Art Bell

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March 25, 1998 - Art Bell

02:34:18

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Pirate Radio - Pat Murphy, Roger Skinner

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01:14:35

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		To talk with Art Bell in the Kingdom of Nye.
		From east of the Rockies, dial 1-800-825-5033.
		West of the Rockies, including Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, 1-800-618-8255.
		First-time callers may reach Art at area code 702-727-1222.
		And you may call Art on the wildcard line at area code 702-727-1295.
		To reach art from outside the U.S., first dial your access number to the USA, then 800-893-0903.
		This is Coast to Coast AM from the Kingdom of Nigh with Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, everybody.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We're talking about Pirate Radio.
unidentified		Well, let me tell you what I've got for you tonight.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It is the FX200 mini FM broadcast station on sale one night only.
		Bob Green has them.
		The regular price is $44.95.
		Now they're only $39.95, including shipping to all 50 states.
		What is the FX200?
		Well, it plugs right into the headphone jack of a cassette player, CD player, television, or computer, and transmits the audio in the FM band to any radio.
unidentified		So.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you can start up your own little very short-range broadcast station.
		And perhaps even your neighbors will be able to hear it.
		I'm not going to tell you commercially a lot more about it than that.
		Your imagination is the only limit for ways to use the FX200.
		It is, I'll tell you this, a remarkably stable transmitter.
		I mean remarkably stable.
		And absolutely legal in its present configuration.
		And it will transmit just absolutely a remarkably clean.
		Actually, the FX200 sounds as good as any FM station that you will hear.
		So your imagination is all that limits you with the FX200.
		It's a one-night only sale in honor of this broadcast.
		$39.95 includes shipping to all 50 states.
		If you want one, you better note down because I will not be advertising this tomorrow.
		The number to call at 7.30 in the morning is 1-800-522-8863.
		1-800-522-8863.
		The Sea Grain Company.
		Well, in honor of Pat Murphy, who asked about my t-shirt, I took a good close-up shot of the back of my t-shirt for Pat, and I've left it up there.
		And all of you can see it if you wish.
		I love wearing creative t-shirts.
		So it's up there on the studio cam right now.
		That's in honor of Pat Murphy coming on the radio and sticking his neck out 100 miles.
		Thank you, Pat.
		We have still on the line with us Roger Skinner.
		Roger has rulemaking in front of the FCC to allow these broadcast stations to go on the air at various levels.
		And we'll go back to Roger in a second.
		There is one quick call I want to pick up.
		West of the Rockies, you are on the air.
		Good morning.
		Where are you?
		Wait a minute.
		Now you're on the air.
		I'm sorry.
unidentified		Yeah, this is Dave from Colorado.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Dave.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How are you?
unidentified		I'm doing pretty good.
		I love your program.
		I used to listen to you when you talked to Union Plaza in Las Vegas.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
unidentified		But I lived in Amarillo when you were broadcasting from the base.
unidentified		And my dad worked out there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You heard K-M-E- Oh, yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my.
unidentified		And me and my friend and my dad, we built a little transmitter.
		We were broadcasting about 60 blocks radius.
		And the kids from school used to come around and listen to our 45s and 78s that we played.
		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's what we were playing, 45s.
unidentified		We had a ball with it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you also did it, and you actually heard me in Amarillo.
unidentified		Oh, yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No kidding.
unidentified		Yeah, I lived in Potter County.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We actually went about 50 miles radius from the base.
		Of course, you know, Amarillo is very flat.
		Yes, it is.
		Yeah, that's a fact.
		All right, my friend.
unidentified		Thank you so much.
unidentified		Can I ask you one more question, please?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sure, sure.
unidentified		You remember old Wolfman Jack that used to broadcast out the El Rio at 100,000 watts?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I did a show with Wolfman.
unidentified		You did?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah.
		I did a show at KENI in Anchorage with Wolfman Jack.
		He was really something else.
unidentified		Is he still alive?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wolfman has passed on.
unidentified		Oh, God, I was hoping he was.
unidentified		I love to have heard him.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, he was an incredible guy.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And let me tell you something.
unidentified		I'm not going to sleep tonight listening to him.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		He was the same way in person as he was on the air.
unidentified		He was a character.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, a character, as putting it mildly.
		Thank you.
		Yeah, sure.
		Yeah, Wolf.
		I was honored to do a show with Wolfman many years ago up in Anchorage.
		He did a short little stint where he was going into syndication, and K.E. and I was going to pick up his syndicated show.
		So he flew up to Alaska, and we did a show together.
		It was a riot.
		Absolutely a riot.
		Wolfman did have something about as thick as a big city, New York City phone book or L.A. phone book, and it had all His favorite expressions in it.
		And so when he'd enter the studio, he'd come in with this mass of stuff and these phone book-sized renditions of his favorite sayings and sit down.
		And, God, the guy was a blast.
unidentified		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Back now to Roger.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are you there, Roger?
unidentified		Still here and enjoying this evening immensely.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, excellent.
		Anyway, listen, you have packaged all three of these possible things into one rulemaking, and there's a reason.
		And the reason is?
unidentified		The reason is they are all tied together.
		Let me start the little scenario here, if I may, for just a moment.
		Chairman, the new FCC Chairman, William Kennard, is our first minority chairman.
		He is sensitive to minority ownership in broadcasting, which has decreased of late.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I shouldn't be surprised because they're throwing all the rules out.
		They're in the middle of doing that.
		You know how they're going to issue licenses now?
		They're going to auction.
		Yeah, auction.
		Highest bidder.
unidentified		But, you know, that's a whole nother story.
		Anyhow, we're looking at ways, and my proposal is trying to give them a way to bring local owners, mom and pops, as I call them, individual entrepreneurs, those of limited financial means, minorities, women, et cetera, give them a voice in broadcasting.
		And to do that, we need to lower the barrier to entry.
		They can't afford to pay the millions and millions of dollars like the big corporations are going to buy up these stations.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's an interesting tact to take, but actually, you're fighting the current wave, because the current wave is that to give preference to minorities, women, blah, blah, blah, blah, is in itself discrimination.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's the current wave.
unidentified		Well, I've created in my proposal a way that they can own a radio station for less than the price of a new car.
unidentified		They won't need minority preferences as in the past that ran into some constitutional problems.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, so you're not proposing returning these for the low-power arena.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're proposing an across-the-board deal.
unidentified		We're proposing a new service that will be so affordable that minorities, women, people of limited financial means, as I say, will be able to own their own radio station and to have a voice in the community where they live.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, you cannot be coming at this without quite a bit of background in piracy, my way of thinking.
unidentified		I am familiar with all that's going on.
		I've researched this topic for years.
		I started out myself.
		A lot of us broadcasters did with a little pirate station in the basement.
		It launched a 35-year career for me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are you in broadcasting now?
unidentified		Yes, I own a low-power television station here in Fort Lauderdale that is going to be knocked off the air because it's a secondary service.
		And that's another thing I'd like to bring into this discussion.
		There are many needs here that we're talking about and trying to serve with this petition.
		The so-called hobby broadcasters or pirate radio operators that we've been talking about tonight, a lot of these have something to say.
		A lot of these are worthwhile and can serve their community and have been.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Even if it's nothing but a bark between records.
unidentified		That's a little, you know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, no, no, no.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		See, you can't really.
unidentified		I mean, if somebody wants to bark between records, I mean, fine.
		I have to go do it.
		In my petition, I don't say what you have to broadcast.
		I don't say that you have to be non-commercial or that you have to be commercial.
		But what I'm saying is, give you an example.
		I sunk my life savings into this television station here, this low-power TV station.
		It was a secondary service.
		Well, back in 1980 when I applied for the license, the only way I could get bumped would be if an existing TV station were to move from one tower to another and I became short-spaced.
		It was very unlikely, and I was willing to take that risk.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		People won't understand what short-spaced is, but basically there would be an interference problem.
unidentified		Correct.
		Okay, I had no way of knowing that the FCC was going to award another channel for digital television to every single full-power TV station in the nation.
		And these channels would be taken regardless of whether there was a low-power TV operating on there or not.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, you know what?
		I'm not even sure that's constitutional.
		I know they're doing it, but I can't see how existing licensees are granted additional bandwidth without a public opportunity to have people compete.
		Now, that'll get me in trouble.
unidentified		That's a long story.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's a little bit off topic, but the point that I'm trying to make is Because more people who are now not in broadcasting could be in broadcasting, and instead they're giving this to existing licensees.
unidentified		Correct.
		I filed a petition for reconsideration, as did about 200 other people.
		They were all thrown out.
		And they said, this is what we're doing.
		And, I mean, you know, we could discuss that if you want.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, no, no, that's not a problem.
unidentified		That's a balance.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I think it's down another road.
unidentified		That's a whole other thing.
		But secondary service, as I mentioned, I'm proposing that the micro broadcasters, the pirate broadcasters, the guy that wants the barking between records, I can't expect a full power FM station in the market, 50 or 100,000 watts.
		If they decide they need to move their antenna site and all of a sudden bark radio is in the way, I agree with you.
		I can't see them saying, well, wait a minute, we can't move to our antenna because we have to protect Bark Radio or this guy that's doing this as a hobby.
		So I propose that as a secondary class license, being very sensitive to secondary class because I'm being kicked in the rear myself, losing my station.
		But in there, I also give them a method whereby within 60 days, if their channel is threatened, they can go to a more structured license and become under more regulations, all the Part 73 regulations that apply to normal broadcast stations, and become an LPFM-1 fully protected channel so they would not lose their channel if they wanted to do that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, well, the FCC did quickly snap up your proposed rulemaking, and they're going to, they're going to, I guess, what are they, accepting comments on it now?
unidentified		They're accepting comments until April 27th at the FCC.
		I should point out that I have a website that has the entire petition if people want to read it.
		And I found out that your website has a link to my website.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It does?
unidentified		It does.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Cool.
unidentified		Under web links on your website, there's one called LowPower FM.
unidentified		And if they click on that, it'll take them to my website.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And so they can come over and see and read and even print out the full 25-page petition.
unidentified		Also on there is details on how to file formal comments at the FCC.
		You send an original letter and nine copies to the FCC, and the address is on there.
		To those people that don't have, I understand a lot of people don't have the Internet.
		I said, you know, for a couple bucks to cover the cost of copying and postage, it's a dollar postage to send this out first class.
		I will go to the trouble of making a copy and mailing it to people that would like to read it that don't have it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Let me ask you your position on the FCC.
		A lot of people think the FCC should not even exist.
		There should be no regulation of broadcasting, and anybody who wants to broadcast should be able to broadcast, you know, broadcast anarchy.
		Do you think that's a good question?
unidentified		But that's folly.
		That's pure folly.
		That's like saying, all right, let's take away the stop signs and the red lights on the highways.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, thank you.
		That's exactly right.
		I mean, even as a pirate, I recognize that you just can't set it all loose.
		And that's what a lot of people want to do.
		There's a lot of pirates out there who think all regulation should be gone.
unidentified		Yeah, I've been arguing with some of them or discussing, I should say, on some of the webs or talk boards on the internet, you know, and, you know, coming from as a broadcaster, I understand why there has to be some rules.
		But my LPFM2 license for the so-called pirate radiotypes would have a minimum of regulations.
		The main thing would be an engineering study at the beginning to say, okay, this channel will not cause interference.
		And we're proposing, by the way, dropping the current restrictions on the second and third adjacent channels that currently is the reason why a lot of cities, why you can't put on a new station today.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you take my little area of the Perump.
		I live in a place called Perump, and it's a valley.
		It's a big valley.
		Actually, about twice the size of Las Vegas.
		And while there are FM signals in here, frankly, the FM dial is pretty empty.
		And I mean empty.
		But because there are regulations that talk about radio stations that are somewhere in California, perhaps in L.A. or in Las Vegas or way out there somewhere, the dial must essentially remain empty.
		And it's just like a vast wasteland.
		There's so much open space here.
		And it's a pirate's dream.
unidentified		Well, this will open up probably several frequencies in each market that could be used for low-power FM.
		And I'd like to revisit that power issue we talked about for just a moment.
		A lot of people go three kilowatts and they cringe, you know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, only because, look, I know and you know how commercial broadcasters are going to react to that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, come on.
unidentified		But I hasten to add a lot of the frequencies won't hold three kilowatts.
		We're proposing that purely as a maximum.
		For instance, I did a study on a channel down here in the Fort Lauderdale area that I'm interested in.
		It won't hold three kilowatts.
		It will hold 900 watts.
		Now, that'll give me about 10 to 11 miles.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right, so there's no present class of license that would embrace that.
unidentified		No.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So it remains an empty, unoccupied frequency for that distance.
unidentified		Correct.
		Now, under the current rules, you have to protect not only the channel you're on.
		Let's give an example.
		Let's say you're on 96.3, for instance.
		You would have to protect 96.3 and then three channels up, 96.5, 96.7, 96.9.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
unidentified		And three channels down the other way.
		Well, under my proposal, due to the fact that these rules were created 30, 40 years ago, receiver designs have improved with sawtooth filters, et cetera, to where the second and third adjacent channel restrictions today are superfluous.
		They're correct.
		They're not needed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, you're right.
unidentified		And this was proven, as I point out in my petition, I took the time to do my homework, and I quoted from the short-spaced grandfathered FM station proceeding of a couple years ago, whereby one engineering firm after another stated the same thing, that these rules are superfluous.
unidentified		In fact, you've had hundreds of full-power stations operating for years nationwide on second and third adjacent channels that are currently taboo to a new station.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Listen, we're doing a lot of time.
		I want to ask you about something here, and it is the following.
		Have you considered the possibility of setting aside a certain portion of the spectrum, perhaps adjacent to the present FM band or somewhere else in the VHF range, where you would allow people to put on broadcast stations, virtual anarchy, put on what you want, do what you want, in this spectrum only, and then begin to offer radios to people that would receive it.
		I mean, that is another possibility.
		Had you thought of that?
unidentified		That's been talked about.
unidentified		I don't give it much hope because I think what's important here is people need to be able to hear it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's true, but I mean, also, people aren't going to buy radio.
unidentified		The manufacturers are going to make special radios.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, they would if there was enough interest, they would.
unidentified		That's debatable.
unidentified		That's really debatable.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I know it's just going to doom the whole idea.
		It might be a workable solution.
		It might.
		But on the other hand, it would get the big money interests, broadcasters, who are going to fight this tooth and nail.
		You know they are.
unidentified		Well, are we really going to put them out of business?
unidentified		Are the big 100,000 watts stations here in the Miami area going to go out of business if I put on a 900-watt station?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't think so.
		Well, I've been around too long.
		I don't think so either.
unidentified		Have you seen advertising?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, yes, but you asked a question.
