Pirate Radio Survival Guide

Producing A Show

In order to write this chapter, I must make a few assumptions. First I will assume that you will want to be popular with your listeners, and second I will assume that you will want to develop some sort of a following of regular listeners. If you do not fit this category, don't feel that you are wrong; many pirates broadcast without concern for who listens or what they think and desire no kind of recognition what so ever. If this is what you want, that's great, that's what it is all about: individual choices.

Once you have set up your studio and decided it is time to produce a show, you will likely have a certain subject matter or format in mind. If you don't, then take some time and review why you wanted to be a pirate in the first place, was it to make a certain point or political view, do you want to entertain or inform, do you just want to play your favorite music, or do you want to do all of the above? In most cases you will be sucessful at anything that you enjoy doing. Concentrate on what you would like to hear from a station; chances are that if you like the show others will also. The important thing is to jump right in and have fun. Dont spend too much time trying to sound like a professional DJ, and you don't necesarily have to make a point, the content of your show will stand alone. Pirate radio listeners are not like the average FM broadcast station listener. Pirate radio listeners aren't hypnotized by a slick sound, they listen to content, they appreciate what you are doing, in fact most pirate listeners report that their favorite stations are the ones who use homemade productions as opposed to commercially made material. They also report that they like the stations who do more than just play music, after all you can hear music anywhere. Whatever you decide to do, quality production skills, and quality technical skills will certainly put your station on the top of any DXers list.

Quality production skills are not difficult to learn. Quality does not mean elaborate or complicated, it simply means clean, understandable audio, proper use of equipment, and attention to detail. If you throw a show together with little concern for quality, it will certainly be noticed by your listeners; don't insult them by broadcasting a bunch of junk just to fill up time. There can be a whole lot more to being a radio pirate than just being on the air.

Here are a few tips that will help you produce a better program:

• Go easy with the special effects, Reverb sounds great, but after it is bombarded by noise and weakened by distance, it often can't be understood and is quite annoying. If you speak in a normal voice, with no echo or overpowering background effects, you will be more likely to get your message to your listeners. Always be aware that long distant shortwave listening is often difficult, so your programming should contain material that is easily understood, a good production can be overdone with too many effects and background noise. Sometimes things are better if kept simple.
• ID your station often, speak clearly and repeat your ID. It also helps to have different people give your station ID; some voices are easier to understand through the noise than others. Some stations give their ID phoneticly, others have used Morse code.
• It is a good idea to have a few identifiable traits about your show, this will help regular listeners recognize your station. In the past stations have used traits such as Seal barks, Dogs barking, a few bars of music or chimes , musical IDs. Some always play the same song at the beginning or end of their broadcast.
• When editing a tape, make the edits clean and tight. Avoid long pauses. If you are recording to a cassette tape, and you have a good recorder, you can use the pause control to make fair edits but be sure to go back and check the edits often, most decks are designed with the erase head placed up to an inch away from the playback head, this can cause you to either clip what you have just recorded, or create a longer than desireable pause. Know how your recorder works, make a few test edits to learn the characteristics of it, with practice, you can make very clean and tight edits with a cassette deck.
• Use a mixer to soften changes from one audio source to another. A cheap mixer can add a lot of professionalism to a show. It also will make your production time much easier and more enjoyable.
• If your recorder has an audio level meter try to make sure all of your audio is at the same level, and make sure the overall level is correct; if it is too high you may get distortion on the audio peaks, if it is too low you will have increased noise on the tape. Nothing is more annoying than hearing a pirate station with music coming in at a good level but the announcers voice is so low you can hardly hear him. Or worse yet, the station is coming in very well, but it is so distorted that you can't understand a thing that is being said. If you don't have an audio level meter, you will have to trust your ears. With practice it can be done.
• Because you can't announce a schedule, most of your listeners are forced to try to find you while you are on the air; this usually means that very few people ever hear the first few minutes of your show. When you put your show together, it is better to put the most important parts at the end of the show. Many pirates play a few minutes of music at the beginning of each show to allow the listeners time to find them, others play an interval signal much like what is heard before licensed short wave broadcasters go on the air. This lets the listener know that someone is getting ready to broadcast. The interval signal has a few drawbacks, first it requires you to be transmitting longer, thus giving the authorities more time to find you, and second your interval signal may not be heard by someone who is just scanning the bands.
• In most cases it is wise to avoid live broadcasting . To broadcast live and sound good is a VERY difficult thing to do. This is not to say it cant be done, many stations have the talent and experience to do it well. However, others do it and it is disasterous. Live broadcasts can result in lots of dead air; if you encounter a problem you will have to be prepared to solve it while maintaining a live show in the air. If you tape your shows you will have time to review what you have done and redo it if needed, you can take as long as you like to think of what to say next, and you will almost always sound better. And on the technical side, it is much easier to connect a single tape deck to the transmitter and eliminate the RF noise and feed back, than to connect a whole studio to the transmitter. If your show is on tape you will have the freedom to perform other important tasks while on the air, like maintaining a look out.
• Ground your studio equipment and use shielded cables to prevent audio "hiss" and equipment "hum". Use quality recording tape (you get what you pay for).
• Use quality audio input, avoid scratchy records and bad tapes, If you use a poor quality microphone your audio could sound "muddy" or "tinny" good mikes arent always expensive.