It was, by definition, a premeditated crime. We knew it was illegal to build and operate a radio station without submitting to government control. All we wanted to do was make good radio on a budget, but there was no way we could do it without breaking the law.
Our gang of otherwise upstanding citizens (credits to our community, blah blah blah...) banded together with a single ultimate goal: To bring the public airwaves back to the people. In the process, we also hoped to play an eclectic musical blend and present political views that aren't heard in the mass media. Our programming was peppered with technical tests and rambling dissertations by guest announcers, but on the whole we were entertaining and informative and unique. The real crime is that we fell between the cracks of the crumbling and out-dated regulations of an unconstitutional bureaucracy.
The simple reason that we couldn't play by the rules is that we lacked the money it takes to run a radio station by government standards. It really doesn't require racks of equipment and a giant antenna to make radio. We did it for a few hundred dollars. We made radio the only way we could, because our ideas didn't fit into any conventional format: we weren't amateur (or HAM) operators, we certainly weren't commercial, and there was no place on the dial where people were allowed to experiment in the spirit of the radio pioneers. Free Form Radio, except at a few college stations, doesn't officially exist. .
Left with no alternatives, we build our transmitter, wired up the stereo and the microphones, and joined what we prefer to call The Free Radio Community. Some call us Pirates.
There are many of us and we mean you no harm. Most of us are conscientious broadcasters who try not to blot out existing stations. By unspoken rule we stick to a few empty frequencies, primarily on the shortwave band. We use shortwave radio because you can send a signal a long way with very little power. We used fewer than 100 watts and covered most of the continent.
Our station may not have been legal in the eyes of the FCC, but it was not the work of pranksters. Our goal was to provide a service to listeners who weren't lucky enough to live near a college with a decent radio station. Many rural listeners crave something other than talk, country, and rubber- stamp rock stations. If you live too far from a major market, you may have virtually no access to classical, world music, jazz, alternative news sources, or any kind of radio drama that isn't a sermon in disguise. We hoped to use the shortwave band to fill that gap.
We called our station The Chicago Tunnel Company ("Broadcasting from 40 feet below the corner of State and Madison.) In reality, most programs were produced while sitting on the living room carpet in a north side of Chicago two-flat. Our fearless leader used the historical pseudonym Reginald A. Fessenden, in homage to the controversial radio pioneer. His homebrew transmitter sprawled the length of a coffee table, an elegant and tangled mess of glowing tubes, hand-wound coils and vintage knobs, and alligator clips. Even the government agents who arrived at 3:30 A.M. to shut us down couldn't figure out how the damned thing worked.
Our Free Radio experiment ended in a burst of irony at the hands of two FCC officials and two uniformed Chicago cops. It was one of the hottest and most violent nights of the summer, but apparently there was nothing more important for the cops to do. Our leader paid a $1,000 fine for at least 500 hours of airtime. It was a small price to pay for the cause. But the mainstream radio magazines could trumpet that another illegal broadcaster had been silenced.
There are ways the FCC could allow stations like The Chicago Tunnel Company the freedom we want without causing total chaos. We do not advocate total anarchy on the airwaves. If there were no rules, the guy with the most powerful transmitter would wipe out every other station and all we would have to listen to would be Radio Rambo. Certain frequencies could be assigned for amateur broadcast service, with restrictions on operating conditions designed to prevent sloppy signals that interfere with other stations. This is no more than an extension of the current regulations regarding amateur radio, the only major change being a specification to allow the broadcast of music and other entertainment programming.
The fine is $10,000 and possible prison time for a second offense, so The Chicago Tunnel Company is gone forever. But no regulation can silence the public voice. There are hundreds of other pirates stations that make it worth owning a shortwave radio. Tune in 7415 or 7550 Kilohertz on weekends and holidays, and you may hear Radio USA, Whiskey Radio, or the allegedly Chicago- based Voice of Anarchy. Consult The Pirate Radio Directory by George Zeller for the honor role of well-known pirates.
To the people behind our station, the freedom to broadcast what we believed was worth the
unfortunate consequences we suffered. Our only regret is that the FCC waited until we shut
down for the night before they appeared. They denied us the pleasure of a final sign off:
I guess we'll be going off the air now, folks. The FCC is at the door.
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