This site has a lot of really cool pirate radio links, schematic diagrams of transmitters, sound clips of pirate stations, QSL's, historical archives of stories of some of the most legiondary stations like Radio Caroline, and other pirate stations. Check it out.

This site, the home of Berkeley Free Radio and Steve Dunnifer, who is fighting the FCC on Free speech issues, is now on the air 24 hours/day. Check into this site for the latest info on his bout with the FCC in promoting small neighborhood radio stations. He has quite a following, and sells FM transmitter kits.

Portal 63 Hacking page. Good Pirate Radio stuff, links, and other useful information.

Very early on, while in high school, I've always been interested in radio. I've always wanted a transmitter to tinker around with. It was while I was in Junior High School living at Ramstein AFB in Germany when I got interested in radio. We just got this big Blaupunkt radio that had short wave, and I amused myself for hours, listening to short wave stations all over Europe, Middle East, USSR, and the USA.

Then, I had obtained an emergency aircraft radio that transmitted on 121.5 MHz, but could not receive that frequency.

Eventually, in 1959, I returned back to the USA to go to High School. At that time, Travis AFB didn't have a high school, so enrolled in Vacaville High for my Freshman year.

I was learning electricity, and the fundamental theory of transformers, and experimented around with AC. Until one day, I go down the base thrift shop and see a Knight Wireless Broadcaster for $6. I begged my parents to buy it for me.

After I got home, I hooked up my first transmitter the Knight Wireless broadcaster, a very low power transmitter, designed to go 100 feet or less. After turning it on, I tuned it up, and sure enough I could pick it up on the home console very loud and clear.

Six transistor radios were only a year old at this time, and using my transistor radio, I walked around testing the range of the transmitter. It didn't go very far, but when I tried to make the antenna longer, I discovered that the signal traveled along the power lines.

My first project was to extend the range so it would be heard over at my friends place 3 blocks away. If I tied a very long wire to the transmitter, it would shift the frequency down. I also noticed that the signal was traveling through the power lines.

My friend had one of those old remote control TV sets where the remote control had a vibrating reed which sends a "ping" which is heard by the TV set. Very crude technology in 1960. I would try to transmit that "Ping" from a microphone, through the transmitter, then placing the radio next to the TV control.... No! It didn't work, but it was a nice try. Later on, I figured out why.

As I learned later, I needed an RF amplifier to make the radio signal stronger. I started to learn enough electronics to be able to build one. I also had to build a modulator as well. I was able to get about 10 watts of power using a single tube. Yea!! so what's a tube... Those are those little glass things that constantly needed testing down at the local supermarket. If you found a bad one, you had to pay up to $5 for a new one. Anyway, it was strong enough to send a signal almost 3 miles away with a 50 foot wire strung as high as possible.

I used a pie tin for the chassis of the transmitter. The soft aluminum was easy to cut and fabricate into the transmitter. Total cost... about $5 in parts. It had a toilet paper roll, which a lot of thin wire was carefully wrapped around it. It also had a radio tuner capacitor out of an old radio. Most parts scrounged out of old radios.

One of my pet projects was to put a radio station on the air, and set it up at the high school. I didn't get much cooperation from the teachers, so I was on my own for this project. Once on the air, we played rock music and everyone in school would talk about it.

I went on the air on Halloween and went totally crazy. Everyone would be out driving around, taking and listening to the radio. We told as many people as we could and asked to spread the word around. I didn't know about loop around numbers, so I just gave out my parents phone number. Kind of stupid, I know, but back then, few people cared, until it started to interfere.

A few weeks later, I was having problems with the transmitter. While I was tuning it up, someone in a suit came to the door. It was the dreaded FCC. My mom was home, and freaked out BIG TIME.. The agent was reasonably nice about the whole thing, and advised me to learn Morse code and get into ham radio. he agent examined the transmitter, and took out the tubes, and measured the power. He said that the transmitter was malfunctioning, and was sending out lots of harmonics, interfering with other stations, and that was why he was visiting me.