		No, you're not going to put them out of business, but are they going to fight it tooth and nail?
		You're damn right they are.
unidentified		Well, there's a lot of people are going to fight it.
		There's a lot of people that want it.
		Chairman Kennard wants it.
		Some of the other commissioners, I understand, want it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, there may be hope, and I really, really wish you luck with your petition, Lou, and I've got to go.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But it's a pleasure having you on, and I hope everybody goes up to my website, clicks on yours, and gets the petition, and fills it out.
unidentified		Well, I sure appreciate you having me on and a chance to talk about it.
		And Low Power FM is coming.
		It's an idea whose time has come.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Roger, thank you.
unidentified		Thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good night.
		All right.
		We're going to go back to open lines here.
		If you want to talk about pirate radio, fine.
		If you want to talk about something else, that's fine too.
		But I've wanted to do this broadcast now for a long, long time.
		And now we'll see how much trouble it gets me in.
		Good morning, everybody, from the high desert, where the rain has finally ended for this day.
		Damn, El Mino.
		We'll be right back.
unidentified		We'll be right back.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Here we go.
		Open lines.
		Anything you want to talk about?
		Want to continue with this?
		Fine?
		Want to do something else?
		Fine.
		Here we go.
		First time caller line.
		You're on the air.
		Hello.
unidentified		How are you doing there, Art?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm doing okay, sir.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where are you?
unidentified		Gene calling from Hawaii.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hawaii, yes, sir.
unidentified		I'm a micro-broadcaster.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A pirate.
unidentified		Also a broadcast engineer.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you say micro.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You mean you're a pirate?
unidentified		Well, I. Let's be clear here.
		Well, I am a pirate.
		I like to call it public radio service, not pirate radio service.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but, you know, in view of the fact that there are rules and regulations and you're breaking them, you're a pirate.
unidentified		Well, I don't feel I'm breaking them.
		That's why I was hoping I could get in before your guest had gone away because I have a big question.
		In view of Mr. Stephen Duniver's success at the court level, does that give us license, us other micro-broadcasters, to continue?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't think so.
		And now I'm not sure about that.
		But you've got to remember, even though it was a federal district court ruling, it applied, I think, only to Mr. Duniver's case, but that's a fuzzy, fuzzy area, and I'm not sure.
		I mean, there are chances, but the FCC is still doing raids.
		So while they're not raiding Dunifer for reasons we discussed earlier, that doesn't mean you're not going to get your door bashed down, so you're taking a chance.
unidentified		Yeah, but can I say, hey, FCC, look you here.
		Here's the Constitution of the United States, Freedom of Speech Radio here.
		Ms. Dunnifer won in court.
		You want me to take you to court, too, and I'll win, too, because a precedent has been set.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Probably not a national precedent.
		I mean, you can try it.
		Hell, you can try anything.
		But you might still get your door bashed in.
		You might be looking through bars.
unidentified		Well, I guess I have to give it a chance.
unidentified		Well, I guess I can.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There's a lot of people in prison right now who have a lot of stories to tell, you know, about how innocent they are.
unidentified		Yeah, true, true, true, true, true, true.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You've got to be careful.
unidentified		Well, I don't know.
unidentified		I don't know if I can.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What are you broadcasting?
unidentified		Well, I broadcast beautiful music.
unidentified		Guy Lombardo, Russ Morgan, stuff like that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Elevator music.
unidentified		That's what you guys like to call it.
		These people who have no taste.
		Not real music kind of thing.
		And most of the time, if they were to break the door down, I would give the funny cookie company the excuse that I'm running test.
		I'm testing this exciter out here, which I did not connect.
		I mean, load, oops, I accidentally connected to the antenna or something like that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I've always felt that the best defense is insanity.
		If you have commercial licenses, the best defense is insanity.
		Well, I went crazy.
		I didn't know what I was doing.
		I was overwhelmed with the desire to put this transmitter together.
		I couldn't help myself.
		I'm sorry.
		Have mercy on me.
unidentified		Well, I guess I'll bring that one up, but I'm also an amateur radio operator like yourself.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, see, you've got licenses to risk.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, they'll yank that sucker in a second.
unidentified		But that's not an amateur radio operations type thing.
		Not amateur radio.
		Quick question.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		Do you feel amateur radio, you know, with the loss of Heath Kitten is dying?
		Or what do you think about it?
		It's still somewhat of a viable hobby.
		I noticed a kid next door came over and looked at my equipment, and I was explaining to him, showing everything, and I said, you know, you've got to learn to send Morris code at 13 words a minute to get a license, or five words a minute for a novice.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, yeah, but there's no...
		There's no code license.
		Where have you been?
unidentified		Well, but he can't operate the, you know, the HF band up there and talk across the whole world if you're going to get it.
unidentified		That's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
unidentified		And he said, well, I can talk to people across the world, you know, on my computer.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You are raising a really, really interesting question.
unidentified		Everybody has competition.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		Listen on the air, and he's right.
		The state of ham radio in America, in the world, is a little tenuous.
		Look, I love ham radio.
		And if you watch my studio cams, you can see my ham rig in the background.
		I'm on ham radio a lot.
		I'm a radio freak, total freak, right?
		So I love it.
		But he's right.
		Times are a change.
		And when I began with ham radio, I built my own equipment.
		I built HeathKits.
		I built home brew equipment, you know, stuff you really put together yourself.
		Those days are over and gone.
		And you really, with very few exceptions cannot build the kind of equipment that is being used today.
		You've got to buy it.
		That's one.
		Two is the internet.
		The internet now allows you to go around the world, talk to anybody in any country, and not even more than talk to them, see them.
		You can have video conference calling going all over the world.
		I do it all the time.
		It is a competitor to ham radio.
		Now, where ham radio is going, I don't know.
		It may be that one day it will change or the FCC will finally give auction the frequencies off to somebody else or something.
		Some of that's already occurred, frankly.
		I hope not.
		There still should be a technical entry on an amateur level to encourage people to learn more and become technically proficient.
		And if not ham radio, then what?
		Now I may be biased because I've been a ham all my life.
		But I hope that it doesn't happen.
		And even though I've got access to the internet and I can go roaming around the world and talk and even see people that I'm talking to, it doesn't stop me from getting on the ham rig.
		But, you know, maybe I'm old broken bones.
		We'll see.
		Wildcard line, you're on the air.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		How are you doing, Arthur?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm doing okay.
unidentified		The reason why I'm calling is I'm a pirate, I guess, to use the word properly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I mean, let's not.
		Let's not.
		If you're a pirate, you're a pirate.
		Where are you?
unidentified		Roughly.
unidentified		I'm in the...
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Close to New Doll, boy.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're in a very populated area.
unidentified		The problem that I'm having, though, is if this licensing or if anything ever becomes available, the problem that I'm going to be seeing is the frequency available in my areas is like packed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I know.
		I mean, the FM dial from New York City and through New Jersey and probably Philadelphia is just, you know, one end to the other.
		There is no space.
unidentified		There's no room at all.
		And down at the 108 area where everybody, all the pirates, when I say pirates, all the people that put kits together and all that stay down there, but there's no room no more.
		There's nothing there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You mean there's so many pirates there?
unidentified		Well, I don't want to say there's so many pirates there, but we have up our way, there's stations that actually have remotes down this way.
		They use LPLs.
		There's some kind of links down there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So even that is consumed.
unidentified		Right.
unidentified		And then there's cable down here as well, too.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What about the low end?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A lot of pirates hang out just below the low end.
unidentified		I'm not really sure on that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, check it out.
		Most radios go down there.
		I mean, that's.
		I'm not saying do it, mind you.
		I'm just saying that is.
unidentified		We run a low-watt station down here.
		It's only five watts, but we put out pretty good.
		the FN ban?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I would think.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Five?
unidentified		Five.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Five.
		I would think from the FCC's point of view, they would be less inclined.
		I wonder if they'd be more or less inclined to go after somebody who's broadcasting just outside the FM band, say, just below it or just above it, versus somebody in the present FM band.
unidentified		Well, see, the problem is I don't want to have a problem with a harmonic, a second harmonic in the aircraft, even if I'm down that end.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's true.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't really get you in trouble.
unidentified		I don't want to be talking to somebody else, but I mean, one of the things I did was when I built my stuff, I put everything to spats.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How frequently do you broadcast?
unidentified		Once a week.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think you're a lot less likely to get caught in these 24-hour day operations.
		But I sympathize with you.
		I really do.
		I sympathize with you in an area where there is literally no more room.
unidentified		Right.
unidentified		That's my main concern if they ever make the license clear to everybody and they make it where you can actually go on the band, what frequency will be judged.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		See, that's why I was saying to my guest a little while ago, asking him about allocating a new band for a complete anarchy, which wouldn't bother the present commercial broadcasters.
unidentified		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And then eventually you'd begin to sell radios that would include that because people would think it was cool.
unidentified		Sure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Because there'd be so much anarchy there.
unidentified		I even thought about that before, going on like a VHF frequency, but then you're asking for trouble.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you are, but if you're going to make a petition for rulemaking, why not try and carve out a little VHF or UHF area where people can do that?
unidentified		Okay.
unidentified		Just a thought.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, thank you very much for the call, and I sympathize with you in areas like Los Angeles, Chicago, New York.
		The band is packed.
		Where would the Pirates go?
		It's a very good question.
		East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Art.
		Upstate New York.
		I'm John.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, John.
unidentified		Okay.
unidentified		Mainly, I want to talk about ham TV.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		And first, I will say that I, I think my voice is a little hoarse.
		I've been fighting a cold.
		Years back when I was a kid, oh, probably 1958 or so, you know, I fooled around with little AM transmitters.
		And I remember when I used crystal radios, living in an apartment, there wasn't much room to put up a wire or something.
		So I remember hooking it up to the telephone, to the finger stop on the phone.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It acts as an antenna.
unidentified		Right.
		So when I built my first little probably two, three watt transmitter, I got the same idea.
		Well, why not try that?
		And I found out that I could go and trace the wires underground for miles.
		Or at least two miles probably, something like that.
		You'd find spots you couldn't hear at any point.
		And the closer you held the radio to the ground, you would be able to hear, you know, I was playing music and stuff like that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's underground lines.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, it's really effective in above-ground lines.
unidentified		Yeah, some of those lines, no doubt, were going into people's homes also.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, absolutely.
unidentified		So it was probably radiating all.
unidentified		I never did check to see, you know, how great it was working.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Drives the phone company nuts.
unidentified		I am assuming it did.
		You know, you're talking about Lafayette Radio.
		You're talking Heathkid.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I worked for both of them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You remember the Lafayette that he was talking about?
unidentified		Phonographs?
		Yeah.
		I used to work for him as a technician.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Did you really?
unidentified		And I worked For Heath as a technician.
		There's another case where, you know, we worked for Heath Kid as a technician.
		You had to be good.
		I think you can imagine that.
		Because you can imagine what kind of stuff would come in that wouldn't work because it was wired wrong.
		But not only would it not be.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That must have been a really frustrating job.
unidentified		It was.
		But one thing that I learned after working, I worked for Lafayette for many years, and then I worked for Heath, and I was stumbling on one thing.
		And one of the other technicians says to me, hey, don't rely on the band on the diode being on the right end.
		No, you check it with an ohmmeter, but you don't pay attention.
		You're just looking for front to back.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
unidentified		But in a brand new item that never worked, you can't assume anything.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No.
unidentified		Now, some of these guys want it to be hams.
unidentified		But what stopped them was the fact that they couldn't do the code.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I was lucky.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It always came very easily to me.
unidentified		Some people, it doesn't.
		Like, some people can play musical instruments, some people can't.
		That's right.
		But anyway, aside from that, let me tell you, ham television.
		Now, some people, if you live in a big city especially, you may want to look for channel 60 on your TV in the cable position.
		Yep.
		In the CA TV.
		And you're likely in a big city to pick up ham television.
		Now, that's licensed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yes.
unidentified		But let me tell you a story that happened that I did way back.
		I was transmitting in Long Island, in New York City, in Queens, actually.
		Back, oh, probably 1965, something like that.
		I ran about 500 watts on 43925, which would be channel 60 on cable and the handband.
		Now, you want to call it piracy because probably very seldom would I identify.
		Because who's watching, you know?
		And we used to play gags.
		My friends and I, all of my friends, ham and non-ham, had antennas up for miles around all aimed at me.
		So I would be, you know, on the phone with them or whatever, on the radio.
		And they'd be watching me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
unidentified		Now, we used to play gags with this.
		And I'll tell you, think of this going, you've got to think of the time frame going back to 1965 when people didn't even know what VCRs were.
		They were just coming out then, you know.
		And I would, it was a girl that I was interested in.
		Now, I never like to ask girls out.
		I always like to sort of, you know, you don't want rejection, you know what I mean?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		So a friend of mine knew this girl.
		Hey, would you, you know, like to go for a ride?
		Nice summer night, you know, yeah, sure.
		So this guy knew this girl.
		And he says, oh, she gets in the car, and he's complaining he's got a toothache.
		So I make believe like I'm taking him to the dentist.
		But he didn't go to the dentist.
		He went back to my house and drove around for a little while and pulled out, I talked to him on the radio first, like I was making a phone call.
		Is he ready yet?
		Because I'm coming to pick him up at the dentist.
		And as I'm doing this, she's amazed that I'm talking to him from the car, right?
		I pull out a little five-inch TV, which in those days had just come out.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
unidentified		The little transistor TV.
		Put it in her lap.
		Pull up this antenna that looked like a measuring tape and turn it on.
		And there he is.
		And my friend is working on his mouth with a pair of pliers.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my God.
unidentified		We did all kinds of stuff like this.
unidentified		Now, I took her out the next night.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Listen, we're going to have to.
unidentified		Let me tell you this real quick.
		Before I could pick her up for the next night, I had to explain to her mother what had happened.
		She didn't believe it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm certain of it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I really appreciate your call, sir.
unidentified		Thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I've done some of the same sort of stuff.
		Heath Kit.
		Heath Kit, for those of you who don't know, is now, as far as I know, not in business.
		But in the early years, they manufactured kits for ham operators.
		And of course, frequently, very frequently, people who would buy Heathkit had never built anything electronic in their life.
		And some of the kits that were built were absolutely beyond belief.
		I mean, it just, people did horrible things.
		And then as a last-ditch opportunity, the Heathkid Company would allow you to send your Heathkit back to them, and they would straighten it out for you.
		And to me, it's unimaginable to have been a technician at the Heathkid Company, and they would be on a daily basis laying these kits in front of you that had been built by people who had no idea what they were doing, and you would have to make it right.
		I can't imagine that job.
		It would be a nightmare.
