> Since then, the FCC said, 38 more stations have been hit.
>
> And federal agents have stepped up their activities in recent weeks. Early
> in the month, agents seized a Miami man's equipment. The following week,
> they snatched equipment from two stations in Fort Lauderdale -- 90.9 FM and
> a Caribbean station.
>
> Last Monday, they honed in on an industrial bay in West Palm Beach where
> they had detected unlicensed airing of Haitian music. They tacked a note to
> the door: Pull the plug or go to jail.
>
> The station is now silent. And these days, so are most of South Florida's
> pirate stations.
>
> ``A lot of them have hunkered down,'' one FCC agent said. ``As of
> yesterday, we didn't hear a single one on the air.
>
> ``Word is getting out that we can pinpoint a signal right to your stovepipe.''
>
> SIGNAL CLUTTER
>
> That's music to some ears.
>
> Before the federal crackdown, more than 30 pirate stations cluttered the
> airwaves across South Florida, according to the FCC. They played rap,
> reggae, Haitian compas, Greek laika, Israeli folk.
>
> And they often jammed the signals of licensed stations.
>
> Rob Robbins, who spent six years raising money to start the Miami-based
> Christian alternative rock and rap station The Call at 91.7 FM, says an
> Israeli pirate station in Broward hijacks his signal every
> night.
>
> ``I really don't have any sympathy with these guys,'' Robbins says. ``We
> took the hard route here, raising money for six years. Some of these guys
> can go out for $1,000 or less and instantly go on the
> air.''
>
> Airports, too, say they're plagued by pirates. Unauthorized tunes sometimes
> bleed into communications between pilots and air traffic controllers,
> according to the Federal Aviation
> Administration.
>
> DISTRACTION ALOFT
>
> Indeed, pirate broadcasting from West Palm Beach's industrial bay was
> accidentally jamming air traffic signals at Palm Beach International
> Airport, FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said. Pilots found themselves
> suddenly listening to Haitian pop music as they tried to land, authorities
> said.
>
> A few months earlier, both a gangster rap station and a Haitian pirate
> broadcaster were causing the same crisis at Miami International Airport,
> the FAA said. Both were shut down.
>
> For those who oppose the pirates, this threat to public safety is
> justification for redoubling the attack.
>
> ``I don't know about you, but when I'm landing at the Miami airport, I'd
> rather not have communications interrupted between the pilot and air
> traffic controller,'' says Dennis Wharton, spokesman for the National
> Association of Broadcasters, a Washington-based television and radio lobby.
>
> But unlicensed broadcasters prefer to see themselves as Robin Hoods of
> radio. If they're muzzled, they argue, their communities will be robbed of
> their voices.
>
> ``I'm not doing bad things -- I'm not killing people on the air,'' insists
> 36-year-old native Israeli Shlomi Malka, who operates the pirate
> Hebrew-language station at 91.7 FM from a rented Fort Lauderdale house --
> and interferes with the Miami Christian music station.
>
> ``If you are from Israel, and you are here in this country by yourself, and
> your mother and father are back in Israel, you miss them. When you hear my
> music, you think of them, and it brings you a good feeling.''