I learned that the FCC normally don't go looking for illegal broadcasts, but act on complaints. Later on, I learned how hard it was to put a clean transmitter on the air that didn't interfere with other stations.

It wasn't until 1969 until I got the idea to go totally mobile. I had been discharged from the USAF in 1968, was working for a defense company (Not socially acceptable for the times, but the pay was excellent). I got my first new car, a VW Van. It didn't take me long to retro-fit the van to accommodate my new radio station. I removed the seats, and replaced with a closable box (which serves to replace the seats when not in use).

I found and scrounged a few toy turntables that operated on 9 volt batteries, built a 12 volt to 9 volt regulator (which would vary the voltage to set the speed), and because I worked for a Semiconductor company, I had endless supply of partially defective power transistors, and built my first transistorized FM transmitter. It would put out 65 watts, and it was this transmitter that Dennie heard (My first phone freak contact). So, while I was mucking around with a totally mobile transmitter, I was also just learning about the blue box, loops, etc.

After I was satisfied that the transmitter was working properly, I drive up to Mt Uminum, where a USAF radar station was located. I find a ridge, somewhat shielded from that "Buzz" we heard every 12 seconds, and went on the air.

I left my friend John to DJ and run the station, as me and Frank would drive down the hill, listening to the station. I came in very strong but as we get to the bottom of the hill, we lost it, but I said "Lets get down to the valley, it should come in better". Sure enough, as we pull out of Los Gatos, the signal started to get very strong indeed. We drive up Hiway 17 (now called 880), and as we pull into Oakland, we can still receive it. By this time, we were 60 miles away. WOW!! The range was incredible. No doubt due to the fact that the transmitter was 3800 feet above the valley.

Then, I hear John's voice say "Don't come up to spot 6" and abruptly went off the air. We had previously arranged that if something should happen, we were to meet at McDonalds on Meridian Ave.

Sure enough, as we get there, John was waiting for me and told us what happened.

John was on the air, smoking pot, when a cop stuck his head in the car and almost gagged from all that pot smoke. The cop was actually looking for someone else, and said to John "You wouldn't happen to be smoking pot in there, are you?", John said "I can't deny that", ad the cop asked him what he was doing. John said "We're with a radio station, doing a broadcast", the cop said "Ok, but don't stay up here long, people up here don't like visitors". After that, john made the announcement and went off the air.

All this pirate radio stuff took place around 1969. During the turbulent 60's. This was the time when the Kent state students got shot, and Nixon banned 40 rock songs because these songs had references to "drugs". Naturally, the radio stations at first protested this action, but we decided to go on the air to protest this insane censorship, so as soon as the list was published, we went out and got every record on the list, and played just those songs.

As we were on the air, we used 91.7 MHz, just below KSJO (92.3). The KSJO program director tuned into what he thought was KSJO and happened to tune into our station, we called San Jose Free Wireless.

We did a lot of scouting for suitable broadcast sites, and had them numbered. For instance, spot 6 was on a ridge in East San Jose. Spot 5 was in West San Jose. Each broadcast was from a different spot, but from each spot, we could cover the entire Santa Clara valley.

We weren't the strongest station on the dial, but it was strong enough to hear with good clarity.

I can remember a friend with us who accidentally mentioned the dame of the road we were on, so we quickly went off the air, drove across the Santa Clara valley, went on the air again in half an hour as if nothing had happened. Those listening hardly noticed the signal difference.

Another instance, we went way up on Lick Observatory, did a broadcast from the parking lot, and our signal reached into the Sacramento valley as well as San Jose. We had some friends parked near the ranger station halfway up, who warned us when the FCC station wagon was spotted. My friend John was on the air, and said "good! we got just enough time to finish the Pink Floyd set before we have to pull the plug. All this time, we see this car, winding up the road, and as it turned the last bend, we went off the air, pulled in the antenna, closed the sunroof, and drove down the hill, waving at the FCC van as it was coming up the hill.

Another time, we drove way up to Lick (Which was designated spot 3), only to learn that we forgot the transmitter, but we sat up there and played records to ourselves and had our own party..