		West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
		Hi.
unidentified		Hi, Art.
unidentified		This is Hurricane Frank in San Diego, but I'm listening to you on KFRE, 50,000 watts of microphone melting power.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		From Fresno, on 940 in Fresno.
unidentified		It is a very strong radio station.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, of course it is.
unidentified		I just want to talk about pirate radio going to AM.
		I mean, AM, as you know, is very, very powerful, much more powerful than FM, especially at night.
		Yes, and it's just amazing that I'm actually picking up KFRE.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, it's not.
		That's 50,000 watts north of you.
		You want to talk amazing?
		Try WOAI in San Antonio.
		Try KFCB in Minneapolis-St.
		Paul.
		Try some of those.
		You'll hear them with a good antenna.
unidentified		Yeah, but even with a good Walkman, I have a little Sony Walkman that has AM stereo capability.
		So I have AMAX.
		And I don't know if that has anything to do as far as pulling in on the AM stereo mode.
		But gee, it's amazing.
		I could pull you every all the way up in Oregon.
		I could pull you in on a station, what is it, KEX, KEX, Portland?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		Yes, and they're very powerful.
		So there's, I mean, it's amazing how powerful AM is, especially at nighttime.
		And it's a shame that FM just doesn't just hit the.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, but there are advantages to FM.
		One of them, for example, is within the city of coverage, FM will go through buildings, buildings that AM doesn't begin to penetrate.
		You know, so people are working in buildings can hear the FM and can't hear any AM.
unidentified		So if you're out driving or if you have a good boom box or a little good small radio, like I have a little Sony Walkman, and I can pick you up at nighttime walking down town or something.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I know, but I know, but try going inside a metal concrete building in San Diego, and you're not going to hear KFRE then.
unidentified		No, you've got a point there.
		There has to be some kind of improvement there.
		But there's some.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But there's a trade-off.
		Look, AM is wonderful.
		I love it.
		There's nothing like a 50,000-watt clear just screaming out across the country and beyond.
		But then there's also a place for FM.
		They're both fun.
unidentified		Yeah, and one other thing, I just want to say, I remember listening to you when I used to live up in Sacramento, talk to 50 KST.
unidentified		There was a morning disc jockey show, I mean, talk show that you were on that you were interviewed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
unidentified		That was very interesting.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm still on KSTE.
unidentified		Yes, that's cool.
unidentified		I mean, that is a really cool station up there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They're not as powerful as some, but they do a pretty good job because you could pick them up as, of course, well, I can only hope that all of my commercial broadcast affiliates, and there are many, have a good sense of humor with regard to this morning's program.
unidentified		Well, you keep up the good work, Art Bell, and we all love you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Take care out there.
unidentified		Yep.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hope you've got a good sense of humor out there.
		All right.
		Well, in some markets, we will continue with yet another hour of open line, unscreened, unregulated radial anarchy in the middle of the night.
		I'm Art Bell.
		This is Coast to Coast AM.
unidentified		Coast to Coast AM.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, I want to say something, sort of on the tail end of this pirate show.
		I support, I absolutely support, and always have, and it's one of the reasons I did this program, I really support the idea of some kind of rulemaking that would allow people to broadcast.
		However, I am realistic about it.
		And number one, I don't think they can be commercial broadcast stations.
		I'm being realistic here.
		The commercial broadcast stations will go out of their minds, and I wouldn't blame them if every Tom, Dick, and Harry down the street is going to put something on the air and start selling commercials.
		So I don't think that's going to wash.
		And I don't think 100 watts at 100 feet is going to wash.
		This is just my personal opinion.
		I think something probably along the lines of 10 watts or 20 watts with an antenna at a moderate height, probably not more than about 50 feet, something that cannot be licensed and sold as a commodity, that an individual and only an individual would operate.
		Something like that, I think, may be possible.
		But even then, there's a lot to work out.
		But I want to tell you that I am very much in favor of it.
		A sort of a local anarchy.
		But of course, it cannot interfere and should not interfere with commercial licensed broadcasting.
		So I think there's a place for it, and I will fight for it in any way I can.
		And I think that broadcasters also should be in support of it at that level.
		But I'm telling you right now, you try to do rulemaking that's going to go after the broadcasters commercially or seriously threaten their ability to get ratings, and you're going to be up against a brick wall.
		So realistically, I think it can be done.
		But my position would be it's going to have to be done at a very local, low power level.
		And so, you know, that I support.
		I really support that.
		I think it would be neat for the American public.
		I think it would be good for the First Amendment.
		I think a lot of things.
		And so I support that, in case you wondered.
		Western the Rockies, you're on the air.
		Hello.
		Yeah.
unidentified		Click Tuck.
		Radio's down.
		This is John in Cupertino.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi, John.
unidentified		It just reminded me of one night last spring we were out in the mountains gold mining, coke hamming and so forth.
		And we had a Beijing radio with us.
		Oh, yes.
		And we're probably 70 miles from Sacramento.
		We couldn't pick up you from San Francisco or Sacramento.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
unidentified		You know, it's when the Haley's comma was out, the best I ever saw it.
		And we finally got you out of the Beijing, and it was from Four Corners.
		I think it's 132.
		Came in, clear as the bell.
		Yeah, you just never know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's the nature of radio.
		I mean, some nights you'll be getting one station very well, and the next night conditions are changed if you're out in the boondocks and you're getting something else from a great distance.
		And there is still a place.
		Let me explain to the audience, sir.
		Thank you for that.
		Let me explain to the audience a little bit.
		The original reason that there were very high power AM stations in America, and I suppose throughout the rest of the world, it is no different, probably even more of a reason to still happen.
		The original reason was that there were a lot of areas in America that were unserved by any local radio station.
		And so the only hope anybody had of hearing radio Was once the sun went down and the ionosphere changed properties, they would be able to pick up stations at a great distance.
unidentified		And that is still true today.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There are many areas, particularly out here in the West, where you could drive hundreds of miles, and if there were not very powerful stations, you would hear nothing.
		So there is still a need for these large 50,000-watt virtual clear channel stations.
		Even that concept is slowly kind of disappearing, but I hope it doesn't because unless America is concreted from one end to the other, possible someday, not in my lifetime, and there are local radio stations everywhere, then we still need the big ones.
		And I would be very sad indeed to see them disappear.
		West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
unidentified		Hello, Ars.
		This is Sluggo from Richmond, California.
		Sluggo?
		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sluggo?
		Sluggo.
		That's an interesting name.
unidentified		Yes, and I just wanted to, I don't know if you'd heard this.
unidentified		I just wanted to pass on the information that I heard on KGO radio Wednesday afternoon.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		That Steve Schifth had died.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, Congressman.
		Yes, I have heard that.
		Oh, okay.
		Yes.
		He passed away, I'm sorry to say.
		He had a very aggressive form of cancer, and we knew that was coming.
		Yes.
		So another sad death.
unidentified		Yes, it is.
unidentified		I knew him.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		He was a really fine man.
		He was, as was Sherry Adamak.
		Yes.
		And there's been a lot of problem in the UFO community.
		Yes, there has.
		Well, thank you.
unidentified		I just wanted to make sure that you had.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm glad you mentioned it.
		Thank you.
		Yes, I was aware of it.
		Very sad.
		And it brings up a topic that I'd rather not venture into right at the moment.
		We're actually doing a lot of interesting research in this area.
		First-time callers, Area 702-727-1222.
		Thank you.
		First-time caller line, you're on the air.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
unidentified		This is Ed from Paclima, California.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Ed.
unidentified		I just had a couple.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, turn your radio off.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'll have it off, number one.
unidentified		There we go.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		I thought I had an interesting thing.
		I'm a musician for years, and I lived in Ancaster, Wyoming for a long time.
		And we were playing for a lawn party back in the early 50s.
		And in between songs, we could hear talking, couldn't figure where it was coming from, and all of a sudden it was coming from my amplifier.
		And it was the signing of the Japanese peace treaty in San Francisco.
		And I just wonder how that happens to, could come over just an amplifier for an instrument.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		This was when?
unidentified		Back in the early 50s, probably 51, 52, somewhere in there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, the answer is radio frequency RF, if you are in its immediate field, or sometimes with odd circumstances, even if you're not in the immediate field, can be picked up and modulated.
		The old AM can be modulated into a guitar amp or whatever.
		So that's how it does happen.
unidentified		We were really amazed.
unidentified		We didn't get any call letters, so we couldn't tell what station was broadcasting it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you might have been near one, or you might have had a length of wire between your guitar and the amp that was resonant on the frequency being broadcast.
unidentified		Exactly, that was it.
		Yep.
		We used to get KLMA for a long time back there, too, nice and strong out of Oklahoma City.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oklahoma City, of course, $1520.
unidentified		But then all of a sudden, later years, it sort of faded out.
unidentified		I don't know if they decreased their output.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		As a matter of fact, KLMA is heard out into the Hawaiian Islands, or it used to be.
		Now, what's happening is, I just gave a little dissertation there on 50,000-watt clears.
		There are not exactly clears anymore.
		There are 1As, which are pretty well protected.
		And there are, let's see, are there actually any clears left?
		There really aren't that I know of.
		But that's how it was done.
		I mean, there was virtually nobody else on the frequency.
		And so through the years, they've licensed local things, and it messes things up a lot.
unidentified		I see.
		Just wanted to congratulate you.
		I'm sort of a new-time listener.
		A friend of mine tuned me into you earlier this year, and I reappreciate your eclectic approach to the market.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's eclectic.
unidentified		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Thank you very much.
		What I do is really not the same thing every night.
		I'm liable to do about anything.
		And that keeps me from getting bored.
		Now, on any given night, you may love or hate what I'm doing.
		You might find it riveting or boring.
		And so tune in tomorrow night.
		You know, I'll be doing something else.
		As a matter of fact, tomorrow night, David Oates is going to be here.
		Tomorrow night, we're going to do reverse speech on Kathleen Willie, the 60-minutes appearance of Willie.
		Dr. Malin.
		Oh, is that going to be interesting?
		Dr. Malin is the, in effect, contractor who is contracted to NASA to do the Mars, the new Mars pictures, and we've got quite a bit of audio on Dr. Malin.
		And Major Ed Dames.
		A lot of you have been waiting a long time for that.
		I'm curious.
		And I have refrained from asking.
		So tomorrow night, reverse speech, this and more.
		West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Morning, Ark.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		Mr. Johnny down in Ground Zero again.
		Yes, sir.
		I had a couple of things I wanted to relay to you that led into last night's guest, Daniel.
		Yes.
		And both of these things are kind of verifiable, I would say.
		You're familiar with Edgar Mitchell?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I've interviewed Edgar many times.
unidentified		Yeah, and after his flight, you know, where he had his spiritual experience of.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		1014.
unidentified		Yeah.
unidentified		He became involved in, I think, one of the sponsors of an outfit called Institute for Noetic Sciences in Berkeley.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's correct.
unidentified		And one of the, I guess the offshoot, you might say, was a program that's aired on PBS.
		It's called Thinking Aloud.
		I don't know if you ever saw it or not.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, where are we going here?
unidentified		Okay, well, what I wanted to get around to you was there was a guest on this show, and usually the people who came to the Institute became guests on this show.
		This guy was an anthropologist or an archaeologist.
		And he said that, you know, they have a game that they play at the Society of Archaeology, and it's worldwide.
		And if you come up with something that doesn't go along with the program, well, you have to suppress it.
		And he said there was over 100 sites worldwide that they had found, not he himself, but people, different people had, that had proof of civilized societies that went back 30 to 100 million years.
		Sure.
		And one of them was this tunnel they dug through the mountains when they were putting the railroad from east to west.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
unidentified		And that one was supposed to be around 30 million.
unidentified		Now, he has been disqualified by this society because he didn't play the game.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, look, I don't doubt that goes on for a second.
		Thank you.
		I believe firmly that there is going to be shortly evidence finally admitted to of prior civilizations on probably every continent on Earth.
		I am coming more and more to embrace that concept.
		Now, it's almost like Planet of the Apes.
		Do you remember Planet of the Apes?
		Do you remember why the apes suppressed any contemporary knowledge of what had been?
		All of you who remember that, hold your hands up.
		It's because mankind had destroyed itself.
		And the apes, of course, wanted none of the knowledge that led to that destruction to affect their civilization, which was progressing in a very different way.
		So is it not possible that what that caller just had to say about the suppression of archaeological information that would open up a very different paradigm would be suppressed for exactly the same reason?
		Possible.
		First time caller line, you're on the air.
		Hi.
unidentified		Hey, Art Bell, this is Travis from Ohio.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello there, Travis.
		You're going to have to yell at us.
		You're not real loud.
unidentified		I'm on a cell phone.
		Sorry about that.
		Oh, okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Travis.
unidentified		I was wondering if you heard on the AP News, the NASA, about how they had said that the El Nino was causing El Nino was causing what?
unidentified		Causing the days to be unexplainably longer.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, I hadn't heard that.
		I can imagine a lot of effects of El Nino, but I cannot imagine it actually lengthening the day.
		Lengthening the day in what sense?
		You mean more sunlight?
unidentified		I guess the length of the day.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, no, I'm sorry.
		I wish I could help you out, but I don't.
		I can't imagine.
		I don't rule out anything because it'll turn out I'm somehow screwed up.
		But how would El Nino actually affect time?
		I mean, that is what you're saying, right?
		The actual length of the day.
		We have 24 hours in a day.
		And I cannot imagine how that could occur.
		Maybe they were talking about something else.
		I'm sorry.
		I don't know.
		Wildcard line, you're on the air.
unidentified		Hello, Art.
unidentified		Super Dave, Anchorage, Alaska.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello, Super Dave.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How are you doing?
unidentified		Pretty good.
		Pretty good.
		Last time I talked to you, you were up here in Canadian I last summer.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
unidentified		I've got a few things I want to say.
unidentified		I myself, have dabbled a little in micro, you know, tiny, those little FM transmitters that are so tiny they run on a 9-volt battery.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		And that was fun.
unidentified		But what I've been doing lately, and it's all legal and it's really neat, is public access TV.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		On cable.
unidentified		On cable.
		And free TV.
		Sometimes they even loan you equipment, which is pretty neat.
		And you can get your views out in a different medium.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I know it.
		You know, let me tell you something.
		It's about damn time that cable came through on their promise.
		We have had cable TV in America for how long now?
		I mean, lots and lots of years.
		The original promise of cable television was that it would become an interactive medium and that there would be lots of local access and all that sort of stuff.
		And for years, they ignored it.
		They ignored it.
		I mean, why, for example, isn't cable TV carrying talk shows, radio talk shows?
		You know how they have channels up where they have a billboard and they've got music behind it?
unidentified		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What the hell's the matter with those people?
		It should be talk shows.
		It should be something interactive.
