Wollongong pirate radio operator off air and fined $1500
15 July 2016 · News
In a Wollongong local court last week, Magistrate M Stoddart fined Dan Morris $1500 and ordered that his FM broadcast equipment be confiscated, after Morris pleaded guilty to operating a radiocommuni...
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Tags: ACMA | Dan Morris | Pirate Radio | Wollongong
Pirate radio isn't new, but easy availability of high-grade transmitters is a recent thing. You don't need much money or knowledge to set one up, and you can get huge power from a few RU. Really tiny. The screaming giveaway is the Wollongong pirate's choice of frequency: why pick an off-raster channel, bizarrely close to a nearby licensed station? Did they want to deliberately thumb-it to the ACMA and draw attention by using a frequency that would never be allocated by a licence process? Or is this a lack of technical skill thing?
An evenly divisible frequency channel might seem to be nice and pretty to the public, but the universal selection of odd-channel offsets and 400kHz channel separation is done for a reason. Experienced techs know that.
If you have to do something without a licence (like transmitting, or driving, or practising dentistry), at least pretend to know what you're doing, or expect to be caught really quickly.