Do they actually have advertisers? One would think that if an ad for Bob's Discount Autos was heard on a "pirate" radio station then a visit from the FCC and a fine would encourage Bob to not advertise and thus the radio station would go away fairly quickly. If the power requirements are so low that the stations need not advertise then perhaps a more reasonable approach would be a low cost for low power broadcast license?
1000 watts is what an electric space heater might use; the cost would be below 20 cents an hour. 1000 watts is enough to be received in your car 20 miles away. Within 10 miles of the pirate transmitter, the pirate could easily overpower a legal station. This might cause financial harm to the legal station and its advertiser who expects to be heard in the pirate's region.
Your solution is not unreasonable, but the low power licensee would have to actually obey the restrictions he's licensed to operate under.
1000 watts is what an electric space heater might use; the cost would be below 20 cents an hour. 1000 watts is enough to be received in your car 20 miles away. Within 10 miles of the pirate transmitter, the pirate could easily overpower a legal station. This might cause financial harm to the legal station and its advertiser who expects to be heard in the pirate's region.
Your solution is not unreasonable, but the low power licensee would have to actually obey the restrictions he's licensed to operate under.
Antenna height matters more than output power. VHF amateur radio stations typically run 20 to 100 watts and work fine at 20 miles or more. Less than 20 watts is fine for line of sight operations outside of the Fresnel zone [wikipedia.org] to the horizon.
Yup, When I was working in the deployment of AMPS in New Zealand in the 1980s, we were able to work 20W cellsites in Wellington from the skifields at Turoa (about 150 miles away and sited at about 300feet AMSL) with a 3W bagphone and unmodified antenna. Being at ~4500 feet AMSL and having a clear line of sight helped.
We could trivially pick up 100W FM stations at that distance too.
Who pays for pirate radio? (Score:5, Interesting)
Do they actually have advertisers? One would think that if an ad for Bob's Discount Autos was heard on a "pirate" radio station then a visit from the FCC and a fine would encourage Bob to not advertise and thus the radio station would go away fairly quickly. If the power requirements are so low that the stations need not advertise then perhaps a more reasonable approach would be a low cost for low power broadcast license?
Re:Who pays for pirate radio? (Score:3)
1000 watts is what an electric space heater might use; the cost would be below 20 cents an hour. 1000 watts is enough to be received in your car 20 miles away. Within 10 miles of the pirate transmitter, the pirate could easily overpower a legal station. This might cause financial harm to the legal station and its advertiser who expects to be heard in the pirate's region.
Your solution is not unreasonable, but the low power licensee would have to actually obey the restrictions he's licensed to operate under.
Re: (Score:2)
1000 watts is what an electric space heater might use; the cost would be below 20 cents an hour. 1000 watts is enough to be received in your car 20 miles away. Within 10 miles of the pirate transmitter, the pirate could easily overpower a legal station. This might cause financial harm to the legal station and its advertiser who expects to be heard in the pirate's region.
Your solution is not unreasonable, but the low power licensee would have to actually obey the restrictions he's licensed to operate under.
Antenna height matters more than output power. VHF amateur radio stations typically run 20 to 100 watts and work fine at 20 miles or more. Less than 20 watts is fine for line of sight operations outside of the Fresnel zone [wikipedia.org] to the horizon.
Re: (Score:2)
"Antenna height matters more than output power."
Yup, When I was working in the deployment of AMPS in New Zealand in the 1980s, we were able to work 20W cellsites in Wellington from the skifields at Turoa (about 150 miles away and sited at about 300feet AMSL) with a 3W bagphone and unmodified antenna. Being at ~4500 feet AMSL and having a clear line of sight helped.
We could trivially pick up 100W FM stations at that distance too.