		They're really missing the boat.
unidentified		We actually have a couple different channels that are like that, and they broadcast assembly meetings, you know, local city assembly meetings.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's great.
unidentified		Other ones that broadcast advertising, if you want to pay some fee, you can actually advertise, and it's just like a scrolling, you know, you know, scrolling photos that keep changing.
		And actually have, you know, real estate that you can just view right there on the cable.
		But the public access is.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Listen, I have a break.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you want to hold on?
unidentified		Sure, no problem.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, then hold on through the break.
		We'll be right back.
		This is Coast to Coast AM.
		Yes, it's about time Cable came through with their original promise.
unidentified		Cable came through with their original promise.
unidentified		Poking cigarettes and watching...
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, you're back on the air again, sir.
unidentified		Okay, yeah, I was just talking about public access TV.
		I wanted to tell you a quick little story.
		You'd figure up here in Alaska, being in the vast, vast wilderness and area.
		You know where Girdwood is, right?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		Little tiny town, really not that many people.
		It's kind of tucked in the mountains, so no radio stations really get back in there too well from Anchorage.
		So these guys decided to put together a little three-watt station.
		And I think they started at one and eventually bumped it up to three.
		Well, I don't know what happened, but somehow the SEC decided to come in and shut them down.
		Now, the funny thing is, is just recently these guys have really closed their offices down and scaled it down to just a really small monitoring station right here in Anchorage.
		So I really find it really hard to believe why they would just all of a sudden crack the whip on a little town.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's kind of funny.
		Let me tell you something.
		It depends, for example, to some degree on the attitude of the FCC field office.
		And the one in Anchorage has been traditionally very tough.
		Very tough on any sort of illicit broadcast at all.
unidentified		We do have a lot of aircraft up here.
		We have to really watch their bands.
		Yep.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yep.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you just answered your own question.
unidentified		Right.
		Well, I wanted to ask you real fast.
		Isn't 25 watts on AM the legal limit to broadcast a license?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hell no.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, no, it's 100 milliwatts.
unidentified		I get a lot of those little catalogs out of the back of the popular communications and popular electronics magazines.
unidentified		You look at a lot of those little clandestine catalogs, and I get a bunch of them in the mail, and they were offering a 25-watt built, ready-to-go tube station.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		Well, you know, there's nothing illicit or illegal about having the equipment.
		It's using it.
unidentified		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's what you get in trouble.
unidentified		Exactly.
		I wanted to, I'm going to dig up because I have somewhere on tape where I had called you about three years ago and I had done a little prediction.
		About three or four years ago, I had done a little prediction.
		And I had predicted that the jet stream was going to lower itself from coming up here in Alaska and up in Canada.
		It was going to push its way down.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You get that tape and play it for me.
unidentified		And I'm going to try and find it for you.
unidentified		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Take care.
		I know certainly Ed Dames made that prediction, and it came true.
		Say what you will, and much is said, of course, about Ed Dames, but many of his predictions have come true.
		Some haven't.
		Some have yet to manifest if they're going to.
		And let's see, are there really any that...
		But I know there are quite a few that have.
		And the jet stream was definitely one of them.
		Mutations of frogs and fish, that was definitely one of them.
		Another one of them.
		Very seriously difficult predictions to make that came true.
		East of the Rockies, you're on there.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi, Art.
		Hi, this is Kent from Florida.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
unidentified		I assume that you support the Constitution of the United States, do you?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I do.
unidentified		And you note that in the Constitution of the United States, the authority of the national government into the affairs within a state is limited to the Commerce Clause.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, Tenth Amendment stuff.
unidentified		Well, it's not Tenth Amendment.
unidentified		Well, you're basic.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're going to argue it using the Tenth Amendment.
unidentified		The point is that the very act that the SCC is operating under only allows them to regulate interstate, not intrustate.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I know.
unidentified		And it's time that we got our fingers out of our butts and stopped the national government from doing all the illegal things.
unidentified		Just a real simple example, and I'm not arguing that we shouldn't abide by the concepts therein.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, okay, let me stop you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are you arguing that the Communications Act of 1934 is unconstitutional?
unidentified		Well, if it says interstate, it's not unconstitutional, but the enforcement is unconstitutional when it comes in and acts upon things that don't go beyond the borders of the state.
		Now, just to give you an example, there's a case called Dyot versus Turner, D-Y-E-T-T.
		It's 1968.
		I think it's 435 or 439 Pacific 2nd.
		It's out of Utah.
		It's the Supreme Court of Utah.
		In that case, they spend about 14, 15 pages going through the entire history of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments and show very clearly that according to any common sense and legal perception of the facts, they were never ratified.
		But it doesn't make any difference.
		Another case says it doesn't, the Supreme Court said.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Look, you live in America where if you really want to argue these fine legal points and maybe win, who knows, you can get an attorney, find an attorney, or a team of them, and take this thing all the way up.
unidentified		How about a little support from the talk radio, Hosart?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I give you all the support.
		I mean, argue all you want.
		That's what America is all about.
unidentified		Then let's tell the FCC to shove it back into the District of Criminals when it doesn't go beyond state borders.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, look, if you want to fight that fight, you go right ahead.
		I don't want to fight that fight because I happen to believe that without that regulation, we would, with regard to the FCC, we would live in a place where we couldn't understand anything, where commercial broadcasting is being clobbered.
		I'm not for that.
		I'm sorry, I'm not.
		I agree with you.
unidentified		Why not let the states license broadcast within the state?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, fine.
		Okay, fine.
		Well, because broadcasting, by its very nature, goes over state lines.
		I don't want to get into this argument with you.
		I'm saying you have the ability to go fight that fight.
unidentified		No, no, the point is, if you don't fight it, you all lose.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, bull.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, look, lots of people fight fights that Art Bell doesn't fight.
unidentified		Like the income tax being illegally enforced.
		I don't want to get into the specific issues.
		I simply want to get in the context of when people allow it to happen.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, look, sir, you go right ahead.
		I don't share the same belief that you do.
		So that's what America is.
unidentified		National government art, not a federal government.
unidentified		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I appreciate your call.
		It's like people call up and say 16th was never ratified, you know, so whole income tax thing is not illegal.
		I don't want to fight that fight either.
		I want revision of our tax system.
		I'd love to see a flat tax.
		Don't think it'll happen.
		It'd take the power out of the hands of the Washington bureaucrats, and that's all they've got, really, is the power to try and modify social behavior with tax adjustment to tax regulation, let's put it that way.
		But you're welcome to go fight that fight.
		But don't tell me that I have to fight your fight.
		Because I may not believe as you believe.
		Used to the Rockies?
		You're on air.
		Hi.
		Hi, Ert.
		Brian, I can barely hear you.
		You must have your phone on your chin.
unidentified		Oh, wait, excuse me, computer to dial.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sorry, I'll be there.
unidentified		Okay, Eric, sorry about that.
unidentified		I was on your webpage, was there in your biography?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		And on there, you talk about pirate radio, and then you finally did this show, and it was really, you know, really cool.
		Probably one of your younger listeners.
		Anyway, my grandpa, he said, oh, listen to this guy, and night, so I started.
		But anyway, my question is, how could I get into doing this?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Pirate radio?
		Yeah.
		I think that I have to refrain from giving you specific instructions because I really don't want to get in more trouble than I'm in already.
		But there are lots of...
		You said you had a computer.
		Go to one of the search engines, Yahoo, whatever, and just enter Pirate Radio.
unidentified		Oh, yeah, I've done that before.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay?
unidentified		Okay, I enjoy your show a lot.
unidentified		Your webpage is great.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		It is very different.
		And those of you who would like, take a look.
		I think you'll enjoy it.
		www.artbell.com.
		West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
		Hi.
unidentified		Hey, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hey, yes.
unidentified		Surprised I got through.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Everybody is.
unidentified		Actually, I've got to talk to you about, I hear you're interested in Bigfoot and Sasquatches.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Of course.
unidentified		Well, I've got some interesting new trade, by the way.
		My name is Eric.
		I really don't want to tell you where I'm from because of the information I'm about to give you.
		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Eric, from an undefined geographic location.
unidentified		Basically, they were setting up an expedition here about a month ago.
		Basically, a local guy, he had a kind of a small kind of wonders of the universe type of store kind of going on in the museum.
		And he was setting up an expedition or an expedition.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What was the goal of the expedition?
unidentified		Basically, he basically said that he had proof that they existed, and this expedition was going to go out and find them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And then do what?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Capture or kill?
unidentified		No, neither or.
		Basically, just observe.
		He didn't want anything to do with any negative aspects of killing them, not even taking pictures.
		It was just an expedition to go out and see them.
		Well, it got canceled.
		Out of the blue, it just got canceled.
		It turns out that I ran into a friend of mine up here.
		Him and his family know of an exact spot where they, I don't know, live or whatever it may be.
		Now, I haven't seen this for myself.
		I'm kind of a skeptic myself.
		I like to have an open mind.
		But the stories that I've heard, and I actually went over to this guy's house, and he had about seven or ten family members out there telling stories of these experiences they had with them.
		And it was very interesting.
		I mean, the looks on the faces of these people and the way they were telling the story, it really made you believe that they were really telling you the truth.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, and there's a great probability these creatures do exist.
		Now, why did they cancel the expedition?
		I don't understand.
unidentified		That's a good question.
		Me and my friend were actually going to sign up for it and go out and take a look because, you know, I've got a lot of family in this area.
		I didn't grow up around here, but I've got a lot of family in this area, and I had never heard anybody say they'd ever seen anything like that before.
		But according to this very large article in the local newspaper, that there were a lot of locals that have seen it.
		And there were actually hinted towards places in the local forest that they had actually seen them.
		And some of the local ranchers and whatnot have.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, there's only one part of what you said that doesn't make sense to me.
		I can understand that they would not, that they might, on moral grounds, not want to capture, certainly not to kill a Bigfoot.
		But not to take photographs?
		Oh, come on.
		Instead of telling tall stories, you can come back and say, here, look at this.
unidentified		Yeah, I'm sure that that.
		But from what I've been hearing about the people who actually have had experiences, by the way, I'm set up to actually go out with one of my friends who actually kind of introduced it to me and told me the stories.
		He's actually going to take me out there and show me where they supposedly are.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, for God's sakes, take a camera.
unidentified		Well, you know, from what I understand is this sounds really awkward.
		And, you know, for me and an open-minded person, I kind of find it hard to believe.
		But they say that they actually can sense your intentions.
		No, no, no.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't reject that as a possibility, but maybe one of them would allow a photograph to be taken.
unidentified		It's possible.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Look at Patterson films.
unidentified		It's possible, but you know, when they've gone out there like fishing and whatnot, they've had actually experiences with them, and they say you can smell them from a mile away.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's what they say.
unidentified		I mean, they say there's no other smell like them.
		They say they actually, when they go out hunting, see, it's a good spot to go hunting out there.
		And they used to go hunting out there a lot.
		Well, every time they'd ever take a gun out there, something bad would happen.
		They'd end up getting flat tire.
		They actually, you know, I find this one hard to believe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, well, if you actually see one, communicate to me, and I'll abide by whatever conditions are set up, and I'll go out and look at it myself.
unidentified		Hey, most definitely.
		Like I say, I'm going to be set up to go out here any day, go out and check this out.
		And like I said, I'd love to see it myself.
		And if I can get some proof myself, believe you me, you're going to be the first one I'm going to tell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Believe you me, it'll be the first website it'll go up on, too.
		And I mean, boom, like that.
		I think there's a pretty good probability that a creature exists or continues to exist or exists in some sort of parallel universe.
		And occasionally things get mixed up and things slide through and find portals and or any of the above.
		But that there is a reason for all these stories.
		I think that's possible.
		Call the wildcard lines, Area 702-727-1295.
unidentified		Arizoa?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, now, see, I had to bleep that out.
		You're not allowed to use your last name, Mel, on the air.
		But let's start again.
		Your name is Mel, and you're in Flagstaff.
unidentified		Mesa.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, Mesa, Arizona.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		Mesa, Arizona, yeah.
unidentified		Are we still on talk about any subject?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		I heard a young man just a few minutes ago when I was looking at the radio talking about his prediction of the jet stream moving south, I believe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
unidentified		Just recently, I understand some winds had never been recorded that high before hit one of our islands.
unidentified		That was Guam.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, listen.
		We have had winds on mountaintops in the northeast, record-breaking winds that have never been recorded.
		Islands, as you point out, we've had typhoons that have reached record proportions.
unidentified		Correct.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The weather is changing, my friend.
unidentified		Oh, no kidding.
		Hey, Art.
		By the way, I want to inject right here a little admiration particle.
		You've been an old friend for many years when I was working on security posts at night.
		And thank God you're there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, thank you.
unidentified		I hope this young man is aware that when he says that move, that he rules in the possibility of moving down.
unidentified		This is occurring in several places, and where it touches down, all hell breaks loose.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I know.
unidentified		Okay.
		One other thing, and then let's make room for somebody else.
		Okay?
		Okay.
		Last night I was listening to this young gentleman on your show talking about being an ambassador, not an ambassador, but...
		Yeah, an invoy.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		He was a copy editor for the Los Angeles Times.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Correct.
unidentified		Very impressive.
		Excellent show.
		Yep.
		I'm going to get the book.
		I couldn't get through to you, but, gosh, the question I would like to ask him, and I'll guess the answer may be in the book, is that perhaps when you do converse with an alien, the wrong thing to ask him would be, where are you from?
		I'm pretty sure that you would get a more precise answer if you asked, when are you from?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, thank you.
		Well, if you believe in Einstein's laws, then that might be a more appropriate question presently.
		If indeed the speed of light can never be exceeded, either by trickery, as in jumping across, or in simply exceeding it and breaking a law that anything cannot be broken, if that law stands, then it's a pretty sad situation for us because we're going to have to stay home.
		Now, that doesn't mean only on Earth, but frankly, for human beings, most of the planets in our system are not that flesh-friendly.
		So we all have to hope that the speed of light in some manner through trickery or through reality may be exceeded.
		Otherwise, we're not.
		Call toll-free, 1-800-618-8255.
		Oh, you gave your list.
		No, well, everybody's suddenly giving their last name.
		Oh, you're not allowed to give your last name on the air, dear.
		What is your first name only, please?
unidentified		Joy.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Joy.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, Joy, where are you?
unidentified		Santa Cruz, California.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		KFCO country.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Joy, turn your radio off, if you would, please.
unidentified		I will.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's the next rule.
		And there you go.
		What's on your mind?
unidentified		Well, I was calling to discuss one I noticed that you were having on your website talking to Silver Ravenwolf to ride a silver broomstick.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		And I wanted to compliment you for interviewing someone who is really someone who understands witchcraft and neopaganism.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I appreciate that.
		You know me.
		I'll do anything.
