If you ever see the off-Broadway play Radio Gals, you'll find it an interesting introduction to the early history of radio transmission. Long before licensing or the creation of corporate broadcasting networks, the first radio pioneers were often small-town busybodies who used low-power transmitters to put on the air an eclectic variety of show tunes, dance numbers, and interviews. What particularly scared the Federal government about some of these early free spirits on the radio is that many of them began spreading the Wobbly (IWW) message and, even worse, practiced "signal jumping," hopping from frequency to frequency. This raised the sorry spectre of anarchy, and to prevent the twin dangers of Communist propagandizing and airplane interference, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was launched.
Suffice to say, over its sixty-odd year history, the FCC did its damnedest to allow corporate power to take over the airwaves. By raising the operating costs of licensed stations to astronomical amounts, and selling off the radio spectrum to the highest bidder, and by turning radio broadcasting into a de facto commercial enterprise through various bureaucratic regulations, the FCC changed the American radio 'soundscape.' So when people took to the airwaves in defiance, through what came to be called pirate radio (unregulated, unlicensed, uncensored), the FCC went after them with a vengeance, primarily due to the canard of interference. It wasn't denial of free speech; rather it was the threat these unlicensed broadcasters presumably represented to the signals of licensed stations or (gasp!) air traffic control towers and government transmission frequencies.
The golden age of radio piracy was, not surprisingly, the early 70s, when many pirates (especially in Britain) transmitted from offshore boats or from mobile transmitters which made them hard to track and identify. Since piracy was illegal, needless to say, they rarely used call letters or real names or anything that might help identify who the pirates were. They usually gave P.O. boxes as addresses where people could send QSL (reception report) cards and fan mail. But pirate radio often attracted a huge following, despite the fact that its sound quality and signal strength could often be very flaky, and its programming quality, well, intermittent and irregular, to say the least. This was mainly because it offered an eclectic variety of music that could not be heard on standard format easy-listening stations, and carried spoken material on very controversial subjects. No censorship and no government spin. And even better, no advertising. In the U.S., pirate radio was like a Hydra monster: for every one shut down by the FCC, two would spring up in its place.
Strangely, the FCC has rarely been able to prove interference, yet it continues to use it as an argument against pirate radio. Many pirate radio operators know quite a bit about electronics and radio physics and are sophisticated enough to restrict themselves to radio frequencies that do not interfere, even in urban areas that are filled with signals of all kinds. Yet the FCC assumes that since radio pirates are operating without a license, they must be guilty of recklessness and a refusal to respect the frequency rights of others (rather than a desire to avoid the enormous bureaucratic and economic costs of seeking federal licensing.) Radio pirates continue to be shut down, fined, and jailed, even while most commercial radio stations continue to amalgamate into vast media conglomerates and homogenize into stale, cookie-cutter programming formats. All for daring to broadcast out of love for a message or a music, rather than for money.
While there has always been a tradition of politically motivated pirate
radio stations in other countries (known as clandestines, they
often broadcast anti-government messages from secret offshore locations),
this has rarely been the case in the U.S.; most radio pirates may have
carried some political material (usually running programs to promote
marijuana legalization and so forth) but rarely made it a central focus.
This has changed with the coming of the "free radio" movement, which has
been focused on locally-based "micropower" FM broadcasting, rather than
the use of the long-range shortwave bands which were the beloved
frequencies of the first wave of pirates. Activists such as
The micropower broadcasting movement is community-based, often relying on low-power transmission kits that rarely reach beyond a small town or urban neighborhood. The idea is to carry locally based material - music that people want to hear, rather than tunes culled from the Top 40 charts; local grass-roots issues, rather than bland, irrelevant syndicated news shows; local live performances rather than canned concerts. It would seem an idea whose time has come. Yet the FCC has retaliated against Dunifer, fining him for enormous sums of money. Meanwhile, he continues to promote the micropower message, making do-it-yourself low-power FM transmitter kits (with built-in signal non-interference components) available to anyone willing to pay for them (and most are anything but expensive.)
The FCC has never seen the need to regulate one-to-one radio communication. CB and the ham radio bands have always been relatively unregulated. In the latter case, one can immediately start using them after passing a simple exam on electronics theory and morse code. But the idea of uncontrolled broadcasting - where someone can use radio to spread a message to a wide number of people simultaneously - seems somehow so much more dangerous. This despite the fact that the most dangerous propagandists (such as Father Coughlin before WW II, or G. Gordon Liddy today) have always used the licensed commercial networks for spreading their poison. The FCC has always maintained that as a broadcast medium, radio has to be regulated in various ways, including for decency (the seven unsayable words of George Carlin) and accuracy. Yet, things like the Fairness Doctrine (of giving equal time to opposing political views) and community accountability (radio stations are supposed to "serve the public," not "gain a market share of ratings") are rarely enforced.
Radio doesn't have to be the way it is today. Back in the 20s and 30s, there was an alternative possibility: a historical moment where the airwaves were seen as a public resource rather than a private good. Radio programming existed in a wide variety of formats, created by a wide variety of people. Today, most commercial stations stick to reduplicated, homogenized formats under standardized, bottom-line corporate organizing procedures, pandering to advertisers and record companies, and then wonder why they need so many contests and promotions and "shock jock DJs" to attract listeners. Some today feel this revived DIY spirit applies to television as much as radio, and have attempted to create micropower TV broadcast stations as well. Others have demanded their right to a portion of the airwaves, seeking to create local-access cable programs piggybacking on the faceless signal of their regional cable companies.
The pirate/free radio movement is not likely to disappear in the near future. To most activists, their cause is about the fundamental human right to communicate, which is above any arbitrary governmental regulation. Radio has always lent itself to this anarchist spirit, since it uses no cables and no wires; while the electromagnetic spectrum might be parcelled off in theory, it can never be owned in practice. The phone company might own all those phone lines, but it can't own a wavelength. The federal government will likely continue to moan about the dangers of crashing planes from pirate radio broadcasts, despite any contrary evidence, and the FCC will eventually branch out to tackle the other area where speech seems to becoming dangerously uncontrolled and, worse, unprivatised - the Internet. You heard it hear first, my friend.