		Until they come and get me.
unidentified		Well.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That could be later today.
unidentified		I seriously doubt that, considering I'm a neopagan.
		I wouldn't do that.
		I've listened to your show for a long time and find your interviews very fascinating and was hoping that we might hear an interview with a druid.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I'll see what I can do.
		I'll tell you what.
		My program is over, so my little neo-pagan joy, you're going to get to say goodnight.
		Say goodnight to everybody.
unidentified		Good night to everybody, and across the nation, Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's it.
		Good night.
		That's all from the high desert this night.
		Good night, all.
unidentified		Thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Pat Murphy is president of the Association of Clandestine Radio Enthusiasts, 1995 to the present time.
		Now, what does that mean, clandestine radio enthusiasts?
		That'd be a bunch of people that broadcast without license.
		Either in the AM, FM broadcast band or on shortwave or maybe even on television.
		It would include all of those folks.
		He has written articles for popular communications, monitoring times, and other hobby communication magazines about pirate and clandestine radio phenomena.
		Past president of the National Association of Radio Talk Show hosts.
		Wow, 1991 to 1992.
		Political analyst for WAVY-TV, Channel 10, NBC in Nauffet, Virginia, 1986 to the present time.
		Director of Operations for 4M Communications.
		Operator of a chain of all news stations in Virginia.
		1996 to include the present time.
		Operations Manager and Morning Talk Show host for WTAR, AM, 790, Naufook, Virginia, through 1996.
		Operations Manager, Morning Talk Show host for WNIS, AM 850, Naufook, Virginia, 86 through 93.
		Chief Administrative Aide for the Governor of Montana.
		Wow.
		1980 through 1986.
		Owner of WYVA FM, a 50-kilowatt Youngstown, Virginia radio station, 76 through 80.
		Noon anchor of WTTG-TV5 in Washington, D.C., and political reporter, 72 through 76.
		United States Marine Corps, 66 through 9, Vietnam Service.
		University of Hawaii, a Bachelor of Science, Political Science degree.
		University of Montana, MS in Government Administration.
		Here is our man, Pat Murphy, to talk about clandestine or pirate, if you will, broadcasting.
		Pat, with this much commercial broadcasting in your background, even in your present bio, how can you serve as president of such an association?
unidentified		Well, the Association is, by the way, thanks for having me on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
unidentified		And after listening to my resume, I realize I can't hold a steady job.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Nobody in broadcasting does that.
unidentified		That's right.
		The Association of Clan Deps9 Radio Enthusiasts is a group of people who, many of us have military backgrounds in communications, but we enjoy listening to pirates and people who seize the airwaves.
		It's not that we promote pirate radio, although the FCC has at times said we promote it.
		But then again, in my job as political analyst, I talk about politicians, which doesn't mean I necessarily promote crooked politicians either.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is that how you answer the FCC when they went on the street?
unidentified		Oh, absolutely.
		Really?
		I mean, the fact that the phenomena is there and that we have a newsletter that I'd have to tell you, we probably have at least 200 loggings a month of anywhere from shortwave to FM to TV pirates who simply seize the airways, many of them political in nature, who simply ought to have a voice about what's going on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm doing a chancy thing here because next week is going to be, well, not next week, the following week, is going to be the National Association of Broadcasters meeting in Las Vegas, which is just over the hill from me.
		Sure.
		And as you know, I'm on 400 affiliates nationwide, commercial affiliates.
		And they're going to be listening, I'm sure, very carefully.
		As a matter of fact, I've had several owners of radio stations send me all kinds of facts this year about what we were going to talk about tonight.
		And here's an interesting thing, that most of them are sympathetic to what we're talking about, but each one inevitably ends their facts by saying, for God's sakes, don't use my name.
unidentified		For sure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Happy to be one of your affiliates, but God, don't use my name.
unidentified		It's funny, I find that the chief engineers of many radio stations are quite sympathetic to the pirates because for the most part, and I have to admit, as a youngster, I had one of those nice little lofty, what they called a turntable amplifier.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right, I had one too.
unidentified		And it was in this little awkward green case, and I put together a little radio station when I was in high school in my basement, and we broadcast to the neighborhood, and we really got interested in girls, and then it was a weekend thing.
		And I think I've just had a fascination for it ever since.
		And it's remarkable how many people there are.
		You can't just say don't talk about it, and it will go away.
		Just since October 24th of last year, there have been 15 busts by the SCC.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think there were some real serious ones down in Florida recently, weren't there?
unidentified		Oh, well, there was one.
		In fact, it was Tampa's Party Pirate in Tampa where they used a SWAT team of U.S. Marshals to go in, which Tampa certainly is overkill.
		the guy here at a 100 watt station.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Most of these stations That's a pretty good size.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		100-watts, what, on FM?
unidentified		On FM.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that's pretty serious.
unidentified		Sure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A 100-watt FM station gets out pretty well.
		Now, I have an affiliate in Tampa, WFLA.
		They probably are going to be real concerned about somebody doing pirate broadcasting.
		Was it like a 24-hour operation?
unidentified		Yes, it was.
		Yeah, see.
		Most of these guys getting busted are doing 24-hours around the clock.
		But they've got a lot of people involved.
		They're doing something that the local commercial broadcasters have long ago abandoned, and that is that they get the community involved in the station.
		They're talking about local people.
		We've gotten with the consolidation in commercial broadcasting and with consultants who have mediocritized everything in broadcasting, everything's at the lowest common denominator, they take chances.
		They do interesting radio, and the big chains don't do that anymore because they have one national program director who says, well, I'll do it this way.
		And that's the end of any creativity.
		So I think they are filling a gap in that respect.
		But I'm wondering, because I know that Bill Kennard of the FCC is interested in this.
		He's opened the door for the Mass Media Bureau to accept petitions.
		There's at least four petitions in front of the FCC now to open up some form of low-power broadcasting.
		But I do wonder that if they do legitimize this, how many of these people that are pirates now will, in fact, get a license?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's a good question.
		The very nature of piracy suggests they are not interested in the traditional path to a license.
		Or you might suggest that they would get a license if it was economically feasible.
		In other words, one of the reasons that some people are doing this is because right now to get a commercial broadcast license, well, you could probably tell me how much do you have to spend?
		You know, from the time you have the idea until the thing goes on the air.
unidentified		We just built a station here, a 20,000-watt station, where we started from scratch.
		We cleared the land, we built the towers right from the ground up.
		And it's cost about $850,000.
		And, well, I haven't seen the lawyers built for last week.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There you are.
		So that really is one gigantic factor.
		Sure.
		But the other is adventure.
		And the third, I suppose, is doing something illegal and sort of getting away with it.
		Now, I'll tell you right up front, Pat, I have a considerable amount of piracy in my background.
		A lot that I cannot talk about because I'm sure not enough years have gone by.
		Some of which I can talk about.
		But I've done a lot of piracy.
		I did a lot of it in every medium that we are discussing.
		FM, AM, television, and shortwave.
		I've done it all.
unidentified		And you had fun doing it, too, didn't you?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, God, I had a blast.
		I really had a blast.
		Unfortunately, I can't talk about it all because there are some really good stories.
		And unfortunately, I had to hang up my pirate hat.
		I've got too many FCC licenses, and I've got too much to lose now career-wise, you know, being a syndicated talk shows and all that.
unidentified		I think what the pirates have found that the commercial broadcasters have lost is that they're having a lot of fun doing this.
		And I think it not only spreads over to the listeners, I enjoy listening to it.
		Now, there's other aspects.
		We're talking about the micropower FM broadcasters, but there are literally hundreds of shortwave broadcasters who do probably some of the best production I have ever heard on radio.
		And they're on for 30, 40, 50 minutes.
		They're off the air, they're gone.
		So there's not only the FM, but there's also the shortwave group that are very, very big.
		As you point out, there's some TV pirates, but they're very small and localized because C V signals don't get out as well as certainly short wave or even FM.
		Well, there's some things I can't talk about.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It can be done.
		Believe me, it can be done using single-channel modulators and line wires.
		You're just being up on a hill someplace, certainly else.
		That's all.
		God, I wish I could.
		I did some television, but I can't talk about that.
		I can't talk about that.
		I'm sure I can't.
		I'm sure I'd get busted somehow.
		Are you generally, as president of this association and as a commercial broadcaster, are you in support, actually in support of people who violate the law and broadcast on FM or whatever?
unidentified		Well, no.
		I just simply enjoy listening and logging what's going on.
		It is a phenomena that I think that the government has, and they have never in the history of this country, understood that people seek and will be drawn to freedom and freedom of speech.
		And to me, it does seem a bit hypocritical, if you will, that the government wants to license the electromagnetic spectrum.
		It's kind of like saying you have to pay for sunlight.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		it's not something that i think the government can ultimately control well you know i'm going to show with threats but on the other hand I mean, you said you've got a 20,000-watt station.
		That's right.
		All right.
		If somebody came along with a big signal, not 20,000 watts, but big enough to be clobbering some of your coverage area with some sort of blasphemous pirate station.
		You'd really be chicks.
unidentified		Well, but I think that the proper means of dealing with that would be to deal with it as a property right and go through a local court to actually counter that.
		I don't know that the FCC is serving the function that it was ever intended to do.
		I mean, they're getting into culture control.
		And I'm not a big Howard Stern fan.
		I do find him humorous at times.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Howard's funny.
unidentified		But I don't think they should be fining him for the language he uses because you've got a dial on there that turns the radio off.
unidentified		That's not the function of the government to tell us what we can listen to other than maybe just to control the property rights.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't think he paid the fines.
		Actually, they fined the station.
		You find a white fine.
unidentified		Have they paid it?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, really?
unidentified		You bet.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I thought they were fighting that to the death.
unidentified		Last I heard, they had paid that fine, and that was done with.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, no kidding.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Has he stopped saying the words?
unidentified		Not that I know of, and nor should he.
		I just don't think it's the government's fine.
		In fact, Congress will make no law abridging the right to freedom of speech.
		If you don't like it, don't listen to it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I really generally agree with that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't use that language on the air, but I choose to do so.
unidentified		But that's your free choice.
unidentified		Exactly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		Exactly.
		Now, if you look at the title of your organization, the Association of Clandestine Radio Enthusiasts, it would imply that it's made up of not only listeners, but doers as well.
unidentified		Well, I don't know.
unidentified		I mean, they don't tell me that they're pirates when they send in their yearly dues for our newsletter.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, they don't, huh?
unidentified		No, no, they don't tell me that they're pirates, nor do I ask them that they're pirates.
unidentified		And quite frankly, I don't want to know if they're pirates.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I see.
		All right, tell us about Tampa.
		Now, what happened in Tampa?
		You said the SWAT team, this fellow was broadcasting Watt, first of all.
		He was broadcasting rock and roll.
		Rock and roll.
unidentified		He had a little rock and roll station.
		He had 100 watts.
		You could hear him probably at the most 15 miles out from Tampa.
		Had a frequency that was not interfering with anyone.
		It was in one of those frequencies in the middle of two big giant stations and wasn't interfering with either one.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, but let me take the broadcaster side for a second.
		All right, there he is, broadcasting rock and roll.
		Now, 100 watts, properly at a decent altitude, anyway, is going to cover Tampa very well.
		Yes.
		Tampa is a pretty good-sized market.
		If I'm a rock and roll broadcaster in Tampa and a commercial broadcaster, and I've got to pause every now and then to have a commercial broadcast that will finance what I'm doing, I'm going to have fits with some guy who's doing nothing but broadcasting music without commercials.
		I'm going to have fits because how do I compete against him?
unidentified		Well, good point.
		Well, you would compete against him with better programming, but you are correct.
		I mean, getting down to the property rights of the spectrum, and I think that's the way it probably should be dealt with.
		You're right that he has seized control of a frequency that he has no right to, but I do think using U.S. Marshals and SWAT teams is a bit of an overkill.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Overkill?
		Well, they do that like the, you know, the IRS makes examples out of people.
		Yes.
		And I'm sure that's what the FCC was doing in this case.
		Well, I just did.
unidentified		I do believe in that Fourth Amendment, and it does bug me when I see the government get into the overkill.
unidentified		Let's make an example of someone, because instead of making an example of someone, they make them a martyr.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's true.
		Now, I wonder on what basis they gain entry.
		In other words, he is not a licensed operator.
		Therefore, he has not sworn to abide by the regulation that allows the FCC with due notice to come in and inspect the premises and the equipment, right?
unidentified		Yes, plus the FCC, the Communications Act of 1934, talks about interstate communications, not intrastate communications.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So then, on what basis did they knock his door down and come rushing in?
unidentified		They had more guns and more people.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I know, but they had to have some kind of legal paper in their hand.
unidentified		Well, and if you look at the search warrant, and I did see the search warrant, which they did have, in my reading of the search warrant, it was more of a general search warrant, which is forbidden by the Constitution, than it was stating specifically what kind of transmitter other than just radio operating equipment.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, any search warrant to be issued has got to be specific, does it not?
unidentified		Well, that's the way I read the Constitution.
unidentified		As John Marshall said, the Constitution was written for the people of this country to read, the average working person, not for the government.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's the way I read it.
		I read it about the same way, but it's funny.
		I feel both sides of this issue.
		And I do, too.
unidentified		I truly do.
unidentified		But on the other hand, there is a proliferation of pirates because commercial broadcasting has let the community down.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, in what sense?
		I mean, you've got, you mentioned Howard Stern.
		All right?
		Howard's pretty weird.
		I'm pretty weird.
		I really am.
		I'm as weird as a lot of pirates are on the air here commercially.
		But then there is a lot of very cookie-cutter radio out there, both in music and talk and just about any format you can name.
		So I assume that's what you mean by...
unidentified		I think they let them down in a local sense.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		From the high desert, I'm Art Bell, and this is Coast to Coast AM.
		Coast AM All right, back now to my guest, Pat Murphy, a commercial broadcaster himself.
		Hey, Pat.
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Have you ever put a pirate station on the air?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		That was a long time ago and passed the statute of limitations.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I want to ask you about the statute of limitations here because I want to tell a story.
		Sure.
		Now, what I did in the story that I want to tell, I did 12 years ago.
unidentified		Well, I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the radio.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, so advise me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Can I tell that story and not get in trouble?
unidentified		I think you're safe right now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, then I'll hold the story and I'll tell it a little while and I'll trust you.
		And I'll send you a bill if I get in trouble.
		But first, let us cover what is probably very dangerous stuff for me because I am part of a gigantic conglomerate, J-Corps, which owns Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Loris Lessinger, and myself.
		And I am on 400 radio stations.
		And I am very mindful of the fact that there I am on 400 stations.
		That means 400 local guys don't have a job.
		That means 400 local stations are not originating programming in their town or their city, but rather running my show from satellite.
unidentified		Let me interrupt you for a second.
		I'd have to disagree with that.
		Because even in the beginning days of radio, they went to the networks.
		They went to NBC, CBS, NBC Blue.
		There was always some kind of a network entertainment that was coming in.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The problem now is with the consolidation.
unidentified		And here in Norfolk's a good example, we had a fellow that had one local talk station, and it was a pretty good talk station.
		And he decided to buy another station, and in fact, he ended up buying four stations.
		He couldn't run them, and as a result, he ended up putting satellite programming on all four of the stations.
		All four of the stations have dropped in ratings.
		And that's where the problem is, is when an operator thinks that they're going to operate four stations at the same overhead that they operate one station.
		So I would have to disagree that you're taking jobs away from anyone because all across America right now there are board operators sitting there who are hitting the commercial times and are listening and they have a job.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And well, in some cases.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other cases, particularly in smaller stations, it's automated.
unidentified		And you can usually tell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you can usually tell, that's right, because a switch will fail to go and there'll be 15 or 20 minutes of dead air if they only get another tone.
unidentified		Now, we love computers.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I know.
		So, you know, I am still mindful of all that because I've always been an all-night kind of person.
		I've done all-night radio in a lot of single markets.
		Sure.
		And those jobs are, you know, they're gone, basically.
		Now, again, consolidation has occurred.
		It has occurred with syndication.
		It has occurred with group ownership.
		And everybody's buying up everybody.
		I'm sure it's going to be a subject at NAB.
		Is the consolidation a good thing or is it a terrible thing for the listener?
unidentified		Well, if you look at it isolated as is it a good thing or a bad thing, I think we would all have to say maybe it's not such a good thing.
		I look at it as part of a cycle.
		I think you're seeing a cycle, much like back in the 60s when the Schaefer automation systems came in, those ones that had the funny punch cards.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
unidentified		Well, it didn't work as well as they thought it did, so they had to go back to local programming.
unidentified		I think you're going to see through this cycle where you have all these big stations or big groups like JCOR or Heritage or whoever buying, and they're not going to be able to make the profits that they had imagined they were going to be able to make.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So then they'll have to turn around and sell off.
unidentified		Exactly, but they're going to have to sell off at a loss.
		So they're going to get burnt and they're not going to come back and revisit that area.
		They're going to have to sell to local broadcasters again, who are going to take the initiative to offer local programming.
		In the meantime, there are these petitions, these rulemaking petitions in front of the FCC.
		The one that I think probably is the most intriguing is the Skinner petition, which is 9242, which offers three classes of low-power broadcasts.
		One is the 50 to 3 kilowatt, which I don't think.
		I think NAB will fight that tooth and nail.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I would.
unidentified		But there's the 1 to 50 watt, and there's the 1 to 20 watt stations.
		These guys, if they are truly capitalist at heart, will take this and go to the small mom-and-pop delis, which can't buy the big stations.
		I mean, because with this consolidation, you're also getting this grid system of selling where a commercial is costing you $100, $200, even in a market the size of North and Virginia.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
unidentified		I think they can go to the mom-and-pop delis, the gas stations, offer them a means of advertising that right now is cut off to them.
unidentified		So I do think, plus, there's another advantage to this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, women, women, now you're really stepping on toes because what you're talking about is not just the ability to broadcast information or music.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're talking about the ability to be licensed to actually carry commercial content.
unidentified		Oh, absolutely.
		I think that to tell these people, yes, you can broadcast, but you can't generate the revenue for overhead is nonsense.
		It truly is nonsense.
		And to tell them, well, you can do it as a nonprofit, well, you know, all the PBS, and I call them the pleading broadcasting system stations, are all tied into tax dollars.
		And not to mention the fact that they have to beg every five minutes for money to keep Big Bird on there.
		He's going on here.
		And I don't think these guys with the low power want to do that.
		I do think you have to give them the ability to raise revenue, but I don't think they're going to step on the toes of the bigger stations.
		Because the mom-and-pops can't afford to buy those big rates as it is.
		To me, it seems like it's a win-win situation.
		I do think, however, that at some point, if they can't make money, that you're going to see them start to either disappear or they'll go back to their pirate ways.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, look, let's say that 10 watts is what they decide on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Even 10 watts in your town of Norfolk, you get an antenna at a half-decent height and 10 watts, and you'll cover Norfolk.
unidentified		No, I would disagree with that.
		I'd have to have it up at least 100 feet.
		And how many people in this kind of a hobby type of situation, which it is at this point, are going to be able to get an antenna up 100 feet?
		I think they can cover probably 10 miles maximum with 50 watts and getting it up 50 feet, 60 feet, something like that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, I think, though, that you're being unrealistic when you talk about commercial opportunities for these low-power stations.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's where it's going to get unrealistic, and I guarantee you, when you start talking about that, the commercial broadcasters, the group, for example, that's going to gather here in Las Vegas shortly, would have a heart attack, absolute heart attack.
unidentified		Oh, sure.
		Sure.
		But it's going to take revenue that they aren't getting now.
		And So it's not really going to be in competition with them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The competition would occur at two levels.
		One level would be in the ratings, and I will now briefly tell my story because that's how I got shut down.
		When I was young and foolish and in the Air Force, I started a little pirate station in my barracks, you know, just to play for people in the barracks.
		And it was listened to in the barracks.
		We were playing oldies.
		Love oldies.
		Still love oldies.
		And we got hauled in front of the captain, our captain, first sergeant said, Captain, want to see you.
		We went up and saw Captain.
		And he said, look, we really can't have the noise and can't have this going on in the barracks, but what you're doing is such a wonderful thing that I called Captain so-and-so, I won't use the name, over at the Mars station, military amateur radio station, and he has agreed to provide you with two rooms in the Mars station to run your little station.
		And this was at Amarillo Air Force Base, big Air Force Base back then.
		It's now been, it's no longer there.
		So off we went, and I built, I was always the engineer for these things, mind you.
		So I built a little transmitter.
		We went on the air.
		Then I built a bigger transmitter.
		And I was running about 50 watts, but I had this gigantic antenna, full resonant antenna for our frequency, 1610 on the AM value, no way up at the top, clear frequency at that time.
		And we went on the air, and we were on the air 24 hours a day, seven days a week for one year, playing oldies.
		Everybody on Amarillo Air Force Base listened.
		Most everybody.
		Now, we were about 40 miles, 35, 40 miles at least from the city of Amarillo, Vanatown, city of about, oh, I don't know, 150,000.
		Unfortunately, my efforts at building a better transmitter and antenna, which I constantly work on, were working.
		And we had a signal in Amarillo.
		Now, Arbitron rates radio.
		And one terrible day, the Arbitron ratings came out for Amarillo, and our little pirate station, KMED, we called it, K-Medical Squadron, KMED, showed up in the Arbitron ratings.
		Well, just about every commercial broadcast station called the commanding general of Amarillo Air Force Base and said, what the hell are you guys doing out there?
		About 10 minutes later, we were standing in front of the general preparing to have our heads locked off.
		And needless to say, that day we went off the air.
		But because we were in a federal area, I guess it didn't go any farther.
		They shut it down.
		That was it.
		But for a year, boy, did we have fun.
		Yeah.
		We really had fun.
unidentified		Well, certainly if you'd sold commercials, you would have drawn attention to yourself even faster.
unidentified		But I don't believe that a 50-watt or even a 20-watt station is going to take away revenue that the bigger broadcast stations are even going after at this point.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But if whatever proposal is made to the FCC is something the broadcasters can live with, then I think it's got a chance.
		I am a big proponent of low-power broadcasting.
		I really, really think it's a good idea.
		I really like the idea, but it's going to have to, I'm realistic, it's going to have to be something the commercial broadcasters can live with or it doesn't stand a chance because you and I both know money rules.
unidentified		Oh, sure.
		And I don't believe that no matter what they come up with, it's going to do away with the pirates because there's a little company up in New York called Ramsey.
		And they make this delightful little kit that you can make your own little FM stereo station, which is 100 milliwatts.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I know.
unidentified		They also sell a nice little amplifier that will boost it up to about a watt and a half.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I can better you on this.
		There's an easier way.
		You get the little driver at 100 milliwatts.
		Go down to go anywhere you want and buy a cable TV amp.
		Sure.
		Drives the hell out of it.
		And before you know it, you're up near a watt, and you can even put a couple of them in there.
		And I don't really want to instruct people on how to do all this.
		I don't think it's going to stop the pirates.
unidentified		But I do think that the low power would fill a gap right now that consolidation has created.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If it doesn't threaten the commercial broadcaster.
		And I think when you start talking about ad revenue, you're threatening the commercial broadcaster.
		I'm telling you.
unidentified		Commercial broadcasters are threatened by everything.
		El Nino is a threat to commercial broadcasters at this point.
		Carlos Franz coming up where you're threatened today.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I know.
		Here's somebody who filed a petition for rulemaking.
		Sent me a fax.
		It's RM9242.
		Yes, that would be the Skinner proposal.
		Okay, well, I've got Skinner here.
		Terrific.
		So Roger Skinner, sure enough, I've got his home number here, and I could call him and get him on the air.
		And I may.
		Now, so anyway, listen, ideally, if you could do the rulemaking, if you could lay down the law right now, what would it be?
unidentified		If I could do it, I think I would make it 1 to 50 watts, keep the height above average terrain to under 100 feet.
		I don't think it's realistic to expect hobbyists to get anything over 100 feet.
		Also, the Skinner proposal, which I do think is a good proposal, and not to denigrate the others, offers a special class of 1 to 20 watts for special events that would be good for 10 days.
		If people wanted to go out to concerts or ham fests or to conventions like the NAB and set up a station, something like that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Actually, you know, the NAB last year, I can tell you, had a little low-power station set up in Las Vegas.
		Did you know that?
		Or maybe?
unidentified		So, see, there already, the.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But that was authorized.
unidentified		But the point is that it would be...
		I just don't see commercial broadcasters going for 50 to 3 kilowatts.
		That truly would be a threat.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Next issue.
		Look, first of all, I think you've gone too far.
		If you get something 100 watts at 100 feet, that's going to cover the average city, isn't it?
unidentified		The average small town.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The average, well, all right, the average small town.
		Sure.
		Particularly, for example, in the Midwest.
		You get something with 100 watts at 100 feet, I guarantee you, out in the flatlands, Wichita, no problem.
unidentified		Sure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's going to cover Wichita.
unidentified		Well, I'm talking about 1 to 50 watts, not 100.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, 1 to 50.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		50 watts.
unidentified		No, even 50 watts will cover a small town in the Midwest.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you want to allow commercial presentation.
unidentified		Now, this is just me speaking.
		I'm not speaking on behalf of anyone other than just my opinion about this, but I don't think you can ask someone, or especially if you're going to ask them to put a license station on, they're going to have to get type-accepted equipment, which I think is going to discourage a lot of people as well.
		But if you're going to ask them to put this on with overhead, where they've got to pay not only electricity, but maybe even pay for people, I just don't see how you can do it without raising revenue through selling commercials.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, are you going to allow this without license?
unidentified		I think in order to make it you're asking the guy who's the president of the Association of Clinton.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right, I am.
unidentified		If it was licensed, I wouldn't listen to it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If it was licensed, you wouldn't listen.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, so obviously your proposal would be without license.
unidentified		No, I think you have to have it licensed to make it lower.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You have to have it licensed.
unidentified		Yeah, to make the low-power work, you have to have it licensed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh.
		Well, now that brings up a whole different set of questions because the FCC is moving away from more work, more licensing, more regulation.
		And so how are you going to get that one through?
unidentified		You know, the FCC manpower has been reduced drastically.
		They've closed down field offices all over the country.
		I don't see how they could enforce it, even if they did license it.
		The rulemaking proposal is to license.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Did you see a movie called Pump Up the Volume?
unidentified		Oh, sure.
unidentified		Every broadcaster in America has seen that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, look, a lot of what went on with that movie and the pirate broadcasting there would make Howard Stern look like an angel.
		Sure.
		Now, what about that kind of stuff?
		In other words, you've got some guy who puts on something that is totally filthy.
		How far does the First Amendment go?
		All the way?
unidentified		I'm a firm believer that my right to swing my fist ends where your face begins.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If I'm not doing you any harm, Now, that might be where my nose drusts get smooshed.
unidentified		We certainly have a topic for a lot of debate there, don't we?
unidentified		If you can teach your seven-year-old to turn the radio off when they hear something offensive, then I don't know if you have a case.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If you can do that, then you're going to be a rich person because I don't know how you do that.
		I mean, that kind of thing attracts seven-year-olds and eight-year-olds.
		They'll go, woo, and you'll have about as much chance.
		I mean, there's no V chip for a radio.
unidentified		Let me say, I've got two daughters.
		They're 12 and 13.
		And I've got to tell you that they probably hear at least that bad, if not worse, at school.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that unfortunately is true, isn't it?
unidentified		That's true.
		Remember being that age, and I know I do at least a little bit.
		My memory is still somewhat.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Minus fairly vivid, actually.
		I remember it.
		Of course I do.
		And of course you're right.
		And that was at a time when that sort of thing really was not talked about, admitted to, or anything else.
unidentified		Sure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It just simply went on.
		Times have not really changed.
		It's just that today it's out in the open.
		Yeah.
unidentified		Can I get a plug-in from my organization?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, yeah, of course.
		But, you know, there's no hurry.
		Your organization is the...
		I mean, you belong to so many here.
unidentified		Well, the Association of Clandestine Radio Enthusiasts.
		If listeners will send me two first-class stabs, we're a non-profit, and I mean, everything is done by volunteers.
		No one gets paid in our group.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Pat, listen, we're at the top of the hour.
		Let's do this.
		We'll break for the top of the hour.
		I'll tell people, hey, go get pencil, paper, all that stuff.
		Pat will have information for you when we come back.
		How's that, Pat?
		Sounds great.
		All right, stay right there.
		Pat Murphy is my guest, and we are talking about that which I'm not sure anybody has ever talked about on commercial radio, and that is pirate radio, TV, shortwave.
		And we're going to cover more of it, and we'll get some other people on with Pat.
		And by the way, I would like to open the lines.
		Everybody else hang up.
		All I want is pirates.
		People who have done pirate radio TV or whatever.
		I want to hear from you.
		All right.
		Well, let's see if I can get myself in trouble.
		Pat, are you there?
unidentified		Yes, I am.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Just before, I hope everybody has their paper and pencil.
		If not, go get it now.
		We're about to give the information on the Association of Clandestine Radio Enthusiasts.
		When I was a lot younger, maybe 20 years ago, Pat, a friend of mine in the Bay Area and myself in the 12 to 13 megahertz area used to talk to sacked bombers, B-52s.
		And you know what?
		They would talk back.
		They would talk briefly, but they would engage.
		I guess they were bored up there.
		You know, those were the days when B-52s would go out and fly, and they'd be up for 12 or 13 hours or more and come back.
		And we talked to B-52s.
unidentified		I was a Marine on Radio Watch.
		I can tell you it gets real boring on Radio Watch.
		When you hear something that's unusual, you tend to want to...
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I know.
		We knew where they were, frequency-wise.
		You know, in those days, they all had sideband.
		Sure.
		And they'd talk to you.
unidentified		So, we know they're still there pretty much on the same frequencies.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, I'm going to.
		Yeah, I know.
		It's a backup.
		Anyway, then there's one other little story I'm going to tell.
		I have lived in the Las Vegas area now for about 15 years.
		And this was about 13 years ago.
		I lived in a residential neighborhood in Las Vegas.
		I and a friend of mine built the cable system in Las Vegas, which was at that time was Times Mirror.
		And we built all the cable amps and the microwave shots, Cars Van microwave shots, and so forth and so on.
		So anyway, I had access to a lot of equipment.
		And I took a single Channel 7 modulator, a Channel 7 modulator, which was really designed for cable use, and took a line amplifier, cable line amplifier, a big one, and opened that sucker all the way up, put a dipole up about 25 feet, and went on the air on Channel 7, full color and video.
		And we played movies.
		And we played movies and played movies, and you could see that sucker two miles away, quite clearly.
		This was before cable really actively came to Las Vegas.
		And so a lot of people found us and they watched.
		And we had, my friend did the, in front of the camera work, I did the camera work and all the technical stuff.
		And he sat there with a paper bag over his head.
		And we had a computer, a little Commodore 64 at the time, generating our phone number.
		Check this out.
		Generating our phone number on the bottom of the screen.
		And we were taking requests for movies.
		And then we would play the movies.
		And we would take calls.
		And all of this went on for about three or four weeks until one day the phone rang, and it was the Las Vegas Review Journal.
		And they said, we understand you have this wonderful new TV station on.
		I said, what?
unidentified		Us?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We had nothing here.
		Nothing.
		Well, we'd like to come out and take some photos and do a story.
unidentified		Oh, my God.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, I had licenses at that time.
		And so, needless to say, it was all down and gone the next day.
		But, I mean, we'd take on-the-air calls and put my home phone number up there.
		So I have pirated just about everywhere one can pirate.
		And so I have a lot of sympathy for what we're talking about right now.
unidentified		But you did it because you enjoyed it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I did it because it was more fun than you can possibly imagine.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
unidentified		You didn't have a bean counter sitting there going.
		No.
		You know, that ball up there is costing us more than we can.
		No, it's true.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's true.
		All right, listen, I promise to get your information out.
		So now, you're president of the Association of Clandestine Radio Enthusiasts.
		How do people get information on this association?
unidentified		Very easy.
		In fact, we publish a bulletin.
		It's about 25 pages every month that reports on pirate, clandestine, covert, and other unexplained broadcasts on all the spectrum.
		And if you'll send me two first-class stamps, I'll be happy to send you a copy of the bulletin.
		And in fact, just send it to the ACE.
		We call ourselves the ACE to shorten up instead of doing the Association of Clandestine Radio 2.
		I've got it.
		P.O. Box 12112, Norfolk, Virginia, 23541.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's P.O. Box 12112, right?
unidentified		Norfolk, Virginia, 23541.
unidentified		Send me two first-class stamps, and I'll be happy to send you a copy of the bulletin.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, what kind of stuff is in the bulletin?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, do you report on people who have SWAT teams come rushing in and pin them up against the wall, that kind of thing?
unidentified		Well, the very first part of our bulletin is called Dialogues.
		And it is a logging, much like a military log, of stations that are heard, the frequency they're heard on, the strength that they're heard, the programming contents.
		In this month's bulletin, for instance, we've got close to 200 simply shortwave broadcasts that were done in the past month by pirates.
		Then we have a section, pirates have a, I think maybe even a bad habit of what they call QSL-ing.
		Hams are familiar with the term.
		Where if you hear a pirate, you can write to them through a PO box?
		Yes.
		But it's a PO box that's run by what they call a drop operator who will forward that information.
		It's not illegal to run a drop box, but it's illegal to do the broadcast.
		So that's the way they get around that.
		And the pirate will send a QSL card to you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Confirming.
		Now everybody should know, in order to get a card like that back from a pirate, you will have to include some identifier.
		Well, yeah, but some identifying words that were said or time of broadcast, that kind of thing.
unidentified		Frequency, time, and then details of the broadcast.
		I've got one sitting on my wall right here that I got from a Canadian pirate that's on a rubber chicken.
		They're so creative you can't help but giggle.
		Well, we giggle.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The FCC sends in SWAT teams.
unidentified		It's interesting.
unidentified		The FCC has focused on the FM micropower broadcasters in the past three years.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and I don't understand that because it's probably the most innocuous of them all.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, FM is local, it's line of sight mostly, it's low power, it's probably not nearly as bothersome as something ingressing into the AM band or even television.
unidentified		All right, you've got to think like a Fed.
		And the FM broadcasters are tied down to one location.
		There was a phenomenon I wrote about here about two years ago for one of the hobby magazines where the pirates have come up with this little 10-watt AM transmitter that they use on 6955 kilohertz.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's really an important frequency.
		That is the current popular pirate frequency, right?
		Yes.
		6955.
unidentified		In AM or even in sideband.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Which is it mostly, or is it both?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's both.
unidentified		They've come up with this tiny transmitter that will fit in the palm of your hand.
		It's 10 watts.
		And you think, 10 watts, that won't go anywhere.
		These guys are being heard in Germany, in South Africa.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And listen, the Sunspot cycle is beginning to improve.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And as it does, 10 watts eventually could be heard worldwide on a fairly regular basis.
unidentified		Well, when I did the article for Popular Communications on this, I went back to school pretty much and started looking into propagation and things.
		And 10 watts will bounce 300 miles on the first bounce.
		And you're right, if there's a sunspot or activity is up, it will bounce for 1,000 miles.
		That's right.
		It's quite remarkable.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, that's absolutely true.
		And even on the higher frequencies, as the sunspot cycle continues to improve, you could very easily cover the world with 10 watts up around 18, 19, 20 megahertz, 25 megahertz.
		I'm telling you, 24 hours a day, it'll be open in the next two or three years.
		So piracy is going to go absolutely nuts.
		Listen, I've got someone on the line I want to bring in to the conversation.
		He is Roger Skinner.
		And Roger has rulemaking before the Federal Communications Commission.
		Let's see if we can get him in here.
		Roger, are you there?
unidentified		Yes, good morning, Art.
unidentified		How are you?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where are you, Roger?
unidentified		I'm in the Fort Lauderdale, Florida area.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you have actually proposed rulemaking to the FCC?
unidentified		That's right.
		Like the other fellows talking tonight, I'm a former pirate.
		I have to admit, I think the statute of limitations has run out like you said.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		John, I hope so.
unidentified		I got to tell you a real quick funny story.
		When I was about 16 years old, a friend and I built a little pirate station.
		We were AM and FM, and we ended up on 24 hours a day automated with an old Roberts reel-to-reel machine with big 10.5 inch reels.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah.
unidentified		So we started giving out the phone number, and my mother couldn't understand why the phone kept ringing and ringing and ringing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Were you doing music?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Just music?
unidentified		We were top 40 DJ types, and it's what started my career in broadcasting.
		I've been in the broadcast business 35 years now.
		But I got a call from the local police station who said, you know, this is the police department.
		And I thought, oh, my God, we're going to be busted.
		And all they wanted was for us to play Jailhouse Rock by Elvis Parkley.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my.
unidentified		Like you, we kept on.
		Each summer, we did it for about three summers.
		Each summer, we got bigger and better and got out a little further.
		And by the third summer, a friend called from a local radio station.
		He says, Roger, he says, you'd better shut down.
		I said, why is that?
		He said, they want to know where these call letters came from that just showed up in the rating book.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, God, you did it too.
		Yeah.
		See, that's the danger.
		If ratings are taken away from stations, there's going to be a fight.
		If income is taken away, there's going to be a war.
		So you have rulemaking.
		What is your rulemaking proposal, Roger?
unidentified		Well, I've been studying this issue for years.
		I've been working on the rulemaking petition for about two years and finally got it on file and got very quick action.
		Within two weeks, the FCC assigned it a rulemaking number.
		Basically, my petition will answer, I hope, several questions.
		I bring the technical issues to bear.
		I have an engineering consulting firm.
		I understand the technical issues involved so that it won't cause interference.
		I've worked in radio for many years.
		I understand the business end of it.
		I've sold advertising.
		I've been on the air, you know, sort of like you had done it all.
		And what I hope to do is solve several problems.
		One is I want to see the mom and pops, the small station owners, be brought back into the broadcast business.
		Local ownership, I'm talking about.
		And you talked earlier about the consolidation.
		Be it good or bad, I'm not saying that we change that.
		I'm not saying that they should have to sell their stations.
		Let them keep what they have.
		They've consolidated it to the nth degree.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Look, I understand your complaint, but let's assume that you got your way and that small stations could be licensed and could even commercially broadcast.
		Okay?
		Okay, I think.
		Let's assume we get there.
unidentified		I think it's essential that we have commercials.
		In other words, if someone wants to operate with volunteers who may or may not show up at a certain time and operate that type of station, that's fine.
		They can operate non-commercial.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, I understand.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Look, so you want commercials.
unidentified		We want commercials.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We have to pay the overhead.
unidentified		I plan on applying for a station, and if I get it, I plan on being able to support my family with this station as my full-time job.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's a wonderful concept.
		But here comes the tough, hard-to-answer question.
		Let's say that the FCC allows such a thing, and low-power commercial stations begin to pop up all over the place.
		Then let's say I'm a guy with money, and I come to you and a lot of other people, and I start buying your stations.
		Now, would there be some rule in this that would not allow you to sell the station so that the very consolidation that you're so concerned about now would not occur at your level?
unidentified		Exactly.
		If you read my petition, it's about 25 pages.
		In there, you'll see ownership restrictions that I have proposed.
		As a starting point, I propose that anyone applying for a low-power FM station must live within 50 miles of the station's proposed antenna site.
		I put 50 miles because I realize some people commute.
		They live outside of town.
		They would also not be allowed to sell to anyone who also did not meet those local restrictions.
		So it would guarantee local ownership of the station, and I think would serve the public interest.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I guess my show is crazy enough that I do some pretty crazy stuff.
		A lot of pirates run me.
		I can hear from these stations.
		I never heard of these stations.
		And eventually I hear from the operator and they say, oh, yeah, I'm running Art Bell.
		Would these stations be allowed to run syndicated programming?
unidentified		Well, I propose three classes of stations.
unidentified		If we have the time, I'll break them down real quick.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, go.
unidentified		Yeah, the first and the lowest class would be what I call an LPFM-3.
		This would be 1 to 20 watts for special events that Pat was kind enough to mention before.
		If you've got a boating regatta, you've got a tennis match in town, you want to operate for a few days, a little station.
		It would require that you have an engineering study just to show that you're not causing interference on the channel that you pick.
		It would be a 10-day temporary permit.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The NAB does that at their conventions in Las Vegas.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, how do you suppose they get authorized for that?
unidentified		They're the NAB.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, man, I'm going to have to put a moat around my house.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They're going to be out here next month.
unidentified		I've spoken to the Commission about that, and there is a real concern that there will be thousands upon thousands of requests for these spatial event stations.
		And more than likely, if this comes to pass, we'll have to set up some type of private organization to help coordinate these to take, otherwise the FCC would be buried in those types of applications.
		That's right.
		So some type of industry organization, a volunteer organization that would help coordinate these to prevent interference.
		And I think that could be done.
		The other class of station I call an LPFM-2.
		And this is my answer to the micro-broadcaster that we've been talking about all evening.
		These people, a lot, want to operate non-commercials.
		Some want to have commercials.
		That's fine.
		We're proposing to give them from 1 up to 50 watts.
		And we're proposing to give them an antenna height up to 150 feet above average terrain.
		Now, that would give them a coverage area of 3.6 miles to the 1 millivolt contour.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's the 60 dB U. Got to be out in even flat country.
unidentified		This is taken right from the FCC rule charts, the graphs that are part of the FCC rules.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, that would be a class 2 station.
unidentified		That would be a class 2.
unidentified		Now, that would be a secondary service as I proposed it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, hold it right there, and we'll pick up at that point.
		We've got a break.
		I'm Mark Bell.
		We're talking about Pirate Radio.
		This is Coast to Coast AM.
		And we're going to bring on the pirates as the morning progresses.
		I've got them lined up here on the phone waiting to talk.
		We'll be right back.
unidentified		You've got Betty's David besides.
		You've got a new big party.
		You won't have to think twice.
		You're the New York no.
		She got better days inside.
		Thank you.
		Thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Back now.
		First to Pat Murphy.
		Pat, I want to find out how long you can hang with us.
		I know you do a morning show.
		I can hang on until about 4 o'clock, if that's all right.
		4 o'clock.
		That's coming up in 22 minutes then.
		Back east, right?
		Yes.
		All right.
		Let's very quickly then go back to Roger, and we were with your second level of proposed operation.
unidentified		Yeah, the LP-FM-2, as I call it, 1 watt to 50 watts with 150 feet maximum height above average terrain antenna.
		This would give you a 1 millivolt contour out to 3.6 miles, and that's taken from the FCC rules, the graphs, charts, as they call them.
		Of course, the signal will go a little bit further than that, and I think a mistake a lot of pirates make is saying, well, you know, if I've got 50 watts, it'll go more than 3.6 miles.
		And it certainly will.
		But it lots of times won't be a good, strong, listenable signal.
		And we know from experience that a lot of people, if they start hearing a lot of static, fading, picket fencing, as it's called on FM, they're going to flip to another channel.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		On the other hand, if you make your programming bizarre enough, they'll listen through the static.
unidentified		To some degree, yeah.
		Yeah.
		But there's an old sage that somebody told me once when I first get in broadcasting, the three essential items, programming, engineering, and sales.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yep.
unidentified		And it's like a three-legged stool.
unidentified		If any one of those falls down, you've got a problem.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's true.
		All right.
		And your third class of license?
unidentified		The third class, and the one that the broadcasters are saying, wait a minute, like yourself, is the LP-FM-1.
		This would be a primary service.
		By that, I mean it can't be bumped.
		It would have to be protected by other full-power broadcasters.
		This would be 50 watts up to 3 kilowatts, 3,000 watts.
		And that's the old Class A FM power level.
		The antenna height would be the same as the old Class A, 328 feet, which is 100 meters.
		That would give you a maximum range of your 1 millivolt contour out to 15 miles.
		Now, I'd like to point out that this power level was the old Class A for standard FM broadcast stations.
		It was the lowest broadcast station there was on FM.
		It wasn't 50,000 watts or 100,000.
		But these folks, a lot of them found that 3 kilowatts just wasn't cutting it.
		So they've gotten it raised to 6,000 watts now.
		And so we may not get 3,000 watts.
		I'm the first to realize that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, you're not.
unidentified		We may.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean, you always ask for more than you're going to get in a bargaining situation.
		But of the three proposals you've got, I can't take a lot more time, Roger.
		Which one do you think has the best chance of passing?
unidentified		Well, they're not separate proposals.
		They're all in one proposal.
		Uh-oh.
		They're basically saying there are three areas here that need to be addressed.
		And the primary service that I'm talking about is very important to bring the mom-and-pop broadcasters back into the business.
		These are people that may have been forced out because it's just gotten too expensive.
		People like myself who've wanted to own their own radio station since they've been 16.
		I've got 35 years in the business.
		I don't want to have to move to Podunk, Idaho, where I might be able to afford a station.
		I live in South Florida.
		The FM stations here, if you could find one that you could buy that hasn't been bought up already, the going price is $50 million, which is a little more than I carry on me.
		It's just out of question.
		Even AM stations, somebody said, well, why don't you buy an AM station, Roger?
		Well, even the lowest stations in the market with signal problems and so forth are going for $1.5 million to $3 million.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, Roger, I might consider continuing with you because Pat has got to go and do his own morning show on the commercial station unit.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So I'm going to put you back on hold if you want to stick around.
unidentified		Sure.
unidentified		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Pat, yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What are your comments on Roger's rulemaking?
unidentified		I've got to tell you that the first thought that crosses my mind, and I'm sure you're familiar with the history of broadcasting, is back in the 20s, we started off with 5, 10, 20 watt radio stations.
		And by the Second World War, we'd gotten up to 500 kilowatt WLW there in Cincinnati, and it progressively gotten bigger and bigger until the bigness has now excluded the local broadcasters.
		We're now going full cycle back to the 10, 15, 20 watt stations to reach the local people.
		I don't think that the three kilowatt, although, you know, the Class A, he does have a good point.
		If it's considered a Class A commercial, it may go through.
		It seems that from the top down at the FCC, because the new chairman, Bill Kennard, is, in fact, interested in establishing a low-power radio service so that small business churches and community groups can use the airways to broadcast to their communities.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, if it's from the top down, there's a good chance for it.
		Not for three kilowatts, there isn't.
		I'd lay a substantial amount of money.
		I would say that would be the sticking point.
		So it's sort of a shame that he hasn't broken that up into separate rulemaking possibilities.
		Anyway, I'll ask him about that.
		I've got several questions for you that are very relevant.
		Number one, please ask your guest, Art, how much radiated power can you generate now without a license?
		100 milliwatts.
		And the antenna?
unidentified		Antenna has to be, you can't generate, I'm trying to do this from memory, I don't think you can generate even like a half a millivolt with the antenna.
		It's not antenna height.
		It's how much electricity actually comes out of the antenna itself.
		I would say I'm thinking of this Ramsey kit that's 100 milliwatts.
		The antenna would be much like you'd have on a scanner.
		It would screw into the top and would stick out of the top and would be maybe all of two feet tall.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So it's not going to go much more than the ratehouse of your house.
unidentified		That's right.
unidentified		It would be in your house, maybe within 100 feet of the house.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Here's somebody who says, all of this is ridiculous because we've got the internet and anybody now can put on, in effect, their own radio station on the internet.
		How do you address that?
unidentified		I think that's kind of short-sighted.
		For one thing, you can't access the internet when you're in your car.
		You can't, and you know, there's a lot of people that don't have access to the internet.
		We're talking about, I guess, what, maybe 10% of the population that actually has.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right, and of that number, very few would likely be listening to clandestine, what would be clandestine, it's perfectly all right, radio station on the Internet.
unidentified		Which brings me to my question for you, Art.
		What does that shirt say?
		Willard's, is it?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'll tell you what I'll do.
		I'll take a good clear shot of it, and I'll let you and everybody see.
		You're watching me, obviously, on the studio.
unidentified		I'm watching you on the Internet, exactly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, here we go.
		Is there any law against a clandestine radio operator broadcasting off a ship just outside the territorial limits?
		They have, of course, been doing that kind of thing in Europe for some time.
		That's from David in Toronto.
		So could you get a ship and go in the international waters?
unidentified		Excellent question.
		Theoretically, yes.
		A fellow by the name of Alan Wiener, who had been a commercial broadcaster.
		In fact, you find a lot of people who are in commercial broadcasting, like Roger and myself.
		This fellow, Alan Weiner, owned a station up in Maine, took a ship and went off of the coast of the United States, went out.
		In fact, he went out about 15 miles, and the Coast Guard and the FCC came in, busted him, took his equipment away, and shut him down.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, how do they do that in international wars?
unidentified		Well, like I said before, when they use the SWAT team in Florida, they have big guns, and they're the government.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But this sounds a little like something that could go to the U.S. Supreme Court to me, and it's a First Amendment kind of thing, isn't it?
unidentified		It can go to the Supreme Court if you have the money and the resources for the attorneys.
unidentified		Attorneys don't do this stuff for free.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, then let's talk about Stephen Dunifer.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You know Stephen?
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So do I. He's in the Bay Area.
		Stephen is one of the original pirates in the world.
		He is still, at this time, broadcasting and has been in a grip lock battle with the FCC now for years and actually has won a couple of rounds.
		And they are not shutting Stephen down.
unidentified		How come?
		Well, because Stephen has taken an interesting tack.
		He is, by the way, getting some pro bono work from a freedom of speech group out there.
		And I read Judge Wilkins, he did find a sympathetic judge in San Francisco to rule on the case.
		Judge Wilkins said that Dennifer is challenging the FCC not based on free speech, but that the regulations that require him to operate at such a high power limit and pay so much money to do this is unconstitutional.
		Not that it violates his freedom of speech, but that the regulations themselves are unconstitutional.
		And Judge Wilkins has upheld this and kept the FCC in an absolute tizzy.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, they're really upset about this.
		Now, it's liable to go to a higher court, but the FCC so far hasn't busted Stephen because Stephen figures they're afraid to go to a higher court because they're afraid of what the ruling might be.
		Do you think there would be substance in that?
		Is that why they're leaving him alone?
unidentified		Oh, absolutely.
		Because if you look again at the Communications Act of 1934, it talks about interstate.
		And Dennifer clearly is not going outside of the limits of California, certainly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, I think it's called, what is it, Radio Free Berkeley or Free Radio Berkeley?
unidentified		Free Radio Berkeley.
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And so he broadcasts in Berkeley.
unidentified		Yes.
unidentified		And so he's not going outside of the state boundaries.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How long has he been on the air?
unidentified		Oh, my golly, at least three or four years now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Three or four years.
unidentified		And he's doing that at 100 watts.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		At 100 watts.
unidentified		Yep.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What do you think will come of this stalemate?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, are they going to wait for Stephen to die?
unidentified		I think they're going to have to, since he has found a sympathetic ear with that federal judge in San Francisco, who has upheld all of the petitions that his attorneys have filed saying that the FCC rules are unconstitutional.
		Either the FCC will have to modify their rules so that the judge will finally say, yes, you have to shut down, or they're going to have to pass the low power FM petitions, one of them.
		As I said before, I think Skinner's proposal is probably the best.
		I do think that the 3 kilowatt is going to be the sticking point.
		But there are at least four different proposals right now for low power.
		I think the Commission is going to have to pass something in order to deal with this and say, okay, we've addressed this problem of low power.
		Now, Mr. Dennifer, either comply or we're going to shut you down.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		I have, over the years, I have sold a gazillion shortwave radios.
		The Sanjin line of shortwave radios.
		You know, people have portables out there.
		And they can listen to shortwave.
		Now, you mentioned a frequency earlier, and I want to mention it again.
		6.955.
unidentified		6.955 kilohertz.
		And I would say within 10 kilohertz up and down.
		That's the center frequency you'll hear the most pirates.
		You'll hear them on 69.50.
		You'll hear them on 69.60.
		But usually 69.55 any weekend.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What kind of stuff?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, mostly on the weekend.
unidentified		Mostly on the weekend.
unidentified		Although we had a period here back around Christmas time where we went 80 days where every single day there was some kind of a broadcast on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, so people, even with their smaller radios, have a pretty good chance of hearing this, huh?
unidentified		They sure do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They sure do.
		What are they likely to hear?
		What's being broadcast up there?
unidentified		Well, we've got Friday Radio, which is a station that comes on only on Fridays and talks about Fridays.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You mean that's the subject?
unidentified		That's it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's the subject of it.
unidentified		There's a station called Happy Hanukkah, which talks only about Hanukkah.
unidentified		Usually only hear that in December.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, no good.
unidentified		There's station KOLD, which is an oldies kind of a station, a big band type thing.
		There's KNBS, Cannabis Radio, which is put on by the California marijuana cooperative of growers that talks about the wonders of marijuana.
		There's Radio Free Speech, which talks strictly about government and the limitation of the right of free speech.
		And in fact, it was that station that took something that Rush had to look up.
		I guess this guy has to have no life because he took what had to be hours and hours of Rush programs and slice them up to say what to have Rush says.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So instead of Rush saying what he normally says, Rush was doing the opposite?
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That must have been a howl.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you have any tapes of that?
unidentified		Yeah, I'd be happy to send it to you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
unidentified		Sure.
unidentified		I think to make you a chuckle beyond belief.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I really would.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I've got to sit here and think, could I play those for my audience and get away with it?
unidentified		Some of it you could.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A lot of it, in other words, Rush was saying things that even Howard couldn't say.
		Yes.
		I see.
unidentified		Oh, there's even a Howard Stern experience station.
		There's a station called Voice of the Asylum, which is just complete lunacy.
		There's a station that keeps coming back every year.
		And no one, and I've been doing this for almost 20 years now, listening to Pirates, called The Crooked Man.
		And it's just a stream of consciousness that just makes you go, what is this guy smoking?
		But it's just funniest stuff I've ever heard.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
unidentified		Absolutely great.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And so, in other words, you could go to this frequency, 6955, and you might hear absolutely nothing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You would have to sit there kind of in monitor frequently on the weekends and holidays, especially when people are off, that kind of thing.
unidentified		And by the way, I've heard I have a portable.
		I have a Sanjian.
		I also have a Yacht Boy 400.
		I listen on my Kinwood R5000, which is my baby.
		And I'll tell you, it is some of the most entertaining stuff that you will ever hear on the radio.
		And it reminds me of back in the 60s when there was a lot of creativity on AM radio that seems to have gone away.
		And I guess these guys all decided they'd become pirates and start doing these things on shortwave.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We know about the big bust in Florida.
		What happens Otherwise.
		I mean, are there how many pirates would you estimate, AM and FM, across the country might there be?
unidentified		Oh, goodness.
		Well, we know that there's at least 200 active shortwave pirates.
		I would have to quadruple that for FM because there's no way of knowing how many.
		Just looking at the number of busts that there have been in the past couple of years for the FMs, and these are the guys that operate what they call 24-7, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
		It's got to be 800 to 1,000.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Has to be.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How many get busted?
unidentified		Well, I would say probably about 10% of those get busted because they have a high profile.
		A good example would be when, and both of you have pointed out, both Roger and you, where the newspaper came to you and said, hey, we'd like to do a story about you.
		And that, of course, is the kiss of death because we FCC people do read the paper.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you know, they said, but your number was on the screen.
		I said, that wasn't my number.
		I went into complete, absolute, total denial.
		And they finally, in frustration, said, okay, thank you.
		And there were a lot of cars driving around my house for a while.
unidentified		I'll tell you, another place you've been listening for pirates in here a lot right now is in what is called the expanded band, which is the new part of the AM band that's opening up between 1,600 and 1,700 kilohertz.
		Still a lot of pirates up in that area that are on.
		1680 has a pirate on called Dog Radio.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Dog Radio.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And he's been very active.
unidentified		Another pirate.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wait a minute.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What is Dog Radio?
unidentified		Well, the guy just barks in between records.
		Does he really?
		I listened one night for about an hour, and he never really said anything.
		He just barked in between each one.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my God.
unidentified		Now, you'll see some of the consultants, I'm sure, listen to this and probably come up with a way to format it.
unidentified		That's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, look, our research shows only three barks between each record is better.
unidentified		That's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, God, it sure has been fun having you on the air.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm sorry you have to go do your own show.
unidentified		I have to make a living to pay this mortgage and for my teenage daughters.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I understand.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It is.
unidentified		It's an interesting area that I think the FCC has got to deal with and with this rulemaking.
unidentified		And, you know, Roger said that the FCC was very quick in accepting his rulemaking petition.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah, well.
unidentified		I think that shows that they want to get this taken care of.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They're accepting, I know, but that may mean they just want to deal with it and get it the hell out of the way, as in forget it.
unidentified		Well, they don't have the manpower.
		You know, they have really cut back.
		They don't have the manpower to deal with it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, look, we're way out of time here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So, Pat, give one more time, please, the address where people, how they get in touch with ACE, the Association of Pendestine Radio enthusiasts.
unidentified		Just send me two first-class stamps.
		I'll be happy to send you a copy of our 25-page newsletter.
		It's P.O. Box 12112, Norfolk, Virginia, 23541.
		That's P.O. Box 12112, Norfolk, Virginia, 23541.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I think you'll find it interesting.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, and so you keep track of who gets busted and who's doing what and what the FCC is doing.
unidentified		Yes.
unidentified		In fact, we have a column written by a fellow named Bud Stacey that's nothing but microcasting and low-power FM in each one of our issues.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are you going to stay out of trouble?
unidentified		Oh, yeah.
unidentified		I'm at the age now where I'm looking at retirement.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I didn't mean whether you were personally going to put on a pirate station, but I mean with the newsletter, with the organization, you are probably not the favorite child of the FCC.
unidentified		Well, no.
		In fact, we used to have a local FCC inspector here named J.J. Freeman, who is rather notorious for busting pirates.
		And I was actually friends with Jerry because he used to say, look, you're encouraging these guys.
		And as I said at the beginning of the program, I do political analysis, but that doesn't mean I encourage crooked politicians either.
		It just means that I'm watching, observing, and commenting on the phenomena.
		Very good.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's sort of a disclaimer.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Have a good show this morning, Pat.
unidentified		Great.
		Thanks.
		It's a pleasure to be with you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You take care, and we'll be right back.
unidentified		Moody River, your deadline, land of baby's life.
		Moody River, your muddy water, took my baby's life.
		Last Saturday evening, came to the old oak tree.
		It sat beside the river where you were to meet me.

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